What's Next?

Yesterday we saw the marvelous unveiling of Izod as the "first legitimate title sponsor" the league has seen. The now branded Izod Indycar Series (has a nice ring to it I think) got a big boost yesterday and is now in a much better position in the minds of fans and anyone related to the IRL and ICS, as well as financially. Obviously this isn't the thing that means the IRL will suddenly rise to the top of the motorsports scene, but it's a start. It's a partner who believes in the Indycar Series and is willing to put major dough behind it to increase it's profile in North America.

Izod sees the IICS as "an amazing sport with so many different stories and we see it as an under-developed asset and brand." I have not heard sponsors speak so highly (while at the same time, demeaning) of the series, and referring to it as an asset. Of course, company's that throw money around to sponsor the IRL or their teams obviously regard it as an asset, or they wouldn't do it, but I think this is the first time I've actually seen a company refer to the IRL as an asset in public.

That's one announcement down, but what is next in the "Hey, look! The sun is out everyone!" Izod Indycar Series? I mean, we've been strung along for a while now in regards to the Title Sponsorship, while there are obviously more announcements that need to be made.

So, first of all, Brazil needs to be announced. Whether that means that we are announcing the cancellation of the race, or the location of the confirmed race, fans and sponsors need to hear something, positive or negative, soon. This race is spinning out of control, and it is making the IRL look bad right now, and they are hurting other peoples plans for the race and 2010 season. Right now, anyone in North America is most likely holding off to book their flights down to Rio, or wherever this race might occur, simply so they don't get stuck with a plane ticket for the trip down for a nice 3 day vacation with no racing. Aside from that, De Ferran Motorsports is waiting word regarding the Brazil race to determine their 2010 plans. When Curt Cavin said that Gil de Ferran was bringing his team to Indycars in 2010, it would be with APEX-Brazil money for one car and possibly Formula Dream for the other. I would think that APEX-Brazil wants to make sure they have a race in Brazil before they dish out the money to support a full year effort with de Ferran.

Next on the list of announcements is the future of the Dallara and Honda engines. It's been a while since this has seen the mainstream on Indycar news, simply because of the Brazil and Title Sponsor/Izod rumors and news, but this is still obviously a big concern for Indycar fans. People are getting antsy, and simply want to know the deadline for a new car to hit ovals and road courses in North America. It's such a long and drawn out process that seemed like it was going well when the IRL held those engine discussion groups a while back, but since then, not much has happened. Just rumors of people not being interested, except the Audi/VW/Porsche group. Hey, IRL, atleast give us the feeling you're still working on this. Leak some rumors out to Curt Cavin or something, just get this back in the news, please. We want more manufacturers of both engines and chassis', and I'd think Izod does too.

Another announcement that needs to be looked at is the US-F2000 series and the FIL series. A schedule has been announced for the US-F2000 series which is good, however, not much else. But I'm more concerned with how this fits into the future ladder of North America's open wheel scene. There were rumors that Mazda would be involved with the US-F2000 series, and that they would also badge the Firestone Indy Lights series engines as a way to re-structure their ladder system to the AOWR big leagues (ie: IRL). Getting Mazda into the FIL series would be a big plus money wise and promotion wise. They were big in Champ Car during it's final season, even though they weren't the engine manufacturers. They provided money to advertising, and ran commercials at most, if not all races. They are currently the Atlantic Series engine badger, but they must be realizing, as we all are now (unfortunately) that the Atlantic Series is on it's last legs. If they want to continue providing a path to the Indy 500, they need to be in the US-F2000 series and the Firestone Indy Lights series. And simply put, the Firestone Indy Lights need an automotive giant to provide the engines. They've been nameless too long.

And the last announcement I am hoping for, and is almost nessicary based on the TV Ratings this year, is the NBC/Comcast deal. It's rumored the takeover of NBC by Comcast is imminent, and TV experts see a new Comcast NBC with Versus by it's side as a potential terror for ESPN and ESPN2. If we can get involved with NBC somehow, instead of ABC who could care less about us, we would be in much better shape then we are right now, and people would be a lot more willing to invest in the IRL knowing about a connection to network television.

Hopefully we hear about all this stuff soon, as we are on a wave of momentum right now. The IRL needs to ride this as best they can and approach all opportunities positively, and with an open mind. If they do that, we'll be good for a while, and will have the opportunity to grow back to what AOWR used to be.

The Day Is Here

Boy, the IRL is good at keeping secrets aren't they? I mean todays announcement could be anything from the sale of IMS to the announcement of new cars for the Indycar Series and FIL.

Obviously, if we are told anything except for the title sponsor announcement today when the IRL officials gather at IMS, I think there will be a revolt. Robin Miller, Curt Cavin, and anyone with a brother who has an uncle working on an IRL team somehow has some inside info on the Izod deal worth approximately $10,000,000, of which, will be split among the teams, the series, marketing, and finding Ryan Hunter-Reay a real ride (Hooray!).

This is all good news, and it is pretty obvious it is going to happen today around 2:00pm. I'm hoping, somewhere in there, is a hidden announcement about Brazil. If that happens, I'll fall off my seat and finally breath easily.

So where does RHR land? According to both Cavin and Miller, he will join Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick, and Marco Andretti at Team Michael Andretti Green Motorsports Racing. Miller says that 7 digits of the Izod title sponsorship is geared towards sponsoring RHR in a real ride (sorry AJ, you just don't count anymore), and Cavin is saying RHR is keeping his mouth shut seeing how he has signed a non-disclosure agreement with whatever team it is.

So, let's look at the big picture here. In 2010, we will have Izod sponsorship for the "Izod Indycar Series". Add to that, that we will most likely see Izod on the car of RHR in 2010 in a major way. We should also see HER Energy in 2010 at NHL Racing with Alex Lloyd behind the wheel. Don't forget about the APEX Brazil money we should see coming into the series if we get a race finally confirmed in Brazil.

All in all, 2010 is shaping up to look alright. I mean, considering most people think the sky is falling, I think we will do alright.

Newman-Wachs to Indycar?

Big news coming from Marshall Pruett regarding the future of Newman-Wachs Racing and one of their young american stars, the 2009 Atlantic Series Champion, John Edwards.

In Marshall's latest piece on SpeedTV.com, he more or less puts it out there that NWR will be headed to either the Indycar Series or GP2 in 2010, and his plans include watching John Edwards drive which ever car he enters.

This will most likely deal the final blow to the Atlantic series but will be a huge help for the Indycar Series. The Atlantic series will lose one of it's marquee teams and will add to the troubles that series is seeing right now while the Indycar Series could see the addition of a talented, accomplished, young American in a car no one had thought would be on the entry list in 2010.

Of course, all this depends on Eddie Wachs ability to find the funding, most likely from the Nuclear Energy sector, but in the article, he seems pretty sure he will pull it off, and Mr. Pruett also goes on to add to the article that it isn't beyond Wachs to pull money out of his own pockets to help fund the project.

Before we go any further, for those who don't follow American Open-Wheel talent, or the Atlantics series, this is not the John Edwards that ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008 (and subsequently was found to have cheated on his wife with some party worker).

No, this John Edwards was racing in the Atlantic series at 16 years old for Forsythe Championship Racing. He was racing in FIA sanctioned racing series in Europe at 14 years old. He has won the Star Mazda Championship in 2008, and followed it up by winning the Atlantic Championship in 2009. He is American. He is young. He is more of what the IRL needs.

Of course all this means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Until the 18 year old Edwards straps into a Dallara and does some testing we won't know if he can handle the higher horsepower cars or if he can adapt to the ovals like many before him have. But if he manages to pull it all together, and NWR latches on (at first, to learn) with a good and experienced ICS team, then we can expect big things from the young American.

And the addition of NWR to the IRL, even if at first they are partnered with an existing team would lead to the creation of a strong Indycar Series team down the road.

There's not much bad you can say about this news coming from Mr. Pruett and Mr. Wachs. Hopefully it comes through. The number of Americans in the IRL are dropping and he would help counter that, especially talented Americans.

Exciting is in the eye of the beholder

First of all, after my lack of posting for a while, I must apologize. I've been relatively busy and this blog was shoved to the back burner, and for that I'm sorry. I know there are a few people that regularily read this blog and hopefully it wasn't too much for you to have to do without for a while.

Next thing on my to do list is to congratulate Dario Franchitti on a strong run to the 2009 IRL Indycar Championship. Dario was consistently fast and made the fewest mistakes of all the championship contenders, and subsequently won the championship because of it. Of course, there was some luck sprinkled in there at times (ie: the finale at Homestead).

Many of the forums I've visited the last few days seem to have arguments regarding the excitement level of the finale. I've seen posters saying this race was on par with the '09 Richmond debacle while some posters talk about the race being one of the more exciting races of the year for various reasons.

First of all, I think that if you are one of the people upset that most of the field was one or two laps down by about midway through the race, maybe Nascab is better for you? I mean, Nascab is the series that throws debris cautions to keep a number of cars on the lead lap. They are the series that pushes pack racing down our throats (and I know, we had Chicagoland, but I don't think that pack racing was the planned).

At Homestead, we saw the three fastest cars on the track show in a class of their own. They were the best on saturday, and they deserved to be that far ahead of the rest of the field. Look at any of the Indianapolis 500's from 1980 to 1990. They had a large number of cars laps down at the finish, hell in 1984, Rick Mears put the rest of the field 2 laps down on his way to the victory.

Briscoe and Dixon battled for the lead most of the race, with the 2 points for the most laps led a very important factor in determining the championship winner. I'm not sure if you noticed how loose Briscoe was running, he was all over the track. Any lap he could had lost it, and thrown the championship away. But, I was on the edge of my bed (yea, I couldnt watch the race live, because I'm Canadian, and I lost the online feed with about 40 laps to go... But I did get to see the end of the race on tape delay) hoping Briscoe wouldn't lose the little bit of grip he had.

And watching the battle for the lead was fun to watch, any given lap for a while, Dixon or Briscoe would pull ahead. Drafting down both straights and pulling alongside in the corners side by side, with the cars dancing around underneath them. Then knowing Dario was there if anyone made a mistake.

Versus did an awesome job of showing the battle for the championship and playing it up very well. I know listening to the race later on that night I was still excited even though I knew who won the race already. They played up the fuel mileage on Dario's part vs. Briscoe and Dixon running full out very well. Seeing which strategy would end up on the top step of the podium and with the winner's trophy in hand was fun to see play out.

Dario was a deserving winner and definately deserved the championship, as did the other two candidates. But knowing Dario ended up with the title keeps a smile on my face and is a very good story heading into 2010.

Bartender Rumors #7

Alright, I might had forgotten to get questions from Twitter, as I had originally planned to head over before the weekend, but then realized there was a race on Friday night, which changed my plans. So I bring you rumors only, no responses, sorry, I'll make up for it.

Anyways, I went by last night and here is what the good man had to tell you and me.

-He says LDR will be a two car team in 2010, no news on driver. He still expects Takuma Sato at LDR for Homestead.

-He says asides from the FAZZT Racing team with driver Alex Tagliani, you can expect one more new (or old) team for 2010, one that no one is talking about.

-Sponsorship packages are hurting for 2010. Teams are hoping that the Homestead numbers turn out to be very good being the championship deciding race. They figure that will finish the season off on a good note, and help sell sponsors on Versus.

-Vision will answer the call in 2010, but one other team won't.

-He says Brazil is 50/50 at the moment.

-A1GP is counting on Brazil happening because they want to be a support race, and have already held discussions with the IRL. They have scheduled their race in Brazil for the same weekend.

-VW may use the IRL as a way to introduce the high end Phaethon back to the USA. They are planning to relaunch the previously failed model to the US in 2011 or 2012.

-Milka is back full time for 2010.

Lots of stuff to go through here, what are your thoughts.

PS: The bartender wants you to sign the petition to bring in more chassis manufacturers in 2012!

Time To Make A Stand

It's been a couple of years now since we've seen chassis diversity in the Indycar Series and who knows when we will see it again. During discussions about a new car, Indycar officials stated something along the lines of "Dallara will be the sole provided of the new chassis" when the car comes out in 2011 or 2012.

Well, the IRL has backed down from that, however, we still haven't heard anything official in regards to who would be allowed to build the new chassis' when the new car does come out some time in the next decade. I know some people still believe the IRL will go with one manufacturer because they believe it to be the cheapest, or maybe because, according the Robin Miller, the IRL gets kick backs from every part sold by Dallara.

Either way, most fans of the sport believe we need multiple engine manufacturers and multiple chassis manufacturers to keep the tradition of Indycar racing and Indianapolis alive. Spec racing can be fun, but I believe it has outlived it's welcome with ICS fans.

Throughout the engine summit, rumors have circulated about VW and Porshe and Alfa Romeo joining the series, but none of that has come through as fact. The latest rumor is that no one will join Honda in 2011. Indycar can't really control that, if engine manufacturers don't want to come on board, the IRL can't force their hand to do so.

However, chassis diversification can indeed be helped by Indycar seeing how there are multiple chassis manufacturers interested in the Indycar series. Imagine the step up the series would take if chassis' produced by Dallara competed with Panoz and Lola every week. Three different chassis manufacturers producing different cars that produce different levels of downforce would provide massive amounts of passing opportunities, and would bring in diversity to the sport again. Atleast it would make the fans we have now happier.

But in order to get the IRL to bring in these multiple chassis manufacturers, we the fans have to force their hand the best we can. Being the ones who buy the tickets and support the sponsors and watch the races on television, deserve to have some sort of say in the matter. So, I am hereby introducing the "Bring Chassis Diversity Back To The Indycar Series" Petition.

This petition will allow fans to voice their strong wishes for multiple chassis manufacturers for the new era of Indycar racing. Once we get enough votes, I will send this Petition on to the IRL. In the meantime, let's get as many signatures as we can. Send the link around, get your friends to sign it, any IRL fan you know, hell, any racing fan you know. Get the word out there, as this is our chance to have a say in the future of Indycar Racing in North America.