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The “undead” rises in wake of IndyCar merger

If Indy Racing League spokesman Fred Nation is to be believed, then the 2009 IndyCar Series schedule will begin with “a clean sheet of paper.”

One can interpret that in several ways. Can we expect a couple more Champ Car venues to join Long Beach, Edmonton and Australia in flying the IndyCar banner? Can we expect a few current IndyCar tracks that aren’t getting enough fans to be booted out (we’re looking at you, Watkins Glen, Sonoma and Milwaukee)? Or can we expect the most extreme scenario –basically, no one is safe and this season will have a bunch of tracks essentially auditioning for their jobs in the IRL.

Yesterday’s announcement of American open-wheel unification was met mostly with strong applause, a bit of skepticism and a dash of outright indifference. An aside: Gotta love that ESPN article. The info’s accurate, but considering that columnist Ryan McGee spawned this ESPN-backed book on NASCAR, is he really the right guy to talk about this topic? And the fact that the IndyCars’ television “partner” put this article out on merger day should go without saying.

Back on point. The merger/absorption/ingestion of Champ Car by the IndyCar Series has left a lot of races out in the cold for this season, which will be the product of a shotgun wedding. I’m honestly believing that while 2008 will bring a small boost of interest, 2009 will be a much better situation for us to see how this tale will play out. And who’s to say that Toronto, Cleveland, Houston, or even Michigan won’t come back next season, either?

But right now, these events are like what Champ Car was for the past four years: undead zombies walking the Earth, waiting for something to happen.

In any case, we’re starting to get predictions for what the ‘09 docket will look like and no matter how it turns out, some of these zombies will live again and others will be given a mercy killing. And for spits and giggles, we would prefer that killing to be something like how those two British dimwits in “Shaun of the Dead” took care of their own zombie problem.

But at least Houston GP promoter Mike Lanigan (one-third of Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing) still has the American Le Mans Series to build his ‘08 race around down in Texas. And Sonoma’s Infineon Raceway is also trying to make some hay with yesterday’s events.

The first 250 fans to order tickets to their IndyCar Series event in August will score a free full-weekend garage pass as a “wedding favor” of sorts. That’s the track’s words, not mine. They’ve even made a mock ”wedding” invitation and everything. Sweet and all, but considering what this open-wheel union really is, this is a more accurate description (photo credit to IsItMayYet).

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.