The real reason the IRL shortened its season?

Rumor in the IRL circles is that the real reason the IRL shortened their season was because ABC wanted the end of the NASCAR season (recently announced) and didn’t want competition for the “Chase" that they are now televising. We hear ESPN would not give IRL the best times because they indicated there was no availability, but we guess they have suddenly found availability for the Busch Series.

With ABC/ESPN having to pay NASCAR so much money for their TV rights, they will put all their efforts in marketing around NASCAR to get as high a rating for those NASCAR races they can, and totally neglect the IRL races because every advertiser for an IRL race is one less for their NASCAR races, which require a lot of revenue to pay NASCAR. In effect, NASCAR with this deal, have hammered another nail in open wheel's coffin, in particular the IRL. We would not want to be in the IRL's shoes right now. With Toyota and Chevy gone, who is going to buy all those now vacant TV ad slots?