Interesting USAToday perspective

[Cam]

Couple of days ago USAToday ran an article about the new IRL season. However... Surprisingly for USAToday they do NOT paint the future as really rosey.....

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/irl/2003-02-26-irl-indycar-series_x.htm

Cam.:saywhat:

[RTKar]

I'm wondering what's going to happen in the irl when the former CART drivers with some name recognition leave the irl? What if Castroneves goes F1, de Ferran retires, Franchitti another F1 hopeful moves on.Who becomes the drivers, with what backing? CART was able to attract some top tier talent because of it's road course and street races. I don't see how the irl will attract top tier up and coming world class drivers to an all oval series without financial input from Honda and Toyota but even that arrangement would be temporary as a young driver with F1 aspirations moved on. One might think that both Honda and Toyota might try to develop some American talent if it's move to the irl is to try to focus on the American car buying public but I have my doubts that'll happen. As a matter of fact, something inside of me senses that Honda and Toyota aren't in the irl for the long haul...it's just a gut feeling. Already we're speculating that GM won't want to compete financially with Honda and Toyota and if either one of them enters NASCAR, what then? It seems to me that the irl may have won the battle but I'm not so certain if they will, the war.

[cart7]

You're point is well taken RTKar. Toyota could pull the plug to concentrate on Nascar in '05. If Chevy bails due to unwillingness to want to compete in T & H's runaway cost competition, TG would be left with Honda. Of all the former Cart drivers who switched, I can't think of any who are actually in that league for any reason other than money. I also have a feeling AGR will be knocking on Carts door in 05 as Marco gets closer to age as a OW driver. I'm sure Michael is going to want to run his kid. Honda will have V10 technology from F1 to run in Cart so they may be gone as well. Tony could be in a situation like Pook was this year. He may have chassis's, but he may not have engine builders. It's looking like the irl is getting started on re-building they're series this year with a bunch of drivers and teams who don't REALLY want to be there and who'll jump at money to go elsewhere. After destroying the whole sprint car vision foundation thing, Tony could have problems selling that league to anyone.

My God, he could actually be begging Cart to come back to Indy to fill the May field. :eek: :laugh: