Is Champ Car Racing worth following?
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Is Champ Car Racing worth following?
[QUOTE=Classic Anycar]Is Champ Car Racing worth following?[/QUOTE]
Well I guess that depends how much you like motor racing! Personally I can watch pretty much any kind of motorsport and enjoy it, but Champ Car is nothing special. If you just like watching racing cars then it's a decent way to pass the time but I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to watch it, it's not really something I get terribly excited about. :)
Champ Car has been on a comeback. The IRL vs CART battle hurt the open wheel racing scene in North America. CART was starting to take on a F-1 feel. The costs were getting high, so Tony George (part of the family who owns the Indianapolis Speedway) decided to make the Indy 500 into the IRL, a more spec oriented racing series. Over the years the IRL and CART have been bleeding badly. There was hardly enough money for the CART series, so the IRL cut that money up.
For me, the IRL was to much like Toyota Atlantic. Thanks to poor choices by CART, manufactures basically left the series. Ford Motor Company is now the sole supplier of engines to the series. Champ Car is not what it use to be. It has gone from being more fo a F-1 series to more of spec series. The race at San Jose was interesting and Champ Car still has the best mix of oval and road racing circuits. The IRL finally decided they will put a road race or two on their schedule.
In the end, I would say Champ Car is still fun to watch, but it is a long ways from what it use to be. For fans of open wheel racing in North America, it would be nice to see the IRL and CART merge. Both series offer value. but having compete against the other for sponsor dollars and viewers is killing them both. I would say CART is in the worst position.
Are Ford technically still involved after their sell off of Jaguar Racing, Cosworth and Pi though?
Ford still sponsors the series and Cosworth was not their only motorsports engine building shop. The sale of Jaguar F1 racing to Red Bull was just Ford getting out of F1, not racing as a whole. I am not sure where they are building their engines, it could be done via Roush. Ford is also taking over the Toyota Atlantic series engine supply. Toyota Altantic has been the support series to Champ Car for over thirty years.
Wouldnt it be a safe bet though that Cosworth is still involved, given the Champ Car owners are the new owners of Cosworth as well?
[QUOTE=fpv_gtho]Wouldnt it be a safe bet though that Cosworth is still involved, given the Champ Car owners are the new owners of Cosworth as well?[/QUOTE]
Cosworth currently supplies the Champ Car World Series with 2.65L XFE engine, capable of 800HP
[url]http://www.cosworth.com/content.php?pageid=2&contentid=44[/url]
AND they've just celebrated their 250th win -- [url]http://www.cosworth.com/news_detail.php?id=16&PHPSESSID=3bf5c1450471ea1e9b5637ec4bbc5f9e[/url]
I like road course racing, but found it dissapointing that Ford was the only manufacturer. Still, it being a major league, I may watch it. I am used to multiple manufacturers.
The multi manufacture thing has bugged me since it happened years ago. I have nothing against Ford, but I like a series that runs various engines. I think seeing a Ford, Toyota, Mercedes, and so on, mixing it up adds to the interest of a race. On the other hand the single engine type format should be helping to keep costs down and puts the drivers and team engineers skills as the real difference between the winners and losers. Right now, it seems Newman/Haas has the best drivers and engineers based on their wins.
I would welcome an end to single engine manfacture format. Champ Car has their work cut out for them since previous management teams made companies like Honda and Toyota mad, so they went to the IRL. Champ Car is going to have to create a set of rules that work well for any manufacture and show they are running the series far better then it was years ago.
Champ cars used to be the best racing on earth up until about 4 years ago. I could care less about the series now. The cars are still blazingly fast but all the good drivers went to the IRL or F1. Since IRL is now starting to run road courses I don't know why they don't merge with the Champ car series.