Confusion amid bankruptcy rumours.

Now this would suck.
If they finally merge, will they run ovals only?

chu... Not a chance. He is already trying to make sure Long Beach would be on the schedule. Last year on Speed TV he said Long Beach would be his. Then Champ Car bought the group that runs the race at LB. There was egg on his face over that. He knows he needs road courses, as his ovals draw only a handful of PAYING fans. Nascar has even had trouble selling its ovals out and has talked of adding more road co*****.

Why oh why would they not keep the Canadian rounds. haven't those been some of the most profitable rounds of all? I know I've gone to the Toronto round several times and it's always packed.

I sort of lost interest in american open wheel after CART broke up into IRL and what is now Champ car. IRL never appealed to me because it's basically just ovals. Champ cars production quality and driver lineup suffered. Having a mix of 2/3 road courses and 1/3 ovals would be ideal for me, but I know that won't happen if the IRL is dominant in this merger.

In a related topic...

If this merger goes ahead, what would happen to the Formula Atlantic championship?
They could go at it alone, which would probably be rather expensive and needs to be scaled down or tagged onto another series; or they could go with the IRL-merger, which would probably give them some problems as the chassis aren't built for ovals and IPS is already there.

no wonder bourdais got out when he had the chance,champ car seems to have been rocky for quite a while now,it's a shame as i think it's great..

Champ has the venue's. And at one time had the teams to back it. Then Tony bought Penske, Gannasi, Rahal out in hopes of folding the league. I attend 3 Champ car races and all of them draw a good number of people to the race. The only thing they do not have is the Indy 500. The sponsor's want the 500 so Tony holds the cards.

Formula Atlantic would be a nice addition to the American Le Mans Series. There shouldn't be a problem running it at some of the IRL events either. They need more support races anyway. Back in the early '90s both the Indy Lights and Formula Atlantic supported Indycar. The main difference was the lights were more powerful and had rolling starts.

As far as the Champ car events being well attended that was not the case when I went to Laguna Seca three years ago. There were barely any vendors and parking was plentiful. It looked like a club event or a test. It was hard to believe the change comapared to what it had once been.

If I remember correctly, IMSA, which is the 'official' sanctioning body for ALMS, already runs the STAR Mazda pro series, which is very much like the FA championship.

The big question is, will whatever new IRL/CCWS series be successful enough and be a legitimate feeder series into F1 as has been successful for the likes of JPM, JV and now SeaBass? Or will it devolve into drivers saying 'oh well, I guess I'll go to NASCAR...'

Hopefully not the latter. It seems that sports car racing and the various touring car formats (WTCC, BTCC etc.) are also becoming legit series to go to.

That's just my two cents.

Jim, has CCWS ever been a legitimate feeder to F1? JPM had a Williams contract in 1998 and was farmed out to TCGR for 2 years, JV had a European/Japanese F3 history and Bourdais should have been in F1 straight after winning F3000 in 2002. Even Glock had to spend 1.5 years in GP2 before getting back into F1. I don't see anyone coming out of the IRL into F1 directly (Marco included), but would prefer to see the IRL (hopefully supplemented by CCWS teams) strong enough as a series to stand alone as a destination rather than a route to F1 or NASCAR.