Rahal: "I think we're all unhappy with the front office in terms of consistency and communication." (LAT photo) » More Photos

None of the owners or team managers interviewed would discuss specifics (as per their agreement as they left the last meeting), but the areas of concern are fairly obvious. Testing rules are all over the board, high-priced spare parts from Dallara, difficulty in timely delivery, small purses, rules enforcement and a rule book with many loopholes would seem to be the likely topics of discussion.

“I think we’re all unhappy with the front office in terms of consistency and communication,” said Rahal. “The philosophy of the league also needs to be the philosophy of the teams. You can’t have the constituents feeling one way and the rules makers feeling the other. They need to be in lock step.”

Keith Wiggins, owner of HVM Racing, one of the teams that came from Champ Car, said it was simply common sense from his perspective.

“I think all of the areas could be tightened up, and we all know the obvious things like ‘change costs money’ and restricting certain things can obviously help,” said Wiggins, who ran his own Formula 1 team in the ’90s. “I think the owners all see that and I think the league is aware of it.”

Vasser, whose Indy-based team also came from Champ Car, would like to see private testing curtailed. “I’d like to see us have only open tests for everyone and only have them in markets we run in,” said the 1996 CART champ. “It’s something like $100 a mile to test privately, so put a freeze on it.”

Rahal, whose one-car team with Ryan Hunter-Reay won at Watkins Glen this past season, added: “We need to take as much cost as possible out of the series.”

The Big 3 of Ganassi, Penske and Andretti Green have won the last five championships and 69 of the last 81 races because they have the best budgets, resources and depth of experience with the Dallara-Honda. Obviously, they like the fact they’ll have the same package for two more years before the new cars and engines are introduced, but Hull says status quo is still better for everyone.

“If you freeze the rules, except for something safety wise, and you are very religious about policing them, everybody will catch up to you,” said Hull. “If you keep changing them, they never will.

“There was more commonality in that owners’ meeting than you would think, so now we’ve got to make some common ideas that can be presented to Brian and Terry in a positive way.”

Buhl added: “It’s amazing. We’re a smaller team but I’m hearing the same challenges amongst all of us. We’ve got a great pool of knowledge among these owners and we’ve got a great product and we just collectively want to try and make it stronger.”

But Hull was quick to dispel any notion the owners were looking to run the show: “Nobody wants to go back to an owner-based situation.”