Bachelart and his Conquest crew:loyal foot soldiers left out of the loop. (LAT photo) » More Photos

The lack of communication from Kalkhoven and Forsythe to the other owners and their employees is disengenous, unprofessional and Enron-like in its insulting silence. Nobody in the Champ Car office knew anything about a potential takeover by the IRL until most read it on SPEEDTV.com and some really good people have gone to work every day this week like somebody on Death Row.

One would at least think Paul Newman and Carl Haas had earned the right to be in the loop but they get no information. Ditto for Keith Wiggins, Eric Bachelart, Tom Figge, Dale Coyne and Walker.

Bachelart, who would mortgage his home – and probably has – to keep his team going, went out and spent $1 million recently on a spare car and other bits. Then, he learned his "leaders" were in the process of shutting down and making a deal with George.

Bachelart found out because I told him.

Kalkhoven and Forsythe have spent millions keeping CC afloat since 2004 so a million dollars in nothing to them but it's hard-earned for Bachelart and the least they could have done was keep their fellow owners apprised of what they were thinking. Incredibly, they paid a visit to Bachelart a couple weeks ago to tell him everything was fine and, in turn, he went on a teleconference and said he believed in them.

Believing either one of them, separately or together, is becoming increasingly difficult.

In a stretch of 12 hours last week, Kalkhoven said he and Gerry were 100 percent together on going with George in 2008 providing Long Beach was in play; then he denied there was ever a deal; declared that Motegi wasn't going to change its date to appease Long Beach so the unification plan was over; and then said everything was on hold until Motegi agreed to cooperate.

We don't know if Forsythe would have approved a deal without some buyout, because he seldom returns phone calls or speaks publicly. But a year ago at this time he vowed to only run one car unless he got sponsorship and, naturally, he wound up fielding two cars with no sponsorship. Now, still with no sponsors in sight, he might be considering paying for the whole series? That sounds as far-fetched as a guy spending $25 million to come to only three races.

Dan Jones sure has a tough time believing them. After their leaky, sticky and faulty fuel systems failed on their new Panoz cars early last season, Jones' company was contracted to save them. Now Jones is a well-liked, smart racer who is universally respected. He busted his ass and got every car fixed in time for Portland and they performed flawlessly the rest of 2007. His reward? His $300,000 bill has never been paid. He borrowed money to make payroll and is nearly out of business. He finally sued Champ Car last week.

On the flip side of this madness is TGeorge.

It would appear he's acting in good faith, based on the information we've been presented. He said early on that unification was "closer than ever before" yet there were still obstacles but if the Long Beach/Motegi problem got solved, he was optimistic. He flew to Japan last weekend to try and reach a compromise with the Honda brass.

We don't know what was decided but, obviously, George isn't going to re-schedule or postpone his race at Motegi until he sees what Champ Car is doing.

He's flown to England for Scott Dixon's wedding this weekend and some people are shocked he left the country with open wheel's future seemingly up in the air.

But maybe he already knows something. Or maybe he just knows who he's dealing with.