Is it really finally happening?

Hallelujah! See you all at the first weekend of quals in May!

Thank God the racing gods must be looking down on open wheel racing!

YES!!!  So overdue and so much work to do, but I agree with IrieRon, IS IT MAY YET?

good news! hopefully everyone will work together to make openwheel racing a respectable series again! lets show our support!

hot diggity !

While I’m glad to see it settled this is not ideal as the fans get screwed again. A vastly superior Champ Car Panoz/Cosworth package will be mothballed in favor of an antique (not to mention ugly and unsafe) Dallara/Honda.

Great Champ Car venues such as Road America, Laguna, Toronto get shelved in order to stay in Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, and other nearly identical oval tracks. A little more planning and foresight instead of merging for merging sake would serve everyone better.

People need to know this isn’t a guaranteed fix. The IRL is failing as badly as Champ Car. Why would anyone believe giving the fans more of the same bad product is going to keep this unified approach solvent?

Let the two engine/chassis combos compete alongside to give us fans something to turn away from NASCRAP for. In this day of electronic engine management it would not take too much to tune either engine up or down to meet any equivalency formula.

Unfortunately, this is most likely a look into how we can expect to see this new unified series managed. Or should I say mismanaged.

I’m hopeful it works, but realistic.

Wow Castro resigns and IRL & CART are back together.  Who wants to bet there’s going to be ice skating in hell next.

“While I’m glad to see it settled this is not ideal as the fans get screwed again. A vastly superior Champ Car Panoz/Cosworth package will be mothballed in favor of an antique (not to mention ugly and unsafe) Dallara/Honda.

Great Champ Car venues such as Road America, Laguna, Toronto get shelved in order to stay in Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, and other nearly identical oval tracks.”

The Panoz was not designed to withstand the high-speed impacts that are part of oval racing so they have to go with the Dallara if they want to run Indy .... and everyone wants to run Indy.  Anyone watching Dario walk away from two unbelievable flipping wrecks and Briscoe get just minor injuries would attest that the Dallara is not an unsafe car.  What is unsafe is racing at 210+ mph. 

While the turbo-charged Cosworth is a great sounding engine there is no corporate sponsorship behind it.  Besides, nobody sells turbos to the general population so it’s tough for a auto manufacturer to get behind something they can’t sell to everyday people.  Racing needs all the corporate sporsorship it can get and Honda has been a major player in this effort.  And Honda wants competition.  If Kalkoven can get another automotive company to badge Cosworth then they can begin discussions on a common engine package.

I will agree that the 2008 schedule is not ideal.  But considering the short amount of time to work something out let’s be glad we have a decent schedule for 2008.  They have plenty of time to put something great together for 2009 and I am confident that they will.  Remember, most of the CC promoters are also car owners so once they all get under one roof they can hopefully work together for the good of all involved.

I would not think that all the CC races would get shelved.  LB, Edmonton and Austalia are probably “on” for this season.  Years ago, Tony fought to buy Toronto.  It looked like Cleveland and RA were also going to be on the IRL schedule at one time a few years back.  Here’s a chance for the series to trim it’s least attractive races and add some quality in their place.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and open-wheel racing won’t be put back together overnight.  Give them some time and hopefully we will have a brighter future.

Its about time.  The 2 idiots finally did something right.

I know for 2008, CCWS will lose at least 2-3 races from their glory days with Cleveland, Road America and Portland not on the schedule, but this is ABSOLUTELY what needs to be done. Would it also be enough for guys like Villeveuve, Speed, and more to come, as well as sponsors? It won’t happen overnight, but it WILL happen. Open wheel racing is too exciting to take a back seat to NASCAR.