Overheard in Sebring

Franck Perera is moving up from the Atlantic Series to run with Conquest Racing in 2008

Without a doubt the Champ Car series is in better shape this year than at the same time last year here at Sebring. There certainly are more car/driver combinations that appear to be ready to go versus last year, the bugs are worked out of the Panoz now whereas last year at this time there were a number of issues that had to be resolved. The standing starts and P2P have proven to work well and the depth of driver talent is certainly better this time around. We expect that by the time Spring Training rolls around to Laguna Seca in mid-March that the grid is going to be fairly well firmed up.

Losing Cotman hurt Champ Car, but he left in place an organization that is far better than when he arrived. No one is irreplaceable and Champ Car will have to find a suitable replacement.

Champ Car still certainly has a lot of challenges ahead of it, and the bad news we hear each and every off-season kills any momentum they otherwise may have gained. The lack of sponsorship and car manufacturer support continues to be the Achilles heel of the series and until they can come up with a business model that works for sponsors and manufacturers the series will continue to exist but not flourish.

Graham Rahal in the No. 2 McDonald's Panoz

Everyone in the paddock pretty much agrees that there will not be a merger with the IRL until 2010 at the earliest, which is when the IRL is slated to introduce a new car so that the Champ Car teams would be somewhat on equal footing with the IndyCar teams. The Panoz Champ Car is still relatively new and has many years of good service ahead of it so do not look for teams to be throwing their investment away to switch to another league. This is why no teams took Tony George up on his offer for free cars and engines to switch to the IRL….which would have left Champ Car dead had he been successful. Mark C. reporting from Sebring