NASCAR pretty much wants IndyCar dead

Brian France, above. All indications are that the France family, like CART and Champ Car before it, would just as soon see IndyCar dead

Conspiracy theory? Cal it what you want, but we told our readers years ago that NASCAR would love to see open wheel racing dead – so all their sponsors and fans could move to NASCAR to feed all the sponsor hungry teams in Truck, Nationwide and Cup. With three series, plus a 4th in GRAND-AM the France family has plenty of series they can offer to track owners. The following article sheds light on just how the France family feels about IndyCar.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France isn’t showing much love for the IZOD IndyCar Series these days.

France answered questions from reporters at Daytona over the weekend. One question concerned the possibility of a doubleheader weekend featuring a Sprint Cup race and an Indy race.

France wasn’t too interested.

"We won't be doing doubleheaders with the Sprint Cup levels," he said. "They've had some of our lower divisions which do about the same in terms of audience and everything else, like the Truck Series has run a time or two with the IRL. That won't be possible because of scheduling issues. We don't have any interest in doing that either."

Ouch.

Yes, it’s true that Indy’s TV ratings are nothing to brag about, but at least you can keep watching most Indy races even during the commercials.

But things are looking up in the world of Indy racing these days.

A decision on a new chassis will be announced next week. And the series is adding new races in Baltimore and New Hampshire and considering culling its weaker races.

In fact, Indy appears to be gravitating more toward Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc.’s tracks and away from International Speedway Corp. tracks. ISC’s Homestead track, if it even stays on the 2011 schedule, won’t be the season finale, but Indy is hoping to make SMI’s Las Vegas Motor Speedway the season ender. AL.com