IRL poised to become even more dangerous

The IRL is poised to have more serious crashes in 2006 and beyond on the high-speed ovals as the spec Honda engine will mean the gap between the front of the field to the back will become even closer. It will be true pack racing NASCAR style, but with open wheel cars, when they touch, they will fly – Ryan Briscoe style.

Brian Barnhart waffled around that question when asked Thursday.

"Well, I guess that's kind of what I was laughing about when somebody asked about the level playing field. I don't think anybody's got one more level than the one we’ve got now, said Barnhart.

"That being said, I know we just said you allow for factory teams, but there are other rules in place that just create the close competition that we have. The difference from the front of our field to the back of our field is three- to four-tenths of a second, which has certainly reset the standard in terms of competition in open-wheel racing.

"By doing this now, we're not going to move the bar forward for the front teams, we're just going to give better opportunities for the teams that have been struggling in the past. I mean, now everyone will have the same specification of engine.

I guess I go back to, again, one of the best things about this announcement is that it very much falls in line with some of the founding principles of Tony George when he founded the IRL and announced in 1994, our first race in January of '96. The fundamental and founding principles that Tony brought to the series, first and foremost, included cost reduction. This is certainly going to play into that. The next one was the availability of equipment. This will be now in a scenario that is much better for everyone to be guaranteed to be getting the same equipment to get on the racetrack and a chance to compete and win.