CART, IRL Merger Won’t Soon Happen

Seven years ago, when Tony George broke away from Championship Auto Racing Teams Inc. and formed his Indy Racing League, open-wheel racing fans were thrown into a tizzy over the schism. CART had the big names and George had the Indianapolis 500.

Tony Stewart, then an IRL rookie, was about the only person who saw anything good in the split.

“I don’t know why everyone is so upset,” he said then. “It makes twice as many jobs for race car drivers and twice as many races for fans.”

In 1995, the year before the split, CART had 17 races, three in foreign countries. This year CART has 20, nine outside the U.S., and the IRL 17.

When the split occurred, it appeared that CART held all the cards. They had most of the better-known drivers, a schedule with familiar tracks, and race cars of a proven quality.

The IRL mostly had a bunch of drivers and cars dredged up by Jack Long and Phil Casey in hopes of filling the field for the 1996 Indianapolis 500. There were 17 rookies, some of whom had never raced on a big oval.

CART, proclaiming it had “the best drivers in the fastest cars,” held a race on the same day at Michigan Speedway. It appeared that the two organizations were going to have a head-on confrontation indefinitely.

The crux of the schism was George’s rule that 25 of the 33 starters must be IRL regulars, that only eight spots would be available for CART drivers. This incensed CART, which led to their scheduling the Michigan race.

“We can’t live with that,” said Michael Andretti. “It’s an insult to CART.”

In an intriguing bit of irony, Sunday’s race--in which the two organizations have reached a unified position--is split 25 and 8. The CART drivers are pole-sitter Bruno Junqueira and former 500 winner Kenny Brack of Chip Ganassi’s Target team; Andretti, Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy from Team Green; Tony Kanaan with Mo Nunn, Jimmy Vasser with Bobby Rahal and Max Papis with Eddie Cheever.

It has become apparent that neither side wants unification, that both plan to continue along their current course--the IRL with an all-American oval racing series and CART with a multidimensional series with heavy foreign involvement.

Rahal, one of the most outspoken advocates of CART during the feud, is back, at least at Indy, with a team and a driver. He may have the best solution to the situation.

“What’s wrong with having an all-oval series and an all-road series and having both meet here at Indy?” he said.

CART, which was reduced to 19 cars when Oriol Servia was dropped last week, is rumored to be losing two more after next week’s race at Milwaukee. The agreement with TV and track promoters is said to be 20 cars minimum, so CART may be in the position of going out and rounding up driver-car combinations the way the IRL did in its first couple of years.

Nevertheless, Chris Pook, president of CART, has pointed out that his series has drawn huge crowds at its first three races in Mexico, Japan and Long Beach, while IRL crowds have been disappointingly small at Homestead, Fla., Phoenix, Fontana and Nazareth, Pa.

“The CART series is a multinational racing series with multinational fans, sponsors and manufacturers, and those folks must be pleased with what they’ve seen thus far in 2002,” Pook said recently. “It may be a bit of a cliche and it has certainly been said in other forms of motor racing before, but better scripts could not have been written for the first three events this season.

“Our championship delivers real value to those that have invested in it, and that has never been more evident than in these first three races. Our strategy has been to hold events in the most important markets all over the world, and we have found success in all of these markets. We will continue ... for many years to come.”

The two sides met this week in an Open-Wheel Racing Summit at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and nothing anyone said changed any minds.

George, as the conference host, said, “We all need to coexist and raise motor sports as a whole.”

Pook was in Europe and not present at the gathering, but John Lopes, senior vice president, and Jerry Forsythe, a CART team owner, spoke for the organization.

Said Lopes: “People either love CART or they hate it, but we’re not going to die.”

Added Forsythe: “Too much has been made of a possible merger between the IRL and CART. It doesn’t need to happen. There’s great racing, and there’s room for two series.”

Roger Penske, who made the biggest statement in the conflict this year when he moved his high-profile Marlboro team from CART to the IRL, says he believes there will be only one series within five years. And it won’t be because of a merger.

That means that he is betting on the IRL.

Howard Katz, ABC Sports-TV president, echoed Penske’s feelings, but it must be noted that ABC and ESPN are contracted to televise all IRL races through 2007.

“There is not enough money, not enough sponsorship, not enough room for both U.S.-based open-wheel series,” Katz said at the summit. “If Roger saw that it was better for his future to join with Tony George, I think that’s a heck of a statement.”

The difference in TV contracts is one significant factor in the tilt toward the IRL. CART’s television program calls for seven races on CBS and the rest on Speed Channel, a cable channel unavailable in many areas. Plus, CART must buy the air time and sell its own advertising to cover expenses.

The IRL also seems to be winning the engine war. For the last six years, CART’s main strength has been in its engine manufacturers--Honda, Ford and Toyota. When CART announced a switch from non-turbocharged powerplants to normally aspirated engines similar to those used in the IRL, Honda said it was out and Ford followed. Toyota said it would supply engines only if there was a viable competitor, but would not build a spec engine as the sole supplier.

Honda dropped another bomb on CART’s future Thursday when it announced that it would provide engines, with the help of Ilmor, for the IRL in 2003. Earlier in the week, Toyota announced a 2003 program with Penske and Tom Kelley, another IRL team owner, using their engines. This gives the IRL four manufacturers, along with Chevrolet and Nissan Infiniti.

The only CART engine supplier at the moment is MG, which Toyota has said is not competition enough to warrant its building engines. Ford is the wild card. However, Rahal said he expected to have Ford engines in his CART cars next year.

“It will probably be summer before we know where CART’s engine program is going,” said Lee White, Toyota vice president. “Then we will decide if we are going to be a participant.”

Even if Toyota leaves CART completely, it will not affect its sponsorship of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“We sponsored the Long Beach race before CART ran there and we sponsored it before Toyota was part of it,” said Les Unger, Toyota national sports manager. “That race means a great deal to us. I can assure you we will be part of the Long Beach Grand Prix whether it is a CART race, an IRL race, a Formula One or one of Don Panoz’s sports car races.”

The Southland Scene

Perris Auto Speedway will celebrate its “SCRA Salute to Indy” with a 50-lap sprint car race Saturday night, 20 laps longer than usual. This brings tire wear and fuel management into the mix on the half-mile clay oval.

When Tony Jones won his third race of the season last week at Perris he moved within nine points of defending champion Cory Kruseman.