I miss the Champ Car World Series.
I love the Indy Racing League. I've always enjoyed the oval-track series. Ever since Buddy Lazier won the first Indianapolis 500 under the new sanctioning body, coming back from a devastating back injury from only a couple months before, I was hooked.
Likewise, I believe the merger between the IRL and the CCWS was necessary for the sport to continue to grow. I expect larger crowds, more competition, a more entertaining Bump Day, and—as I controversially wrote a while back—the combined series to one day overtake Formula One in terms of racing quality and participation.
But I still miss Champ Car.
What isn't there to miss? Champ Car was our link to Formula One in the United States. It seemed that every driver in the series either aspired to drive in F1, or already had.
As a matter of fact, last year's top three drivers—Sebastien Bourdais, Justin Wilson, and Robert Doornbos—all have F1 experience, whether as Sunday or Friday drivers.
It produced such stars as Bourdais, whose four consecutive championships may be one of the most impressive feats in motorsports history.
It provided an opportunity for European drivers like Wilson and Doornbos to continue driving open-wheeled cars on road courses, but come to America as well.
It made us forget that Paul Tracy used to be a dorky Canadian with glasses who drove for Penske Racing.
It included races in parking lots, on street courses, at closed-circuit road courses and around ovals. The Champ Car guys raced wherever they could. They even tried to bring the series to China for one round, although the FIA ultimately wouldn't let the race go off.
It was auto racing at its finest.
Now it's gone.
The remnants include ten former Champ Car teams (mostly underperforming) and three former Champ Car races now part of the IRL, with more races likely to be added next season. The safety team remains intact and is now a part of the IRL. Likewise, the rights to the history of the sport—Champ Car's history—belong to the IRL as well.
Everything else was auctioned off a few weeks ago.
Cars of all sorts, hats, banners, Midway's old CART FURY videogame, anything that had any value was auctioned away to the highest bidder.
It's sad that a fabled series that was supposed to be celebrating its 30th anniversary this year had to go away like this. Obviously it was never the same after Penske Racing and Ganassi Racing joined the IRL, but the battles between Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, Forsythe Racing, RuSport, and Derrick Walker's Team Australia were some of the most exciting and entertaining in all of motorsports these past few years.
They were at least as good as the battles between Andretti Green Racing, Penske, and Ganassi in the IRL, if not better.
Only Newman/Haas/Lanigan continues to exist in any meaningful way—Graham Rahal won his IRL debut at St. Petersburg after missing the Homestead race due to lack of car. Forsythe and Walker field Atlantic Series cars now. RuSport folded last year after Wilson signed with N/H/L to replace Bourdais, who departed for F1.
Tracy, despite his 2003 championship, and Doornbos, despite his 2007 Rookie of the Year award, do not have new rides in the IRL. Neither do drivers like Nelson Philippe, Simon Pagenaud, and Alex Tagliani, all of whom consistently performed well in Champ Car and certainly deserved chances in the IRL as well.
Bluntly stated, the Champ Car guys got screwed.
Do I harbor any ill will towards the IRL or Tony George for that, though? Not really. George and CCWS leader Kevin Kalkhoven only acted in the best interests of the sport. George offered cars and loads of technical assistance to the teams making the leap to his series, and for that should be commended. It was his desire to bring the factions back together—albeit under his control—that finally ended the decade-plus split between the two sanctioning bodies.
Likewise, rest assured that I would have written this same article for the IRL, had it been the casualty of the merger instead of Champ Car.
I would have praised the efforts George made to bring Americans back into open-wheel racing in a period where CART was dominated by Europeans. I'd have reminisced about all the drivers to win big in George's series—Lazier, Tony Stewart, and Sam Hornish Jr. among them. Lastly, I'd have celebrated the creation of many new open-wheel race teams in an era where the cost of participation began to decline.
Alas, the IRL was not the casualty of the merger. It was Champ Car.
So I am left, as a race fan, to remember the way things were.
Even the negatives seem endearing at this point. Yes, I remember the small car counts. I remember the unsponsored cars. I remember all the underwhelming pay drivers, the guys like Tristan Gommendy and Matt Halliday, who brought their own unreliable sponsorship along in the form of Pay by Touch and 42 Below, respectively.
On the other hand, I'll never forget the Bourdais-Tracy rivalry, the introduction of drivers like Rahal and Will Power to a major open-wheel series, or the financial commitments by sponsors like McDonald's, Aussie Vineyards, CDW, and Red Bull that kept the series going those past few years.
To everyone who made the Champ Car World Series so fun to watch these past few years, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope to see you all in the IRL someday, tearing up the track and sticking it to those IRL guys.
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3 months ago
great, great, read man. really well done.
miss champ car too. there's a great champ car channel on youtube. can't remember the guys name right now. great vids though.
my pick of the day.
3 months ago
Wow! nice article mate!
3 months ago
Great piece. Kudos.
3 months ago
Great read, would watch Champ over IRL.
3 months ago
Wow...you should be doing this for a living. Outstanding article...you have the gift of the pen....or is it keyboard? Great job! :)
3 months ago
Expect the ex-champcar teams to fair very well in tonight's race at Richmond (as well as throughout the month of July. There's three road courses this coming month). Plus, I can't imagine it'll be much longer before N/H/L & KV Racing figure out the setups on the big ovals. They'll be forces in the series again.
As for your prediction...I see a lot of merit. Certainly, the old CART was on level with F1 (see Mario Andretti, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Nigel Mansell leaving F1 to run CART...while Ayrton Senna tested a Penske car before his tragic death). I see no reason why it can't catch and pass NASCAR in the States...& become level with F1.
Nice job.
3 months ago
hey! my POD made the front page this morning!
3 months ago
Very nice article Chris!!! Wow this is really good you have THE gift lol can't wait to read more of you're stuff...
3 months ago
Congrats on a well-balanced piece with lots of good sentiments on behalf of those of us who were absolutely addicted to Champ Car racing and the events CART/Champ Car put on. At the moment, the IRL has an infitite way to go to incorporate the strengths of Champ Car's racing formula (alternate tires, turbos with "power to pass" boost), and to gain the respect overseas for American Open Wheel that Champ Car was building again.
3 months ago
Wait!
Aren't you the same guy who said the Indycars were destined to overtake F-1? And yet you mess Champ Car?
from 3 months ago
They still run Formula 1 ?
from 3 months ago
Of course I miss Champ Car. I saw something in that series that I didn't see in IndyCar, or Formula One.
That something I saw was drivers who raced for the sake of racing.
Now that the Champ Car teams are competing in the IndyCar Series, I see that spirit starting to overcome the series. The IRL is happy to have everybody under one roof again, as adamant as they were that it should be their roof, and the series feels race-y again. I can tune into an IndyCar Series race and find myself able to watch every lap once again - something I could only do for Champ Car when the series were apart. Again, every lap counts in determining the winner.
I don't think anyone can say that about Formula One. The first lap counts, and whatever laps Ferrari and McLaren pit on count. That's it.
I stick by my previous statements, that IndyCar is now destined to overtake Formula One, with that raciness back in the series.
With time, I won't miss Champ Car anymore. I won't need to - once the Champ Car boys are winning again, it'll be just like old times. Give 'em a year.
3 months ago
Everybody blames the lak=ck of Indycar popularity on the split! Well the Split is over and the numbers show that IndyCar is just as obscure as it ever was. Could it be that the whole idea behind the IRL is flawed?
Cart was thriving up until Tony George decided to create the split with his IRL. Since then there has been no evidence that IndyCars is what the fans want.
Until the IRL embraces road racing, drops the ridiculous short ovals, gets a new chassis and engine package Indycar will remain at the bottom of the ratings heap.
As for F-1.......One F-1 race draws more TV spectators than the IRL gets for an entire year.
from 3 months ago
Anybody who believes that the sport would have 1995 popularity levels immediately after hasty reunification is, bluntly stated, a moron. Think about it - any merger leads to the new conglomerate being less than the sum of its parts. When the NBA and the ABA merged, plenty of teams were lost. Same with the NHL and WHA. Same with any corporation that merges with another - people are always laid off.
Do you honestly believe that the new IRL would have been an exception to that rule?
3 months ago
What I miss most is the Champ Car of 1997-2000, when Penske, Rahal, Ganassi, Green et al ran good-looking cars on great circuits all year round; when Ben Edwards led Jeremy Shaw on the International feed that I picked up in the early years of Channel 5.
Once IRL became established and really split the sport, it lost a lot of the dynamic on both sides, something that IRL will do well to pick up again over the next few years, otherwise it's not just Goodnight CART, it's so long US open-wheel racing at any significant level.
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