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Finally! IRL and Champ Announce Open Wheel Racing Merger

By Mark

After 13 years of disastrous competition and weeks, no years, of on again, off again merger talks, officials of Indy Racing League and Champ Car announced the signing of an agreement in principle to unify open wheel racing. Champ Car will fold and Indy Racing will go forward, adding three Champ Car fixtures to the IRL calendar: likely to be Long Beach, CA, Surfer's Paradise in Australia and Edmonton, Alberta. The balance of the Champ Car calendar will be canceled.

While the merger is good news for open wheel racing fans, the sad fact is it may be five years too late. It will likely save the Indy 500, but even that race is a shadow of its former self. It hasn't sold out for years and most of the attention in the past few years has focused on Danica Patrick, who has driven well, but hasn't won and has drawn attention as much for her looks, (check out her SI swimsuit gallery here). Many of its leading drivers have defected to NASCAR in the last two years. Whether a merger would have kept them is debatable, but it sure would have improved the chances. Still, better late than never and it's clearly something that needed to be done. Just don't expect miracles - it will take years for the sport to recover from the disaster inflicted upon it by the split 13 years ago; this is the first small step.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on February 22, 2008 (boomark / email).