It's time for the Merger

[Gerardo]

Guys,

As some of you know, I had the privilege of spotting for Cristiano da Matta at Milwaukee. While doing so was an incredible experience, I had an opportunity to see first hand this year's show quality in Champ Car.

They do a nice job, but I have never felt more passionate about the need for the IRL and Champ Car to merge. I keep thinking about how to make the show better, how to give the fans more bang for their buck, how many more support races to have (Star Mazda was the only support race at Milwaukee, and it was on Saturday). Every brainstorm session leads to the same thing: merger.

Check out the potential driver list:

A.J. Allmendinger
Andrew Ranger
Antonio Pizzonia
Bruno Junqueira
Bryan Herta
Buddy Rice
Cristiano da Matta
Dan Wheldon
Danica Patrick
Dario Franchitti
Felipe Giaffone
Helio Castroneves
Justin Wilson
Katherine Legge
Kosuke Matsuura
Marco Andretti
Mario Dominguez
Nelson Philippe
Oriol Servia
Paul Tracy
Sam Hornish Jr
Scott Dixon
Scott Sharp
Sebastien Bourdais
Tomas Scheckter
Tony Kanaan
Vitor Meira
Will Power

And this is only 28 names. There are other drivers in the two series who would likely try to stay probably yielding 30 to 40 cars. Why not? Better yet, look at Atlantic, IPS, Star Mazda, Formula BMW, and Skip Barber National and you will see plenty of reason we really need to have a single series, a real news item, a real reason for passion again outside Nascar.

Look at this driver list from 1995, the last year of an undivided series. All the drivers below entered at least one race. Villeneuve was champion.

Adrian Fernandez
Al Unser Jr.
Alessandro Zampedri
Andre Ribeiro
Arie Luyendyk
Bobby Rahal
Brian Till
Bryan Herta
Buddy Lazier
Carlos Guerrero
Christian Danner
Christian Fittipaldi
Danny Sullivan
Davy Jones
Dean Hall
Dennis Vitolo
Eddie Cheever
Eliseo Salazar
Emerson Fittipaldi
Eric Bachelart
Franck Freon
Fredrik Ekblom
Gil de Ferran
Hideshi Matsuda
Hiro Matsushita
Hubert Stromberger
Jacques Villeneuve
Jimmy Vasser
Juan Fangio II
Lyn St. James
Marco Greco
Mauricio Gugelmin
Michael Andretti
Mimmo Schiattarella
Parker Johnstone
Paul Tracy
Raul Boesel
Robby Gordon
Roberto Guerrero
Scott Brayton
Scott Goodyear
Scott Pruett
Scott Sharp
Stan Fox
Stefan Johansson
Teo Fabi

Maybe I've got some skin in this game now. Maybe I want more than ever a single series, a better business propostition for my sponsors and future sponsors. Maybe I feel a responsibility to the fans and have an idea of how to make their ticket carry more value and fun. Maybe I want whoever owns whatever series, teams, race tracks to all have positive cash flow to grow the industry. I think I want all these things. I think Tony and Kevin do to.

[Charlie25]

I've been doing a lot of research on the business of racing in my year off from school and as far as I can tell there are two major hurdles preventing a merger (or, what I personally would prefer to see, Champ Car adding Indy to the schedule and absorbing the IRL's teams and drivers):

A short-sighted, incompetent businessman from Indiana, and a very powerful family from Daytona. Look at what's going on in Phoenix and tell me NASCAR wasn't involved in splitting open wheel racing.

It's painfully obvious to everyone involved that this country isn't big enough for two series, it's been obvious from the very start yet this nonsense carries on...

Ugh. I HATE politics...

[dalyduo]

In arena's of power, money and ego... common sense is frequently shunted aside. I believe they are both doing the dance right now to bring the groups together and each is jockeying for position and power. They certainly see some of the same things Gerardo is invisioning and realize they will gain more by spreading the wealth than trying to contain it. I think they also see that if they don't merge, they'll lose everything and that is the biggest motivator of all. It isn't happening fast enough but I think it will happen one way or the other.

[dlippert]

The following is from Autosport-Atlas on Tuesday. I believe thay are at the integration details level now: chassis, engines, staff, events, rules etc. That's where the real hard work is.

Kalkhoven: merger talks still on

By David Malsher Tuesday, June 6th 2006, 16:35 GMT


Kevin Kalkhoven has confirmed that the potential merger between the Champ Car World Series and the Indy Racing League is still on course, but that he is not putting a deadline on it.

The Champ Car series co-owner told autosport.com: "This has been the problem since the news got out that we were in talks with Tony [George, IRL president].

"Everyone has got impatient about when a merger might happen, and I understand that because everyone with a love of open-wheel racing realises that combining forces is the way forward.

"However, it's important for everyone to know that we share that desire and that's precisely why we don't want this to be a rushed job. Our priority is to do it correctly, not to do it as quick as possible.

"The fact is, right from the start, Tony and I never put a timescale on a potential merger for that very reason. All this talk of timescales and deadlines has been pure media speculation, and certainly nothing that either side we have put out there."

Asked of the major issues to overcome, Kalkhoven went on: "There are no sticking points. There is just an enormous amount of work to get through. Both sides bring a lot to the table in a merged series, and we want any potential result to be the best of both."

Autosport.com understands from other sources, however, that any chance of a merger happening in time for the 2007 racing season has all but disappeared, and this appeared to be confirmed as Kalkhoven stated that Champ Car is still pressing ahead with its own '07 calendar.

"Absolutely, Champ Car has to keep going with its own plans too. We expect to have the 2007 calendar out in August this year, and we will be reviewing all our options."

Those options include a street race in Las Vegas as season-opener, a street race in downtown Phoenix as season-closer, and a race at Zhuhai, China around August.

The Milwaukee Mile is likely to lose its date following another poorly attended - around 15,000 spectators - event.

[sydude]

Here's a good one from a Racer Mag issue a few months ago.

[sydude]

Here's a BRILLIANT article from RaceFax on the whole IRL/ChampCar situation:

LastRide.pdf

Here's the first few lines...

"Forget prospering. Simply to survive, a racing series needs exciting racing which appeals to more than ‘gear heads’ like us, a sympathetic and dramatic presentation at the tracks and on television, and promotion which brings an increasing audience to the sport. American open-wheel racing — the Indy Racing League and Champ Car — falls into the ‘none of the above’ category, and survives solely because the series owners’ pockets are deeper than was CART’s war chest. Something has to be done, and done quickly, because the sport is racing toward..

Mindy's Last Ride...

I am Mindy
I am everything I want
I got everything I need
Know exactly what to do
‘Cause I am Mindy

Common misinterpretation of lyrics to “I Am Indy,” the IRL ‘anthem’ attributed to KISS rocker/marketer Gene Simmons."

[dlippert]

Here's more on the subject from this week:

Posted on Wed, Jun. 07, 2006

IRL, Champ Car face uphill climb on road to merger

BY TERRY BLOUNT
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS - In a perfect world, more than 30 cars would line up on the starting grid this weekend for the Bombardier Learjet 500.

Fans at Texas Motor Speedway would see Paul Newman sitting on the pit box, glaring over at old rival Roger Penske as they got ready to watch their drivers compete.

Sebastien Bourdais, possibly the best open-wheel racer in America, would go wheel-to-wheel with the last two Indy 500 winners - Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon.

Danica Patrick would try to show a thing or two to Katherine Legge.

Indy-car racing would be one big happy family again for the first time in more than a decade.

Unfortunately, American open-wheel racing is not a perfect world. Far from it.

The IRL and Champ Car went their separates ways 11 years ago. But for the first time, there's realistic hope that the bitter split will come to an end soon.

Dario Franchitti, who competes in the IRL, is one of several drivers who have raced in both leagues. He is cautiously optimistic of seeing the merger come to fruition.

"I would love for it to happen," Franchitti said. "I don't think having two different series is helping anybody at this point. We want to race against all the best drivers in open-wheel racing. And we want to go to all the best venues.

"It just makes so much sense for everybody concerned - drivers, teams and sponsors. If were up to us, it already would have happened. I just hope the guys trying to do this can get it together. I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

The two men trying to work this out are IRL founder Tony George and Champ Car boss Kevin Kalkhoven. They continue to discuss the ramifications of a possible merger.

Kalkhoven attended the Indianapolis 500 last week as George's guest. It was his first trip to the Brickyard since 1966 when Graham Hill won the event.

George won't say how the talks are going. Kalkhoven spoke about it before the Houston Champ Car race last month, but didn't give many details.

"The best thing people can do is leave us alone and let us work on it," he said.

Penske disagrees with that idea.

"I don't think this little dating game between Tony and Kevin is going to work," he said. "What we need to do is get all the (team) owners in a room, see if we can hammer out a schedule and go from there."

Some people would say that's what caused the breakup. Team owners had too much say in how CART, as Champ Car was known then, was run.

How the two leagues got to where they are today in ancient history. All that matters is how they can become one again.

"This thing needs to be unified," said Al Unser Jr., the two-time Indy 500 winner who also has raced in both leagues. "We all have to go in the same direction. The split has definitely hurt open-wheel racing. It needs to be rectified, and it needs to happen soon."

Even if George and Kalkhoven agreed to do it, which they haven't yet, getting it done is a major undertaking.

The cars look the same to the casual fan, but they are completely different. The chassis and engines are different styles and different manufacturers.

The leagues need to agree on a common formula, which also requires getting the manufacturers to agree.

Honda president Robert Clarke has said repeatedly that he's a big proponent of unification. Honda supplies engines for the IRL, but Honda used to build engines in Champ Car.

Kalkhoven recently purchased Cosworth, the division of Ford that builds racing engines. Cosworth supplies the Champ Car motors.

Both engine manufacturers could compete in a combined league if they can agree on an engine formula. The IRL uses normally aspirated motors; Champ Car uses turbo-charged engines.

Another problem is the schedule. The IRL and Champ Car have only one common venue - the 1-mile oval in Milwaukee. The principals must agree on a combined schedule that keeps the best locations of both series.

Some tracks would get left out. That presents another problem if those tracks have multiyear agreements with either league.

The leagues use different TV networks, but the IRL has the better deal with ABC/ESPN.

Clearly, there's a lot to overcome.

"I don't know that it will ever happen," said TMS president Eddie Gossage. "But I wish it would. I love Indy-car racing. I'm very passionate about it. I feel we've done things here that have been incredibly good for the IRL. I just want Indy-car racing to succeed."

The problem on agreeing to a merger is deeper than deciding on equipment and scheduling. After all these years, bitter feelings remain on both sides.

Newman hasn't attended an Indy 500 since the split, even though his team competed in the event twice.

Some fans love one league and hate the other. IRL fans love the side-by-side racing of banked oval tracks. Some Champ Car fans see that as overly dangerous.

Even Bourdais, who won on the Las Vegas Motor Speedway oval last year, doesn't care for oval racing or the Indy 500.

"I did it once and that was enough," Bourdais, who finished twelfth at Indy in 2005, said in Houston last month. "Those (IRL) cars are dangerous."

Kalkhoven also prefers street races, which Champ Car sells as a three-day festival that culminates with the race.

Both leagues are suffering from a lack of sponsorship and low TV ratings in comparison to NASCAR. Only 19 cars are expected to race at TMS. Only 17 cars raced in the last Champ Car event.

No one thinks a merger would change things overnight, but it could begin to change public perception of two rival leagues heading in opposite directions.

"To me, it's the only chance open-wheel racing has of getting the attention it deserves," Michael Andretti said last week at Indianapolis. "So much has been lost. We have to put this back together."

[PT Cruiser]

The race fax article raises some very interesting questions. I found the author's assertion that a unification of sorts has already occurred (when Penske, Rahal, Andretti-Green, and Fernadez moved from CART to the IRL in 2003) --and that it didn't help anything-- thought provoking, to say the least. I do think the author underplays the benefits of reunification --mainly that you'd have the same subsidies (from George, Kalkhoven, and Forsyth) covering a much smaller expense base (although in the short run, it is true that combining the series does increase some expenses, as at least some if not all of the teams will need to invest in new equipment, and contracts with promoters whose races get axed will need to be brought out). But one has to wonder if he has a valid point, that open wheel racing has gotten so weak in the US that unification won't come close to making the whole enterprise profitable again.

In my mind, both leagues should take a page from the A1GP playbook, and design a set of rules that would make it fun to watch the racing again. Specifically, come up with a formula where power far exceeds available grip at every track, so that the driver matters; where aerodynamics are limited to only the amount necessary to keep the cars stable at high speeds (and prevent them from flying into the grandstands), so that close pursuit is no longer made impossible by turbulence; and where the tires can be run competitively at obscene slip angles so that fans can actually see the cars slide though the corners--something that seems to have disappeared in all forms of open wheel racing about the time that radial tires replaced bias-ply (Georrge, Kalkhoven, and Forsyth should ask themselves why drifting is far more popular with the 18-35 crowd than open wheel racing. If I were them, I'd be begging Bridgestone to come up with a tire that can be run on asphalt, but which makes one think sprint cars on dirt ). And make it all as spec as possible to keep costs from escalating through the roof.

Finally, the combined league should invest about $50 Million buying out the contracts of Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and a few other NASCAR stars with open wheel experience in their past. And perhaps they could entice one M. Shumacher over to the states for a couple of years when he is ready to quit F1. A bit risky, given the $$$s that would be required, but might be the only quick way to bring in a lot of new fans and sponsors to the unified series.

[jdc916]

We definitely dont need Schumacher and his smug attitude over here !!! He can stay in F1 !!! American open wheel racing doesnt need any driver who finds it necessary to park his car in the last turn of the last lap of qualifying in order to keep a faster car from beating him in taking pole.


However, as far as Jeff Gordon in a champ car...... now that would be cool !

Tony Stewart........ tell him to shave and drop a few pounds cause we're definitely not going to add weight to everyone else's car to even the playing field !

I think Marco Andretti would be cool in a champ car too. I wouldnt mind seeing Al Jr back in champ car.

If you combined the two series and let's say all the teams stayed from each, you'd have potentially 35 car fields at each event. Can you imagine a 35 car field in a champ car race ? When was the last time that happened ? Aside from Indy......

A 16 or 18 heck even 20 race schedule would entice enough people to start to watch again. I know I would.

As far as combining the current equipment from both series..... you could limit the boost on the turbo's to make them somewhat level with the natuarlly aspirated cars for say a year or two thus giving IRL teams time to switch over. It's probably easier to stay with a turbo engine anyway since Honda used to build those in the CART days and not to mention the sound better anyway.


Just my two cents

[Gerardo]

Peter,

Interesting ideas. I haven't thought about hiring in popular drivers from other series, like Schumacher, Stewart, Gordon, etc (Joe, no worries about Schumacher, he's not likely to do that again). I don't know if these drivers would want to come, but if they are paid enough, perhaps it could add something. Interesting.

You also commented about the slip angles of the cars. In yesterday's Star Mazda broadcast, I noticed the cars getting sideways as they crested the hill at Mid-Ohio's turn 11. It was really cool to watch, and you could tell who had the corner figured out. Guess what tires the Mazda series uses? That's right, bias-ply. The engineers hate them because they are inconsistent diameters out of the mold and grow in diameter after the first few laps (affecting corner weights and ride heights) but adding unpredictability that may actually be best for the FANS. The bias-plies allow for more sliip angle and entertainment value, and make the cars easier to catch when you screw up. Thanks for bringing up that point too.

All the problems listed in this thread, especially the problems listed in Lippert's post, are all solvable. Yes, it won't be easy, but all these issues can be taken care of. Some will cost money, some will cost ego, but when you really want something, you pay the price of admission. You do what it takes.

[PT Cruiser]

Interesting. I had no idea that any race series today still used bias-ply tires. As a live spectator at Houston, I found the Star-Mazda cars quite entertaining to watch, but then again the track was sooooo bumpy that ALL of the classes, including the Champ cars, were more entertaining to watch than usual. As such, the Mazdas didn't stand out. I wonder if I had been a Mid-Ohio whether the difference would have seemed more obvious (unfortunately, we don't get Speed here in Texas, so I can't see the Mazda rebroadcasts).

[sydude]

I just read in an inside F1 business paper that Kalhoven and George have agreed that the first step for the unification is to have the two series running at the same race weekend - one on Saturday and one on Sunday. From there they will figure out how to blend the machinery together. Pretty interesting stuff.

Also, here's an updated article from SpeedTV:

Update - "Conceptual Agreement" on Ownership in Place for Open-Wheel Merger?
Written by: RACER staffRichmond, Va. – 6/25/2006

The ongoing talks between Indy Racing League founder and CEO Tony George and Champ Car World Series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven appear to have cleared a significant hurdle, with George telling The Indianapolis Star Saturday night that he and Kalkhoven have agreed in principle to share ownership of a unified series. However, he made clear that the details which must be agreed upon before such a merger could happen remain unresolved.

"We've agreed conceptually (to share ownership), yes," George said at Richmond International Raceway. "Now we have to agree on how we would go about resolving differences that might come up."

On SPEED Channel's Speed News Sunday, Kalkhoven sounded a similarly optimistic note, although he also made clear that no specifics were yet ready to announce.

"I believe there will be unification. I can’t put a time on it - Tony [George]’s really busy with the U.S. Grand Prix at the moment; there are a lot of issues still to be worked out, whether it’s ‘07 or ‘08 or…whenever," Kalkhoven told SPEED. "But I think for the first time in a long time there’s a lot of goodwill in trying to get this thing done.”

George told the Star he and Kalkhoven have discussed plans to bring the Champ Car teams to the Indianapolis 500 next year as an interim step, although details have not been finalized. Kalkhoven, who has indicated a full merger of the two series could take place over time with combined events as a transition period, is adamant that Champ Car’s planned Panoz chassis, scheduled to be unveiled at the CCWS’ San Jose Grand Prix next month, be used in a unified series.

"You don't throw away that kind of development," the Star quotes Kalkhoven as saying. "It will be extremely economic to operate."

[dalyduo]

This remninds me abstractly of a quote in Doug's Mt. Tremblant video while observing Sy giving driving advice...

"An Iranian teaching a Frenchman to drive... How does this work?!"

or better yet... the new merged series will be sponsored by Reeses Peanut Butter cups because simultaneous race weekends merger mirrors the invention of the peanut butter cup.

"Hey you got some peanut butter on my chocolate..."
"Hey you got some chocolate on my peanut butter!..."
MMMMM this tastes delicious... I've think we've got something here!

Hope they make a very fast peanut butter cup.

[kwlorentzen]

Originally Posted by dalyduo

"Hey you got some peanut butter on my chocolate..."
"Hey you got some chocolate on my peanut butter!..."
MMMMM this tastes delicious... I've think we've got something here!

At the risk of being , why don't we throw Tony Kanaan's caramel in there with Kevin Harvick's milk chocolate candy cup-hmmm, that didn't come out quite right- and enjoy the latest sensation!

[jdc916]

Now thats a stupid commercial !

Too bad Reese's or their parent company are not Champ Car sponsors ! It would have been more relavent !