IRL wants to stop revolving door of top talent

Tony Stewart and Sam Hornish Jr. made the leap from Indy Racing League champion to NASCAR's Nextel Cup. It's something the IRL does not necessarily like to see, IRL commercial division president Terry Angstadt said Thursday, in one of the league's first meetings in conjunction with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The league has no control of where drivers go. Stewart has won two IRL crowns (1996 and '97) and NASCAR titles in '02 and '05. Hornish won the 2006 IRL crown and has struggled in his first full season of Nextel Cup this year. Dario Franchitti won the '07 IRL title, went to NASCAR, and has said he will be back with the IRL next season.

"I think most drivers will tell you they really like driving IndyCar," Angstadt said. "If you're going to make $8 million versus $2 (million), OK that's hard to challenge. If we consistently have guys making great income doing what they like to do, we'll keep more of them.

"You've got guys who have been racing three, four, five, six, seven years in some cases. Fans follow and recognize them and they're now names. We haven't had that in a long time."

It's imperative, Grand Prix CEO Jim Michaelian said, for the top names to participate.

"In the past, if you were buying a ticket to Long Beach, you weren't sure how many cars, how many drivers, who was going to be there, all that stuff," he said. "The value of continuity cannot be underestimated." SGV Tribune