SPECIAL: Vertically Challenged

IndyCar

SPECIAL: Vertically Challenged

Assuming The Split becomes The Deal, what’s next for Champ Car teams? RACER’s David Phillips asked the men who will have to make it work.

David Phillips | http://www.racer.com/speedtv | Posted February 19, 2008 Pittsburgh, Pa.

That vertical wall facing Champ Car competitors contemplating the impending merger with the Indy Racing League is the Dallara-Honda learning curve. For while the IRL’s top IndyCar Series teams and drivers have had as much as seven seasons to learn the ins, outs and idiosyncrasies of the Dallara-Honda package, as of today the Champ Car teams have 32 days to prepare for the 2008 IndyCar Series season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

What’s more (or less), apart from Team Australia which “borrowed” a Dallara-Honda from Fernandez Racing last week, the Champ Car-istas don’t have much to work with as yet.

“As of today we can barely spell ‘Dallara,’” said PKV Racing general manager Mark Johnson. “We don’t have a car in the shops.”

Although precise details are sketchy – not surprising as the merger has yet to be officially consummated – the much-discussed plans to unite the series evidently involve the IRL providing a Dallara chassis and Honda engine lease program (or two) to the Champ Car teams, along with $1.5m in financial support. Assuming the merger does happen and the car/engine/financial package is as believed, few expect the Champ Car teams to be much more than speed bumps for the IndyCar Series regulars in the early going of the ’08 campaign.

Reaction to that runs from resignation to acceptance of the fact that it’s the price that has to be paid for an end to American open-wheel racing’s internecine war.

“Unfortunately this is the hand we’ve been deal,” observes Michael Cannon, race engineer for Minardi Team USA. “We cast our bread on the water years ago and now we’re going to have to pay the price a little bit, aren’t we?”

What with IRL Spring Training slated to commence in a week’s time and the season opener at Homestead-Miami scheduled for March 27-29, that hand amounts to a collection of deuces, tres and fours rather than a flush or a full house. That said, the Dallara-Honda is nothing more – or less – than a race car. And the stock and trade of race car teams -- be they Champ Car or IRL – is figuring out how to make race cars work.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Phillips

Senior writer, RACER Magazine

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