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TURNING LEFT: The Motorsports Report
By Charlie O. Mallonee March 4, 2008 |
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INDY CAR AND CHAMP CAR UNITE … FINALLY! The world of open-wheel racing had been on a collision course with failure for over a decade. The Champ Car World Series (formerly known as CART) and Indy Car (a.k.a. the IRL) were bleeding in a sea of red ink and were unable to find a way to merge their businesses. Competition is usually good for business. In this case, competition was killing both Champ Car and Indy Car. The competition’s name is NASCAR. As NASCAR grew, both of the open-wheel groups were shrinking in the number of race teams and at the gate. The ONLY chance for survival was a merger! Both groups had tried to merge on several occasions without success. Then, Indy Car owner Tony George brought Formula One to the Brickyard and his interest in merging really faded. Spurned by F1 and dwindling interest in open-wheel races, George tried to pull off a merger last year with no success. At that point, it appeared that someone was going to have to go out of business so one series could survive. Do you believe in miracles? Last week the two organizations came to their senses and deal got done! Indy Car will keep its entire 2008 schedule of races and will incorporate three Champ Car races: Long Beach, Edmonton and Australia. The premiere races will be the Indianapolis 500 and the Long Beach street race. The new series will have 11 oval races and 8 road course races which will make for a great balanced schedule. For us in NorCal, we will still have only one race. The new series will compete at Infineon on August 24th. The Champ Car race that was scheduled for Laguna Seca has been cancelled. With Laguna Seca’s rich racing history, this reporter hopes the new Indy Car will add a race on one of the world’ s greatest raceways in the near future. In the meantime, their will be a minimum of 25 (33 at Indy) cars in each race this season instead of the 15 to 18 cars that each series was able to field on their own. In other words, there will be 15 to 18 cars still running at the finish instead of the 6 to 8 competitors that have been running previously. I am an open-wheel racing fan, and I am really looking forward to covering the upcoming season. It may well be the best season of racing since 1995 when CART and Tony George went their separate ways. FORD, FLIPS AND FAST CARS IN VEGAS The Car of Today/Tomorrow made its’ debut on a 1.5 mile track Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The speeds were faster than in California with the high-banked track in the desert. The big difference in this year’s race was slower speeds in the turns. The COT cars had to go about 13 mph slower in the turns, and that made for lots of two and three wide racing in and out of the turns. The big problem of the day was the right front tire. The cars kept pushing toward the wall on the exits of the turns. The “aero push” caused excessive wear on the right front rubber and caused several hard crashes. Tony Stewart took the “hit of the day” when his right front blew and put him hard into the wall. Accidents also collected Kurt Busch, Dale Jarrett, Patrick Carpentier, Robby Gordon and Jeff Gordon. There were eleven caution periods (a new race record) for a total of 44 laps. The race featured 19 lead changes shared by nine different drivers. The race winner, Carl Edwards, led the most laps with 86 in the P1. Matt Kenseth, Edwards’ teammate, led 70 laps while Kyle Busch recorded 56 laps as the leader. As the ’08 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season began, the critics were panning Ford’s efforts in prepping for this year. Now that Carl Edwards has won back-to-back races in a Ford Fusion, no one is being too critical of the “blue oval” guys. The Vegas win is Edwards second P1 of the year and the ninth of his career. Edwards is number one in series points with 491. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s second-place finish catapulted him from 23rd to 10th in the points race. Junior has to be happy driving the #88 for Rick Hendrick. Up Next: Atlanta Motor Speedway. You’ve seen this track before. It is a lot like the track in Las Vegas. Atlanta is 1.54 miles long with 24-degree banked turns. The drivers who did well at LVMS should do the same in Atlanta. Fox Sports will provide the pictures beginning at 10:30 AM PDT/1:30 PM EDT (that’s right – Daylight Savings Time returns on Sunday). Charlie O. Mallonee lives in Sacramento and reports on motorsports, baseball and whatever else comes out of his mind for Sports Radio Service. Contact Charlie O at raydeoman@gmail.com |
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