/> Now, any sponsorship can disappear overnight (ask Conquest Racing’s Eric Bachelart about Opes Prime, for example) and leave a team stranded. That’s the nature of the business, and gives some idea of the status of companies and businessmen that the majority of U.S. open-wheel teams have had to deal with over the last decade or so in order to survive from season to season. But what has left Walker up to his neck in the financial sewer is that the money he was trying to extract from Gore had nothing to do with 2008, but money he had spent last season on the understanding that his partner would foot $2.5m of the bill. And that’s the figure he is now trying to retrieve through the legal system, with, he says, a complete set of paperwork to prove he has been wronged, and that he created and holds ownership over the Team Australia name.

Walker: focusing on the positive even as court wrangling looms. (LAT photo) » More Photos

That’s just Walker’s side of the story, of course, and, for the record Gore refuted it all in a long and surprisingly detailed press release which he assured us would be his last word on the subject before the court case. If he keeps this promise, then it would be a rare display of vocal restraint from a man who will never be mistaken for a Trappist monk.

One can only hope that the truth will out and justice be done in court. What can be said with some assurance is that if Derrick’s trying to pull a fast one, then he, like Gore, is behaving completely out of character, as former partners and even his rivals would confirm. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that in the world of motorsports, Walker could attract more glowing character references in a day than Gore could compile in a decade. Thus the vast majority of the (now former) Champ Car personnel team owners, managers and drivers believe Walker’s story and two owners even hinted to this writer before the race in Long Beach that they would gain as much satisfaction from seeing Tagliani win as they would their own drivers.