Unification made official in Homestead

Figure heads from both the Champ Car World Series and the Indy Racing League convened this afternoon in Homestead Florida for a live press conference to officially announce the reunification of American Open Wheel racing, putting an end to the 12 year feud between the two sanctioning bodies which has lead to the deterioration of not only each individual series, but the sport in general.

An agreement to unify the sport was signed "in principle" last Friday, leading to an appearance by IRL CEO Tony George and CCWS Co-Owner Kevin Kalkhoven on SpeedTV's "Windtunnel" late Sunday night. During that appearance both series principals were evasive with their answers, alluding to today's press conference as the target for details. This was not the case however.

At the end of the approximately one hour live conference little more was known about the nitty gritty details of the agreement. There was, however, an impressive showing of drivers & team owners from both sides, and of course the photo op many had been anticipating; the smiling handshake between Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven.

George kicked off the conference with a little reflection on what brought him to this point in the negotiations.

"At the risk of taking a glance back, it was just last fall on the anniversary of my grandfather's death that I was thinking to myself that it really had been 30 years since the sport of open-wheel racing had been truly unified." said George. "There were periods of years over the last 30 years where we worked more closely together and better together. But by and large, there were periods of years where we weren't so good at that. Last month when the calendar turned over to 2008, I was wondering to myself, 'Is it possible this could ever happen?'

Remarkably, the general theme of the afternoon, and the statement both men kept falling back on, was that this came about first and foremost for the sake of the fans, leading one to wonder if they have perused the internet in recent days.

"Well, as I said, I think the real winners today are, in fact, the fans." said Kalkhoven. "I know that over the past few years there's been elements of disagreement, let's say, between the two fan bases. By uniting the sport, I sincerely hope everyone recognizes, and by that of course I also mean the Champ Car fans, that this is something that was a very conscious decision that we took to try and develop North American open-wheel motorsport and take it into sport of '08, '09 and beyond in a very positive way.

Questions still unanswered are the exact final schedule for the unified series in 08, and exactly how many teams and drivers will be running in the unified series in 08. While it has been stated that there was 100% attendance by all of the Champ Car teams for the orientation on Monday, there were a few owners and drivers noticeably absent this afternoon, most apparent Gerald Forsythe and 2003 Champ Car Champion Paul Tracy.

What was answered was the question of whether the Champ Car Atlantic Series would be continuing on. The answer was a resounding yes.

"The Atlantics will continue." confirmed Kalkhoven. "Gerry and I are committed to driver development. We think it's one of the most important single things that we can continue to bring to the party. So Atlantics will continue. It will have a 12-race schedule. We believe that, as a bedrock for long-term development, it's absolutely key."

It was also made evident that the state of the art mobile medical unit would be incorporated into the unified series as well as some of the key safety staff.

There are still a multitude of unanswered questions, some of which may remain unanswered for quite some time. The first priority it seems is to get the former Champ Car teams and drivers incorporated and up to speed on time for the season opener in Homestead at the end of March.

ChampCarWorld.net will continue to follow this and other developments and update you as information becomes available.

Source: SPEEDTV.com

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