Open wheel peace has just been waiting for the Chosen One, child-star Frankie Muniz, to join their ranks. http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/muniz becomes race car driver_01_04_2006
There is a slight risk that it is a April's Fools joke, but there were none of the typical giveaways in the story, such as a story starting off vaguely plausible and evolving into something entirely inplausible.
Muniz is looking to Atlantics for 2007. He was on late late night with Colin Ferguson promoting his racing aspirations last week. Hopefully he won`t be known as Malcom in the Middle Pack.
And I first really got into auto racing around 1997 Learned so much about the dominant 90s teams and drivers, and then they ruin the Indy 500 just when I get into it. I'm a little bitter I guess. Instead spent my time watching F1 and NASCAR go to ***** as well
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060625/SPORTS01/606250418 It sounds like Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven are VERY close at this point to merger. According to the article, any merger into one series would probably not be logistically possible until 2008 at the earliest, though '07 would see some the beginnings of unification (both series running the same venue the same weekend, Champ Car back at the Indy 500). The sticking points are probably going to be the technological differences between the series, and how power is going to be split between George and Kalkhoven. The Indy Star article says that one option would be appointing someone like Mario Andretti or Rick Mears to serve as a tiebreaker in case of disagreements.
Best bet would be to have at least a 3 person board to make the final decisions. Mario (pro Champ Car it seems from the article), Rick (pro IRL) and someone like Jackie Stewart. An outsider that is respected and loves open wheel racing.
Wait, there's still open wheel racing in America? Heh. Oh yeah, that's right - Danica! How could I forget?
I've always preferred open-wheel racing to stock car racing. That said, NASCAR is too far ahead now to save Indy car racing. Hell NASCAR seems to want to take the gravitas of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway away from Indy 500 by acting like thier race at that track is just as big. If IRL or CART want to really make a splash, they should merge with Formula-1. I'd love to see Danica racing in Monte Carlo.
First off, eventhough NASCAR is way out in front of Indy Car there is still a spot for Indy Car to grow and succeed which it can do since there are still thousands and thousands of open-wheel fans in the US who are just waiting for a quality series to come back. Indy Car doesn't really need to overtake NASCAR, a close second will still translate into packed grandstands and lots of profit for the owners, drivers and sponsors. Secondly, Indy Car doesn't need to merge with F1. F1 is doing just fine on it's own, Indy Car is going to do just fine on it's own, plus you couldn't run a F1 team on an Indy Car team's budget anyway. You'd probably have to merge every Indy Car team's budget into one just to fund one F1 team. Finally, Danica couldn't race at Monte Carlo anyway. Well, she may be able to race there but she would crash within a lap or two.
This is true, but it always galls me that as far ahead as NASCAR has overtaken Indy Car is as far as Indy was once ahead of NASCAR. I'm reasonably certain that the big dogs like Penske or Ganassi could run an F1 team. They each are already competing in at least 3 leagues a-peice and Penske used to compete in F1. Sure a merger is unrealistic, especially from Formula 1's perspective, but I imagine that Indy would love the idea of regular competition with F1. You're cruel. You sound like the Formula 1 CEO. So are there any Indy drivers you think could make it at Monte Carlo? Wheldon? Spiderman?