CART/IRL Merger News

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
We aren't about to say there won't be news today. In fact, we expect a lot more news this afternoon.

Kevin Kalkhoven and Tony George are supposed to be sitting down today to hammer out the final details with the lawyers and if everything goes according to plan, there will be a press conference on Friday.

TSO has confirmed that whenever this press conference takes place, it will be presented to the public on indycar.com via live streaming video. The public will not be allowed in the actual press conference itself - which we presume will take place in the Economaki room of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Based on the excitment for a deal in Indy - we expect a good crowd of reporters will attend. And of course TSO will be there (via the teleconference we anticipate will be set up as that is standard for any major IRL announcements).

The IndyStar has a good story again today where many of the track promoters that will NOT make the 2008 combined schedule are saying they won't be filing lawsuits or doing anything to hold up the merger. Places like Toronto are prepared to take 2008 off, and try to come back strong in 2009.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080221/SPORTS0107/802210498

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As for Motegi/Long Beach. Let's just say we are NOT cancelling our travel plans for the present April 19th date and interestingly enough, we don't think we will need to. The rumors of running two races the same weekend are pretty strong - and while they are still rumors, they are gathering steam.

If it does happen that way, TSO might even try and get back to LA in time for Sunday's race in Long Beach, which is quite possible if you either have your own jet or catch the early flight from Narita to LAX (we'd be doing the latter if possible ;) ). Or I might just stay out too late at the "Drunken Duck" in Mito, sleep in on Sunday and then take my scheduled afternoon flights home. We'll wait for some official announcements before changing any plans.

As to where the cars would come from - don't know! It's likely a couple of teams would have to run extra cars. We believe there will be 16 IndyCar Series entries coming from "IRL" teams. If necessary (and lets be honest, they would need funding help) teams like Rahal Letterman, Panther, Vision, DRR could run extra cars to get 18-20 cars on to the grid. We'd already heard that Roger Yasukawa was trying for a Motegi/Indy 500 deal this year, so that would help there.

And perhaps Sarah Fisher's team would get a little help and she could expand her rumored 2008 part-time schedule to include a run in Japan. (Adding Roger and Sarah would create an 18 car field if the rest of the entries pan out as planned).

As to Long Beach getting their numbers up - same thing. There are lots of teams and drivers if someone comes up with the money to make it happen. Those teams would be at a disadvantage for the overall title though as they'd be going back and forth between equipment - not something they would really like to do.

They would get to run a track they are familiar with (like the IRL teams) in cars they understand (like the IRL teams) and they would earn equal points to the competitors in Motegi. The disadvantage would likely show at Kansas. The IRL teams would have just come from an oval (where common sense says they learned something), while the CCWS teams who already have less than full notebooks of data, would have come from running a different car on street circuit.

A little extra testing for the CCWS teams will speed up this learning curve, and we hear that is being planned.
 
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