Barber Is A Plus

With the announcement that Barber is in the plans for 2010, everyone seems to have an opinion on the situation. Lots of people are talking positively and negatively about various aspects of the track and it's position on the schedule.

Personally, I'm very happy to see the track on the schedule. It's going to be a good part of the country to hold a race, and even though that might be Nascab country. I think with the decline in Nascab popularity the last year or so, however slight it might be, that holding a race in Alabama might be a good opportunity for the ICS to possibly grab a couple of their fans and atleast expose them to open wheel racing off of an oval.

On top of that, it adds another road course to the schedule. And the teams must like it and it will lower any crash damage they might endure. If it does end up between St. Petersburg and Long Beach on the schedule, it breaks up the east coast to west coast trip the teams have to make. Atleast it is a stop along the way.

Barber will need to work on a couple of issues to upgrade the track and add passing zones, however, I think it will work out alright even if they don't add passing zones for the first year. Rumors from multiple sources say that the track will be worked on for the second year of a three year contract.

So, we'll see what other surprises will pop up on the schedule, if any, come this sunday if everything comes together the way it should. Hopefully, in my opinion, we'll see Cleveland on there as well.

Barber Outlook

March 21st until March 23rd, the IRL will be holding testing for both the ICS and FIL series at Barber Motorsports Park. The FIL cars will be on track on the 21st for 7 hours while the ICS cars will take to the track for 14 hours on the course over the last two days.

The Homestead test in February brought 21 ICS entries to the track for testing. That number seems to be the low end opinion for the car count in 2009. However, I think we'll get a better feeling regarding the car count and the location of each of the free agent drivers once we see who shows up with who at Barber.

Expected cars are all those that tested at the Homestead test plus a second HVM car for Ryan Hunter-Reay. Things look like they are falling into place for RHR to land with his former team back in the CART days.

So, unofficially we are looking at a minimum of 22 entries for the test most likely.

2 Penske
2 TCGR
4 AGR
3 NHLR
2 HVM
1 KVRT
1 Panther
1 D&R
1 Foyt
1 Vision
1 Luczo Dragon
1 Dale Coyne
1 Conquest
1 3G/Beck

Now, this Conquest entry is not a guarentee due to their struggles finding money, but I would put my money on them making the trip with atleast one car. Eric Bachelart has found ways to run cars on shoe string budgets, and usually once all hope dies, he finds a way to make something work.

Now, the fun part about this test is trying to figure out who will show up for the test that wasn't previously around. Rumours are swirling around about 2 cars at various outfits. Let's do a run down of the 1-car teams and who might move to 2 cars for the test and/or the season.

KVRT - Jimmy Vasser has been quoted as saying they hope to have 2 cars from Indy on. So, it seems like they will be at one car to start the season.

Panther - No news regarding a second car to supplement Wheldon. Rumours of a second car over the off-season never came to be, atleast it seems that way.

D&R - Dreyer & Reinbold is much like Conquest where they seem to be able to put deals together to get cars on the track. Nothing has come out in rumors asides from the Wilson to D&R whispers earlier this off-season, but they seem to be quelled now that he is at DCR. They could surprise us with a second car at the test.

Foyt - Don't expect anything more then Meira out of Foyt until the 500, unless they have found some money to run IV but that is unlikely.

Vision - Tony George seems adament he isn't spending the money for a second car. Unfortunately it looks like he isn't going to give in, and will only run one car. IV will not be in the car at Barber.

Luczo Dragon - They are set as a one car team for 2009.

Dale Coyne - Dale Coyne has run 2 cars as far back as I can remember, mind you that isn't all that far back for some reason. But with rumours that he offered a second seat to Paul Tracy in front of Bruno Junqueira, you would think he is planning to run a second car. They could show up at Barber with two cars, without having to worry about heavy crash damage to a car like they did at Homestead.

Conquest - Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like they have found any money between the Homestead test and now. Hopefully they have and kept it on the downlow, but hope for 1 car from them. Eric Bachelart will probably find a way to get there.

3G/Beck - Unless something dramatic happened for the team, they will be a one car team for 2009, and expect Stanton Barrett to continue his ICS training at Barber.

Now, the other possibility we are looking at is Rubicon Racing. They are rumoured to have $6.5 million in sponsorship, and are looking at running Buddy Rice for '09. But the longer they wait to announce something, the longer I doubt they are actually going to make the grid this year. And you'd think they'd want to make it to a test if they are going to run a full season. We also have to look for Tomas Scheckter to land somewhere with his $2-3 million, Vision maybe?

Whatever way you look at it, the field looks deep with atleast 22 cars ready to hit the test at Barber and ready to hit the grid at St. Pete in about 3 weeks. Out of all the cars headed to the test, I expect atleast 21 of them to make the grid, plus atleast one more car to enter the competition. 22 cars in this economy seems like a pretty good number. Especially since the number of cars seems poised to grow after the I500, we seem to be in a good situation for the full season despite what some others are saying.

As a side note, the Sebring 12 hours (ALMS) is running this weekend, and in particular, Franchitti and Dixon are running for Acura with Patron and de Ferran respectively in their LMP1 cars. This leaves me wondering if Ganassi will run 2 cars at the Barber test on the first day, or if they will run 1 car with Alex Lloyd or no cars since the 12 hours ends at 10:30 on Sunday, the first day of the Barber test. Maybe they will use this chance to run Lloyd and another Lights driver to gain the bonus testing miles.

BTW, The Other Side Blog is closing in the next 19 hours, so make sure you drop off your vote for this years biggest storyline.

Atlantic Invitation?

One of the IRL problems on ovals is the lack of support races for their races. I'm not really sure who usually runs with them at oval asides from ICS and FIL cars but obviously 2 races isn't enough to keep the schedule filled up. Back in the day, CART used to run Atlantics, Indy Lights, Star Mazda then run the feature race. That usually managed to fill up the race weekend schedule pretty well and gave the fans a bang for their buck.

But the last few years in the IRL, fans would either be forced to sit around between the FIL and ICS race because there were no other series on track. Gaps for 2 to 4 hours would and still do haunt the series because they just don't have any other oval series to help them fill up the schedule.

The Atlantic series has just been sold to Ben Johnston, and he is plunging some dough into the series. He just put up $3 Million in cash purses for the entire season while the Champion will receive $1 Million to do whatever he chooses with (unlike the past Atlantics/CC driver "sponsorship" of $2 Million). While the announcements have been slow in regards to drivers and teams entering the series this year, it is starting to come around, and once the tests today and tomorrow at Palm Beach International Raceway are completed, I expect the announcements to pick up substantially.

However, as what is still primarily a feeder series, Atlantics doesn't have a clear series to feed to. Many of the drivers want to progress in AOWR, however, their old link to Champ Car is now gone. Meanwhile, the series is now sanctioned by IMSA, who also runs the ALMS, so that connection is now available. However, the drivers still want to run open-wheel when they are done Atlantics.

Tony George, if he can swallow a little pride, would be considered genius if he would welcome Atlantics (and Star Mazda) to run a couple of their oval races, maybe Milwaukee, Richmond, and one of the 1.5 mile tracks. In one invitation, if the Atlantics accept of course, he would help fill the race weekends, he would create another semi-feeder series in the Atlantics series, since drivers and teams would see a direct link to the IRL once they start running the same tracks. He would create a larger talent pool for teams to draw from. On top of that, he doesn't have to fund anything in the Atlantics series since Ben Johnston seems to be doing that just find.

The Atlantic series is part of the history of AOWR and deserves to still be involved for developing drivers for the I500 and the IRL needs to recognize that. And while TG and the IRL can allow the Atlantics that rightful place in AOWR, he can also use them at the same time, to encourage series winners and standouts to look towards the IRL with their prize money and at the same time, teach some young North Americans to run ovals which will populate the ICS with more talented drivers.

The only question is, can Mr. George swallow some of that pride from the split and ask the Atlantics to join them now and then? If he can, I think it would be considered a major win for the development of Americans, and all drivers in open-wheel. If he can't, it just shows that TG refuses to put the past in the past and lose a valuable opportunity.

Finally...

News coming today from various different outlets confirmed Robert Doornbos has signed with NHL Racing for 2009, thus ending the worst kept secret since Area 51.

To go along with Bobby D landing his spot, the IRL released the entry list for first ICS test for 2009, and NHL has entered 3 cars (Rahal, Doornbos, TBA). I guess this will confirm whether Milka Duno will be running in that third car, or if NHL has a trick up their sleeve. I'm also waiting to see if the cars will be decked out in CITGO colors and who will get to drive the McDonald's entry.