February 23 2008

Yesterday one of the most ruiness battles in the history of sports came to an end when the Indy Racing League agreed to absorb the Champ Car Racing Series thus ending a twelve-year split that all but destroyed open-wheel racing in North America. Champ Car had the money but the IRL had the race; the Indy 500.

The IRL was founded to get rid of all of those foreign drivers who where invading what was the second richest racing series in the world. Twelve years later and who cares that they"re together again. To quote Gertrude Stein there simply is "no there, there".

Twelve years after the split the only marketable feature in North American Open-Wheel racing is a woman who has never won a race.

In the public consciousness "AJ", "Mario", "The Unsers" have been replaced by Dale Jr.,the Jeff Gordons, Tony Stewarts, Michael Waltrips and the like in NASCAR.

I there anyone out there who can name the last two or three Indy-500 winners. Well, maybe last year because it was Ashley Judd's husband. But even Dario Franchitti abandoned open-wheeled racing for NASCAR this year.

Champ Car had what seemed to be successful races in Canada, including the Villeneuve circuit. NASCAR pushed the Montreal race to the Laurentians as sponsorship money continued to dry up. This year we may have an IRL race in Edmonton but the Montreal and Toronto will be off the schedule.

Can Indy-type racing come back to it's once mythical stature? You can forget about it. As Abraham Lincoln said "A house divided can never stand." The house that was once built on the Indianapolis-500 has been demolished through a civil war that produced near total destruction.