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Indycar winning hollow war |
Both of this country's duelling open-wheel series are over for this year, on American soil at least, and each of the IRL and Champ Car's futures remain clouded, as ever.
One thing that is clear is that the IRL has pretty well won the war for dominance of American open-wheel racing. In the past few years, Champ Car's TV ratings and overall media coverage have dwindled to barely measurable numbers. The IRL's ratings are hanging in there, but there's nothing to be proud of in its poor overall media numbers either.
At least the IRL enjoyed an exciting and compelling championship battle this year, with a great grandstand finish, but both series face serious problems in attracting more ink and air time, and in rebuilding and retaining their fan bases too. The loss of some of the IRL and Champ Car's biggest stars will make this problem even more difficult.
Indy 500 winner and IRL champion Dario Franchitti has been weighing offers from Roger Penske to join his Penske ALMS team and from Chip Ganassi to go NASCAR Cup racing. Penske wanted Franchitti to replace Ryan Briscoe - who is taking Sam Hornish's IRL seat - in one of the Penske Porsches. But, to the surprise of many, Franchitti has decided to make the move to NASCAR in Ganassi's #40 Dodge Cup car, driven the past two years by David Stremme.
I talked to Ganassi on Sunday afternoon and asked him about Franchitti becoming Juan Montoya's team-mate in his Cup team. Chip didn't answer. He could only giggle, almost but not quite uncontrollably.
So both Franchitti and Hornish are leaving the IRL to race in NASCAR, joining the growing trend of open-wheel drivers getting on board the NASCAR juggernaut. Needless to say, Franchitti and Hornish - Indy 500 winners and IRL champions both - will be hard to replace, although they will likely continue to run the Indy 500 around their regular NASCAR commitments.
In Champ Car, the big question is who will replace Sebastien Bourdais at Newman/Haas/Lanigan if Justin Wilson cannot be prised away from RuSPORT? There are no other obvious star drivers available and certainly nobody to spark the interest of sponsors, the public or the media. And if Paul Tracy and the Forsythe team continue to struggle into next year and the now aging Canadian is no longer a frontrunner, who will Champ Car's star attractions be? It's a little much to expect it all to fall on the shoulders of young Graham Rahal.
Another thing that's occurred over the last two years is that Champ Car, as we all know, has lost the last of its oval races and now runs only on road and street circuits. While Champ Car has walked away from the ovals, the IRL has taken on enough road and temporary circuits that it's much closer to the broad-based challenge of the old CART Indy Car World Series than today's Champ Car series. As Mike Hull pointed out last week in this space, an IRL driver has to be able to win on short ovals, intermediate ovals, long ovals, road and street tracks.
This used to be CART's great claim to fame. It was the specific challenge which separated Indycar racing from Formula One, and made it even more of an adventure for drivers like Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell, each of whom won both F1 and CART titles. But, today, the IRL has a much more legitimate claim to that mantle than Champ Car which has lost the plot entirely in so many regards, diversity of tracks included.
Of course, Champ Car now finds itself in the invidious position of turning to Europe for growth and income.
To read the rest of this Gordon Kirby column and other 'The Way It Is' columns go to www.gordonkirby.com
