GM to Indycar?

Well, rumors popped out over the weekend that GM is preparing to announce it's return to Izod Indycar Racing by building a Twin-Turbo V6 for the 2012 engine regulations. The original article popped up on Autoextremist.com, then subsequent articles and rumors appeared on Speedtv.com, Indystar.com, autoracing1.com, and Autoweek. Most of the articles discussing the original Autoextremist.com news does not confirm the news, but do tend to lean in the direction that GM will be joining the Indycar series.

Autoextremist.com author Peter M. De Lorenzo says that an announcement will be made this Friday November 12th, noting that a possible announcement will be made at IMS.

Another central piece to the story is that the connection between GM and Chip Ganassi in both Nascab and the Izod Indycar Series. De Lorenzo states that Ganassi was being woo'ed by Ford to switch engines and cars for the 2011 Nascab season, but the decision by GM to go to Indianapolis in open wheel machinery in 2012 made the decision easy, and he will compete in 2012 with GM engines in both the tin tops and the new Izod Indycars.

Now, this news is not confirmed yet. Even Randy Bernard was quoted as saying the news is premature, however, he did not outright squash the rumors as he could have. He left it open, saying they expect to land atleast one engine competitor to join Honda in 2012.

Even if this news is not confirmed as of yet, where there's smoke, there is usually fire. I think the tie up between Ganassi and GM in Nascab is one of the defining factors of the story, and lends credence to the rumor. Also, let's face it, De Lorenzo is reporting this as pretty much fact, and with such a large news piece (and even citing it as breaking news), he is weighing his reputation on this. Leads me to believe that unless this is a horrible joke, he must feel this has a pretty good chance of coming true.

But if it does come true, and we see Honda battling GM/Chevrolet in the Izod Indycar Series in 2012, along with potentially one other engine manufacturer and a couple of aero kit constructors including Dallara and Lotus (potentially GM as well, as they were originally very interested in the aero kit concept), would be huge, and would definitely be a strong step in the right direction to lure some Izod Indycar fans back to the series.

Keep your fingers crossed, and let's see how this plays out.

Big Week For IICS

This upcoming week is going to be filled with a lot of suspense, news, and excitement for the Izod Indycar Series and it's IRL family.

It is safe to say that the future landscape of Indycar will be determined on Wednesday, July 14th when the ICONIC committee releases it's chassis plans for 2012 and beyond. However, no one is quite sure exactly what is going to be announced, and Randy Bernard has done a good job of keeping this as hush hush as possible to create a big splash in the marketplace.

I think it is hard not to be excited by the upcoming announcement as it will possibly mean the end to the current Dallara (Curt Cavin believes the current machine will be grand-fathered in somehow while some others believe it will move to the FIL series). No matter what is announced, we can all take pride in knowing there will be something different than the current Dallara on track sometime after 2012.

To be honest, I think it's safe to say we will see multiple chassis manufacturer's involved with this announcement. Whether company names are dropped on Wednesday or not, Randy Bernard and his entire ICONIC committee understand the importance of multiple chassis' as well as multiple engines. The main question is how will they police the various options, and that is something we'll have to wait for as I don't think anyone outside of that group of 7 have any clue.

Then a couple of days after the announcement, the Izod Indycar Series hits the streets of Toronto for my home race, and boy, am I excited. What I considered one of the most exciting races last season on television is a race that this year it finally looks like my schedule will allow me to get to the event for race day (providing we sweep our second round playoff series in 3 games).

There looks to be a good car count, and PT is back in the fold again for this event with KVRT, the team that gave him a potentially winning setup last year until he was punted into the wall by an unnamed driver in these parts.

Promotion for the event has been upped this year which can mean only good things. More butts in the seats and means more attention for Izod and the series.

Add in the fact we have a pretty good title chase brewing in the overall standings (you can just hand Will Power the Mario Andretti Trophy right now for the road courses), and you get a pretty good vibe heading into the Honda Indy Toronto weekend which is shaping up to be a blast.

It's a good week to be a fan of Izod and the Izod Indycar Series, time to embrace it.

Swift #66

I haven't put much talk into the chassis debate coming up as everyone and their mother has beaten the topic to death. However, with the release of Swift's new #66 concept, I felt the need to share with everyone.

This car is freakin' fantastic!

It may be evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary, but boy could I see a bunch of those cars tearing it up at TMS or IMS or Long Beach with the Lola concept and the Dallara concept.

I have absolutely not problem seeing this exact car on track. No modifications whatsoever makes me a happy man with this concept.

If the ICONIC board were to come back to Randy Bernard and say something along the lines of, "Let's allow Swift, Dallara, Lola, and BAT to build their concepts and sell them on the open market", I would be quite alright with that.

I don't think that we should allow multiple chassis' and allow the Delta Wing project to join in with those multiple chassis. I think it would stick out like a sore thumb, and it would just seem wrong having the four evolutions racing against the one revolution.

If this car is able to compete with Lola and Dallara and even BAT (although I hate their design) I'd be quite happy.

What a sexy lookin' car.

Check out more pictures of the car here.

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.

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.

Bartender Rumors #4

Well, another trip to the Gryphon means some more brews for you fine folks. The bartender fired up some cold ones to me to pass along to our faithful followers. Buckle up ladies and gents, here we go.

• He said Dallara is working pretty hard designing an F1 entry for 2010. He doesn't know if they will run it themselves or if they are doing it for someone else, but the braintrust at Dallara is definately working hard.
• Dale Coyne is still working to get his second car to the grid. A couple of deals have fallen apart, but, he is working hard towards making it happen.
• PT is only going to run races at for AJ when he thinks he can win, Quattro will run the rest.
• He says to expect title sponsorship talks to pick up again after this little slap on the wrist TG got from his family about spending too much money on the IRL.
• Conquest will only run road courses from now until the end of the year.

There you have it, another night, another hang over. Let me know what you guys think about this one.

CSI: AGR

Well with the recent news about Danicker's car being stolen (the finger puppets did it), and the clips being put out by AGR, I'm on the case to determine whether this happened or not.

Evidence #1




Well, this seems like a seemingly normal cell phone video of a cop and someone outside of the AGR shop. Clearly there is no evidence proving this is a fake, but no real evidence this isn't a setup either.

Evidence #2




Well this supposed surveillance video will show the car actually being taken out of the AGR shop and put into a trailer. However, it is a hell of a coincidence that the trailer was backed up to just the right spot so that it was pretty well centered in the picture. On top of that, the robbers didn't seem to have any issues getting into the shop or getting the car onto the trailer which you think would be a bit tricky for a bunch of crooks who have probably never loaded a ICS Dallara onto a trailer. But hell, if you really want, you can push this one and say that the stars lined up to make this all work for this video, sort of like what would have to happen for Danica to win without fuel strategy.

Evidence #3




Well considering this news cast looks very fake in the first place, and there is a pretty obvious edit near the beginning (let me know if you can find it), the baseball scores are a few days old. Since this is the newest video out there, you would think they would be last night or even todays scores, but they aren't. They are atleast 2 nights old. That, ontop of the fact that I can't find a station name anywhere on there, and that they call themselves Action News, leads me to believe this is a fake.

Anyways, it's not really my decision, what do crime stoppers have to say? Leave me some love in the comment section.

Singular Effort

What do the three cars above all have in common?

Sure, they are all Dallara's, they all have Honda engine packages and run on Firestone tires. But there is something a little less obvious that is outside of the picture.

These three cars are all poised to be single-car teams this coming season. Hell, they aren't the only ones. If I wanted to include all of the one car teams for this season, I'd need a picture as long as Marty Roth's damage receipt.

• Panther - Wheldon
• A.J. Foyt Enterprises - Meira
• Vision - Carpenter
• Conquest - Camara/Tagliani
• Dreyer & Reinbold - Conway
• Luczo Dragon - Matos
• 3G/Beck - Barrett
• KVRT - Moraes

I didn't throw HVM in there as it is likely RHR will land a ride with them, after getting the testing gig at Barber at the next group test.

And now-a-days, the success of one car teams is minimal. A rare victory for Rahal Letterman at Watkins Glen in '08 was the first win for a one car team since the Delphi Indy 300 at Chicagoland in 2004 by Adrian Fernandez (By the way Mr. Fernandez, Indy is calling you, they would love to have you back in the series).

I'm sure many of the teams listed above would love to see that trend reverse itself for 2009, and who is to say it won't? But in all honesty, many of these teams will be happy with an occasional top-5 performance. It seems that now, to keep up, teams need that second car to 'use' in a way. Information sharing between cars is vital to nailing down the right setup. Team work and cooperation is critical to winning races. The old "2 heads is better then 1" routine comes to mind. Also, 2 cars simply have better odds to win a race for a team then 1 car does.

Then we look at the Big-3 (plus NHL Racing). They are all multi-car efforts, 2 each for Ganassi and Penske, then 3 and 4 for NHL and AGR respectively. Obviously, we all see how strong these teams are compared to the rest of the field, but how easy would it be for some of these one-car teams to make that step up to Big-3 plus 1 status? I mean, does a team like Panther, who competes constantly near the top of the best of the rest find sponsorship for a second car and jump into championship contender status? Possibly.

But here is a real measure of the strength of multi-car efforts. This year, if Dale Coyne is able to run 2 cars (I suspect he will), and he surpasses most of the 1-car efforts, it should prove how much stronger a mediocre 2-car team is compared to many 1-car teams.

I think the point I'm trying to get across to you is this. Maybe the IRL is not dominated by the Big-3 simply because they are stronger and better then everyone else. Maybe the Big-3 dominated because the lowly-7 aren't able to take that step towards the top to join them. If the Big-3 are maxed out, which in a spec chassis world with little development available, is quite possible, maybe the lower teams just need to get close to maxing out themselves, but without a second car, won't be able to do that.

Once this economic recession or depression or concussion dissapears I think you will start to see some of these 1-car teams find the 2-car and 3-car team budgets and join the top ranks to create some more competitiveness. Until that happens, I doubt we'll see a whole lot of teams aside from the Big-3 and NHLR winning races, especially in '09.

Happy Anniversary AOWR

Well, it's been about a year now since the shizz went down. About a year ago, it was announced the CCWS would more or less fold into the IRL and they would become one. Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven sat down in front of 20 or 30 CCWS/IRL drivers and made the announcement live on SPEED TV (probably their last meaningful coverage of AOWR at its highest level). The mood was high that day, as enthusiasm for a new era began and things started happening very quickly. Decisions had to be made quickly in regards to the schedules, cars had to be delivered from IRL shops to CCWS shops, and personnel had to learn new cars as well as crack out some new sponsorship dollars.

Everyone seemed content to put in the extra hours between getting things organized and making things happen because it was a major step forward for the Indy Racing League and AOWR in general. Fans were getting more excited about the prospects of one series and the competition and talent in that series would be stronger then ever.

The season went off without too many issues (a couple occasions CCWS cars couldn't race due to practice/qualifying practice, or the lack of a race-worthy car). Hell, even a couple of wins by NHL showed that the CCWS teams could be competitive in this new environment, atleast on road and street circuits to begin with. Even by the end of the year, the competition had leveled out as many CCWS teams were competiting for top 10 positions at the finale.

Now with a full off-season to do some aero work and run some more oval tests, the former Champ Car teams are now in a position to compete full-time, and they will be expected to compete for the entire year. These teams have seen a lot of cars the last few years. Hell, the last three seasons have seen 3 different cars (2006 Lola, 2007 DP01, 2008 Dallara). If anything, the CC guys should be able to figure out new cars better then the IRL teams simply due to experience. This season will prove a better example of the depth of the field in the ICS with the so-called Big 3 maybe expanding to the Big 4 with NHLR looking strong in pre-season.

Even with the bad luck timing of the world-wide economic downturn, the ICS still looks like it will be in a good position this year. Indycars provide a better bang-for-your-buck then Nascrap and seem to have weathered the downturn better then the taxi's have. The IRL fields look to be a consistent 23 or 24 cars throughout the season, possibly (I doubt it, but I'm trying to be positive here) hitting 26 at certain times of the stars line up just right. We had 21 at the off-season test, and we can probably add a car for DCR. Add in what seems like a good bet of RHR at HVM and Tomas Scheckter landing somewhere since he has a bit of cash lying around and we are at 24. Now if the stars line up and Conquest manages to get 2 cars for the full season and KVRT or Vision find the money to run PT or Foyt IV then we are at 26 cars.

But what I'm really looking forward to is the second anniversary of the unifibilesbianficationmerger. Many economists are looking at the US economy rebounding in late 2009, so we will start to see more sponsorship money available for motorsports and hopefully the IRL can take advantage of that if things go well through this season and attendance numbers stay up and TV viewership grows a bit. We could use a good year out of the I500, TV-numbers wise so we could use that to sell 2010 sponsorship. Maybe get Michael Andretti back into a car again. Seeing Michael contend again might up the number of viewers up a bit. Anything to help the 2010 sponsorship season would be needed to keep the momentum going forwards.

If we can push forward, we can hopefully see some of these 1 car teams move back to 2 car teams in 2010 and make a push for more paid-drivers and hopefully see some of the old teams like Fernandez come back and RLR return. There are even some rumors of de Ferran Motorsports being interested in the IRL down the road.

Anyways, things are looking up for Open-Wheel in general and we should be happy because everyone of us are along for the ride. We all get to be a part of the growth of AOWR in North America. It will continue growing as it does, each of us will be as proud as the driver, team owners and management of the IRL.

Shamrock Racing Announces It Two Drivers for the 2009 Season

Thank you very much for being here everyone on such short notice. This announcement came together quickly once this sponsorship deal was put agreed upon. In this tough economic time, we are happy to have Happy Go Lucky Shamrocks on our sidepods for the 2009 season in time to compete with the top teams in the IRL.

Now I'd like to introduce to you our newly formed lineup. Both drivers will be driving our new Honda powered Dallaras.

Please welcome Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay to the Shamrock Racing.

Obviously by now, you know this is a fake press release. RHR and JDub would love to see a Shamrock Racing become a reality so they could have a ride in '09. If I had found a sponsor to go racing it would had been done by now. Actually, that might be a story for another time, when I was in discussions to start up a new Champ Car team with a strong backer (now that I think of it, I will probably go take a look to see if I have the paint scheme renderings on the computer downstairs still). Anyways, back to the topic at hand.

This entry is in response to the UOWWB Question of the Week. If you aren't aware of the question, it asks which 2 unemployed IRL drivers would you employ for your raceteam. Since Paul Tracy wasn't included in the list, I chose Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Personally, I feel these are two of the most talented drivers without a ride in '09, with maybe only Servia competing for that second spot with RHR. I think between RHR and JW, they would cover both the strengths of the Oval and the Streets and Road Courses of the IRL. RHR would be the team leader on ovals, while Wilson would take control on the twisties.

I also think that both these men are the easiest to sell to sponsors as drivers. RHR is a pure-bred American with a good attitude. He probably brings a little bit of money with him from iZod as well. Justin sold shares of himself to try and get into F1, and after that, CCWS. I'm not sure how many of you got to know him last year, but he has an awesome personality to match his driving skills.

And I think the main reason I'd choose these guys, asides from their talent, is they are some of the hardest workers in AOWR, and they should not be out of a ride in the first place. It's unfortunate the way things went down, but someone has to throw them a rope. Both these guys have been kicked while they were down, and it seems this will happen again if no one steps up and helps them out.

I think these two gentlemen would give Shamrock Racing a fighting chance at podiums and the odd win with their diverse skills on Ovals and right hand turns. They have the skill, the drive, and the speed to drive with the best of them, and they'll put butts in the seats for the IRL.