MVN - Most Valuable Network

Open-wheel owners share the love on ‘Wind Tunnel’

With open-wheel unification finally taking place on Friday, tonight’s edition of the SPEED Channel motorsports talk show “Wind Tunnel” had the IRL’s Tony George and Champ Car’s Kevin Kalkhoven on as guests for co-hosts Dave Despain and Robin Miller.

The interview was civil and complimentary between both George and Kalhkoven, although the Champ Car co-owner couldn’t resist a slight dig at Miller for his role in first reporting and blowing the cover off merger talks between the two sides late last year — to which Miller griped, “Don’t be picking on me!”

“This is ten seconds into the interview and you’ve already smacked me,” Miller said as Despain laughed in the background.

As far as new developments, it appears that George has all but decided to go ahead with a split weekend on Apr. 19-20, with the Champ Car race at Long Beach, Calif. and the IRL event at Motegi, Japan both running under IRL sanction.

Also, we learned that the press conference to formally announce unification will take place on Wednesday, presumably during the Open Test at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Here’s what both George and Kalkhoven had to say tonight.

—–

Kevin Kalkhoven on what was the key to this round of merger talks being the one that bore unification:

“Well, the press stayed out of it for a long time…(Miller gripe)…We’ve been talking Tony and I for many years, and it was just the time and Im glad to see that Tony extended an olive branch and we decided it was…the right thing to do.”

Tony on which Champ Car races will be in the 2008 schedule:

“What we’ve been working on the last couple of weeks and where we’re at today really just gets us to the starting line. I think it’s been said many times the real work starts here and now. There are a host of questions that needs to be answered. I think there are a lot of information that needs to be disseminated from the league and the league’s management to the teams. We need to start having some conversations with the promoters all the things that have been talked about in the press this week, but really, I think all due credit goes to Kevin and Gerry because everyone knows, it’s well known how passionate they are about motorsports, open-wheel racing and how committed they are to Champ Car.

“I think their decisions over the last few weeks and months really is a reflection of their commitment to the fans and this is something that can go on. Rumors of unification come up every few months every year, but this time, I think in general, they were thinking about what the long-term benefit to open-wheel racing would be by trying to get this together. They have been great to work with and this is tough, but good things come about when people take the time to think about the picture and we’re excited to be able to work with them and bring about this unification.”

Kevin on how many Champ Car teams will be ready to race at Homestead:

“I really don’t know. Obviously, this is still fairly new to all of them. I know of a few teams that have committed to do it. I know some others who are seriously considering it. They’ve got issues with their drivers whom they’ve contracted who are gonna run road courses, so there are some things to go through. But overall, we’ll say the mood is positive and I believe that there really is goodwill to try and get this thing done.”

Kevin on if he’ll be an IRL car owner at Homestead:

“I think we have to wait until [the press conference] on Wednesday.”

Kevin on a proper assessment of unified open-wheel racing’s future:

“I think the first thing is that anyone expecting unification to be some magic bullet has probably got it wrong. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us as Tony’s alluded to. I think one of the big things that will happen is [with] the advent of the new car in 2010, which will put all the teams on a level playing field. I think it will increase the level of competition and I think that, with a new schedule, will go a long way towards developing the series both nationally and internationally.”

Tony on a plan for the new car in 2010 and if turbocharged engines and multiple chassis/engine makers will play a part:

“I think, obviously, we’re gonna be using our equipment. We’ve got a schedule pretty much set for 2008, we’re gonna try and bring on board some really good events. Hopefully, we’ll be able to work those out and add them to the 2008 schedule. 2009, I think becomes a cleaner sheet of paper. We really have the opportunity to try and bring the best of both series and start bringing it together with an eye towards 2010, 2011, which would be the centennial of the Indianapolis 500…we’ve got a lot of good things going on.

“I think all the teams employ talented people — drivers, engineers, mechanics. A lot of them used to work in Champ Car, a lot of them worked in IRL, they float around, most of ‘em live in Indianapolis. I think the [new] teams will get up to speed pretty quickly. They’ll get a lot of help and I can guarantee you all the teams in our paddock are excited about this and we’ll get them up to speed as quickly as we can.

“But I do think the real opportunity comes in the next couple of years. I think we’re gonna be looking at new technologies. Turbochargers may or may not be a part of it, but it very well could. I think we’ll look at alternative fuels and just really have the opportunity to start shaping what we want IndyCar open-wheel racing to be for the future.”

Kevin on what he and Tony think IndyCar racing should be in regards to the types of tracks utilized:

“It’s gonna be largely dependent on Tony, but obviously we’ve got some strong opinions and I’ll be voicing them. But I think an equal balance of superspeedway and road [courses] is the right way to go. I think the street courses have proven to be very attractive to local audiences and I think we need to try and regain that balance we had back in the ’90s.”

Tony on the same topic:

“I agree. I think it’s gonna look a lot like a 20-race schedule with a split between the three different disciplines [ovals, road races, street races].”

Tony on possibly getting out of car ownership with his Vision Racing team:

“Yeah, I have [thought about it]. But I don’t know what I’m going to do though. My wife’s a car owner, so she may end up — you know, we’re really building the team for [Vision Racing driver and George’s stepson] Ed [Carpenter] at some point when he quits driving, so he can take it over. I’m having fun doing it and I think I’m helping the series by doing it in a number of ways, but I don’t see any conflicts.

“We’ve got good management in place and certainly, I’m involved at a high level. I would like to continue to do that. I don’t see myself getting back involved in the day-to-day, but we just got really good people on board now and there’d be no reason to muck that up.”

Kevin in response to a call-in question on the future of the Champ Car Atlantics series:

“That’s going to continue. When we were talking about developing drivers, of course, Atlantics has got a long history of developing drivers and five of the top 10 drivers last year were young Americans, so I think it’s the basis of where we can look for the future.”

Tony on the importance of more American drivers in the unified series:

“It’s important. Clearly, it’s important. Like [Sam Hornish Jr.] said, if it weren’t for the IRL, he may not have gotten a chance. He was in the Atlantics series just prior and he may or may not have gotten a chance. My guess is that he wouldn’t have had he not come to the IRL. But we hope there will be some more interest [from American drivers]. It is going to be an international series. The Indianapolis 500 has always been an international event and this is going to have it as its cornerstone…so certainly, international drivers and manufacturer participation — all that stuff — is a good thing. I’m sure you’ll see a nice balance, I hope.”

Tony on whether or not the Long Beach Grand Prix will have all IRL drivers or be run in the same weekend with the IndyCars at Motegi, Japan:

“The whole thing with this thing coming together now is that it’s coming very late and it’s not going to be, you know, a utopia. We are definitely looking at splitting the weekend between Japan and Long Beach and we’re gonna do our best to put on a world-class event in both locations. But it’s gonna be tough and those are things we’re gonna start working on. Tomorrow.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 10:50 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.