Allmendinger: Ovals scare the living hell out of me

In this interview with AutoRacing1.com President Mark Cipolloni, Champ Car's hottest driver right now, AJ Allmendinger, says the Indy 500 can wait and expresses his dislike for racing open wheel cars on high-speed ovals..

With the split, not able to run Indy, does he have any regrets?

"No, because I really — for me, Indy is not that big of a deal," said Allmendinger. "My opinion might change if I was sitting on the grid there and all the prerace activities are going on and I'm, you know, starting the Indy 500. My opinion might change."

Does he care if the merger never happens then?

"No, the merger needs to happen. There's no doubt the merger needs to happen," he added. "And if Indy is a part of the schedule when the merger happens, which it would be, then great, I'm all for it. But just to go as a one-off race, not having a merger, I'm not really into it."

He made no secret about his dislike for the dangers of open wheel racing on high speed oval tracks.

"I do not like an oval in an open-wheel race car. It honestly scares the living hell out of me, whether it's Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Indy. When they [IRL] run places like Texas, there's no want for me to go do that."