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George, Kalkhoven on Unification Plans
Written by: Jeff Olson
SPEEDtv.com   http://www.speedtv.com
02/27/2008
Homestead, Fla
 
Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven celebrate unity. (Shawn Payne/IRL photo) » More Photos

Unification was hailed as both historic and cautioned as a great deal of work Wednesday during a press conference that officially declared the end of the 12-year split that dogged American open-wheel racing.

Tony George, CEO of the Indy Racing League, and Kevin Kalkhoven, former leader of the Champ Car World Series, unveiled the details of an agreement that will bring former Champ Car teams into the IRL IndyCar Series this season. George, Kalkhoven and former Champ Car partner Gerald Forsythe reached the agreement Friday following weeks of negotiations.

“This is about looking forward,” George said. “It really has been 30 years since the sport of open-wheel racing has been unified. There were periods of years where we worked closely together and better together, but by and large there were periods of years where we weren’t so good at that.”

However, when asked if anything was written in stone about the length of the agreement, George said only, “It will outlast you and me, OK?”

“There are no guarantees other than a guarantee that we’ll do our very best to keep this together,” he said.

Kalkhoven said negotiations have been off and on for the past four years, but unifying the two series into one doesn’t necessarily end the story.

“It’s been a long, hard road to get here, but here we are,” he said. “The winners today are the fans, the teams, the drivers and the potential we have to grow the sport over the next few years. I’ve said many times that, in itself, unification isn’t some sort of magic bullet to be able to get us forward. It’s going to take an awful lot of hard work.”

As expected, the series will be forced to race twice on the same weekend in April – former Champ Car teams at Long Beach on April 20 and IndyCar regulars
at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan on April 19. The Long Beach race will be billed as a Champ Car send-off, with teams using their Panoz DP01 chassis and Cosworth turbo engines for the final time. Both races will count toward IndyCar Series standings.
Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven celebrate unity. (Shawn Payne/IRL photo) » More Photos
As many as nine former Champ Car teams and as many as a dozen drivers could join the IndyCar Series later in the season, but the task at hand is to get enough Dallara chassis and Honda engines to those teams to make it into the season opener March 29 at Homestead. Current IRL teams have been summoned to sell spare chassis to the IRL, which will then begin the process of distributing them.

Kalkhoven and Forsythe accepted George’s offer of two new or used chassis per team, one basic engine lease per team, and $1.2 million per team from the IndyCar TEAM fund to join the IndyCar Series. All nine former Champ Car teams attended a meeting Monday at Homestead with Brian Barnhart, the IRL’s director of race operations.

“The interest level is clearly high at this point in time,” Barnhart said. “You could see anywhere from eight to 12 cars on the grid beginning with the Homestead event. That’s absolutely the best-case scenario we could be looking for.”

The press conference began with a photo opportunity of drivers from both sides on the same stage, including former Champ Car drivers Justin Wilson, Will Power, Graham Rahal, Simon Pagenaud, Oriol Servia, Robert Doornbos, Nelson Philippe, Alex Tagliani and Bruno Junqueira. Joining them were IndyCar regulars Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Marco Andretti and Vitor Meira.

“For years all of us have heard potential sponsors say, ‘Which series are you in? Do you race at Indy?’” said Mike Griffin, co-owner of Panther Racing. “Now we have one series and one TV show. We’re all on the same page.”
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