Bernard commits to combining IndyCar record books

Randy Bernard didn't like a lot of things he saw with the IRL, so he is changing it, including the series name to IndyCar and merging the statistics from AAA and CART

SPEEDTV.com/Marshall Pruett: What’s the biggest complaint and compliment you hear about the series from drivers?

Randy Bernard: Dealing with the press…no, just kidding. The biggest complaint from the drivers was that they wanted more input, so they created a committee to bring their suggestions to IndyCar. The biggest compliment was probably from Dario Franchitti. He told me five different times that the best thing that we've done is change from IRL to IndyCar.

The other one is what we’re doing with our history books. When you talk about all open-wheel drivers – legends and current – the fact that we are going to roll all the statistics up and combine them, so IndyCar statistics will go back for a hundred years, is something I know they appreciate. I think IndyCar fans—CART, IRL, AAA; you name it—will appreciate that too. We have statisticians putting it together right now. They’re combining them as we speak. By the time the new season gets here, you should see a new combined set of IndyCar statistics in our media guide. I think it’s important.

I think if someone breaks one of AJ Foyt’s records, that's huge news. And it’s not being disrespectful to [the legends]… they want it too, they want to see their records recognized for being so great, which they are. And I think that we try to hide that. It was open-wheel racing before the IRL was created, by God, and we need to make sure we go back to that and we combine everything and make sure we honor those legends that have been such a big important part of our history. And if someone breaks one of those records, it’s a huge, huge accomplishment. I think the real open-wheel purist is going to love that. This is long overdue, in my book.