Audi to shun dumbed down USCR and IndyCar? (Update)

UPDATE Per this announcement Audi will compete the France Family owned United Sports Car Racing Series. However, the rumors of Audi coming to IndyCar are now pretty much over. Why? The Hulman George family chooses to keep collecting the NBC Sports Network check instead of putting all races on ABC…….so sponsors are bailing and new engine manufacturers have no interest. The family then has to prop the teams up using the NBC money by funneling it through the Leader Card program. This ensures the series stays weak and never proper’s.

07/02/13 According to Audi Sport boss Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, sports car racing's biggest spender has yet to decide if it will compete at the highest level in North America next year.

With the deletion of the LMP1 category from the new United SportsCar Racing championship, the 12-time overall winners at the 24 Hours of Le Mans are currently left without a series to showcase its prototypes in our market – at least one that allows the German marque to use a prototype that's currently in its inventory. And, coupled with the recent split between Audi and its R&D chief Wolfgang Durheimer, who set the strategy for the company's motorsport plans, many of the grand ambitions held by Durheimer within the American market have been put on hold.

In March, Ullrich had seemed far more positive about something coming together for 2014, but with the first USCR race at Daytona just over 200 days away, the untimely change in R&D leadership has come at the wrong time – exactly when a decision was needed to be made on the future.

“It's interesting to discuss what Audi might be doing, but we have not decided yet to go into any open-wheel program, therefore I really can't give you any comment on that, and the same is true on sports cars. We have been in negotiation with [the IndyCar Series] and received information; we looked in detail into that, and we have had many meetings with [Grand-Am] about the new series. Still, it's difficult to find the right thing to do for the United States in the short-term future." More at Racer.com