Merger plans are off?
"We continue to talk in really good faith," Kalkhoven said. "We're both committed not only to the 500, but to getting it back to its place as a huge international spectacle."
The leaders of the Indy Racing League and Champ Car said there have been meetings between their competition directors, Brian Barnhart and Tony Cotman, respectively. Representatives from the engine manufacturers — Honda and Cosworth — have been involved, too.
The last meeting between George and Kalkhoven was May 11. George said they already have their next agenda item.
"We're going to share our views of what we think the next three years will look like in unification," he said.
05/18/06 Perhaps a bit more positive news that the merger is still alive. Tony George was quoted by the USA Today newspaper that "barring a revelation over the next 10 days," not to expect a merger with Champ Car before the Indy 500 May 28th. George said there needs to be an agreement in place in the next 60 days, however.
"It's going to take some time but I'm not closing the door on this," George said. "There is a lot more progress that needs to be made for us to get together."
George said that once a philosophy of a merged series is agreed upon, other issues – including schedule, car specifications and even a name must be settled. "Once we're together and start living under the same roof, that gives us the best shot of planning our future together," he said.
Like we said, the rumor below might have been fed to us to divert us into thinking a merger was not at hand so as not to spoil an announcement. Given George's words above, we tend to think this merger is still going to eventually happen and we are downgrading this rumor to 'speculation,' and hopefully eventually to 'false.' Mark C.
05/17/06 Rumor (strong) has it that the Champ Car/IRL merger possibility has greatly diminished, primarily due to Tony George's camp. The IRL simply has shifted into greedy mode and has started making outlandish requests. Some say they are emboldened by 1) a full Indy 500 field, 2) France family pressure and money – they don't want to see a strong open wheel racing series, 3) the thinking they can win this war without a merger, that Champ Car and its teams have failed miserably in their marketing efforts to land sponsors, and that Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe will eventually get tired of writing checks to keep it propped up. It has really dimmed the climate in open-wheeled racing, as everyone had hoped a merger was very close.
A couple of related rumors that we heard was that the IRL wants to use their chassis, called Crapwagons by the fans because they are perhaps the ugliest looking race car on the track behind Grand-Am cars. We also heard that Honda wants to continue to use their current normally aspirated IRL engine and refuse to do a turbo. If true, here we go again, the manufacturers trying to dictate what the series should do. The turbo being the preferred engine by just about everyone, it certainly is quieter for the street races and a much more versatile engine. Talk in the paddock is that Honda does not want to invest in upgrades to their old CART turbo engine because they will be gone from open wheel racing in about three years when they move to NASCAR. Honda denies a move to NASCAR is in the works, but not everyone believes that.
Champ Car has decided to move forward with their new Panoz chassis, so now there is no turning back, as Champ Car teams will not be buying IRL chassis, thereby making the merger pretty much a dead issue unless the rumor that the IRL will not use the new car is false.
If the Tony George camp has indeed dug their heels in, it could well mean the end of a merger and the end of open wheel racing in the USA. We suspect that some of the big IRL teams will follow the Honda and Toyota money to NASCAR and ALMS, just as they followed it from CART to the IRL.
Is this rumor true, or is it just a diversion so as not to spoil a big announcement? After all, Tony and Kevin even made a public appearance together last week and Tony flew to Houston this past weekend (we doubt he likes ALMS that much). Only time will tell, but we suspect if the announcement does not happen in May, and if Champ Car begins to make announcements for new venues and sponsors in June, that the rumor is probably true.