Finally talks of Champ Car becoming defunct and IRL being the open wheel racing series where all teams will shift from Champ Car into IRL. In Daytona last week I spoke to former open wheel team owner Chris Lencheski who said that he was one person of many who promised to return to open wheel racing with a team if their was a merger or just one organization left.

NASCAR has pulled away from open wheel racing by far since the mid 1990’s and open wheel racing has lost many drivers including the 1996 IRL champion Tony Stewart. Champ Car will be defunct so it looks like no more team demo’s unless IRL agrees to partner up with Formula D. Let’s hope this can happen in 2008 or soon!

“I just hope it happens,” said Chip Ganassi, who owns teams in IndyCar, NASCAR and Rolex Grand American Sports Car Racing. “There can’t be five people on the planet that don’t want it to happen, so let’s hope it happens.

“If they were to get back together, I think that’s only when the work would begin. It’s probably like the 1994 baseball strike. The work really begins once you get all of the problems behind you. It would be nice to get all of the issues in one place. Get all of the rulesmakers in one place. Get all of the promoters in one place. Get everybody at one table instead of two. It would certainly end a lot of confusion in the marketplace.”

Source: Yahoo Story