Champ Car files for bankruptcy

Jstas

Yeah, seems like Champ Car was so far in debt that even after the gigantic buyout Tony George gave Champ Car to merge Champ Car and IRL, they still owe a gigantic sum of money to multiple creditors.

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/FREE/669897492/1557/rss01&rssfeed=rss01


Yeah, Champ Car is done. I saw the movie "Driven" over the weekend. It kinda made me depressed because that is the last place I will be able to turn on the TV and hear the glorious growl of those Cosworth V8's. Goodbye Champ Car, it was fun while it lasted!

66chevyIISS

This is actually good news. Splitting up IRL and Champ ruined the sport.

Jstas

No, losing Champ Car is bad. CART was the sport. IRL is nothing but open wheel NASCAR.

zingo

Sad day for auto racing fans.

66chevyIISS

So what happened a few years ago when the Indy 500 became a joke with a bunch of no names and rookies? Wasn't there a split in leagues or something that caused that? I thought it had to do with IRL, but I guess that is wrong. I don't know much about it.

Jstas

CART was made up of two types of teams. The big money teams like Newman/Haas, Forsythe and Penske and then there was the small potatoes teams. The small potatoes teams felt they weren't getting a fair shake because the big dollar teams were tromping all over them in competition 'cause they had cubic dollars. Afterall that's really what wins races.

So the whiny **** went and complained and Tony George said "You're right!" and thus the IRL was born when a gaggle of small potatoes teams went and made an open wheel racing series that was nothing but ovals. BORING! Only thing it did was even out the competition so everyone could be running in a big fat pack.

CART said "Fine, the hell with you!" and went and did their own thing. Tony George I think it was sued CART for the CART name so they changed to Champ Cars. But with increasing debt loads and lack of attendance at either venue plus the big networks dropping Champ Car coverage, Champ Car was hurting so much for money that they couldn't even pay the promoters. So thus happens where we are now.

There is a ton of other BS in the middle but what it amounts to is that IRL lacks road courses. Champ Car had something like 90% of it's venues were road courses with a good chunk of them being city street courses. The competition in Champ Car attracted world talents which is one of the downfalls because Americans are not going to watch an American racing series dominated by Brazilians and French that couldn't hack it in F1.

Needless to say IRL attracts very little good talent because they don't have the money to pay the drivers. On top of that, the cars are centered around technology that was new in 1979. When IRL split, they got the rights to the Indy 500 due to the name on the series. But they had no name drivers with junk cars and the race was totally anti-climactic. They took the greatest racing venue in all of American racing history and one of the biggest in the world and turned it into a 175 MPH parade of billboards driven by washed-up has-beens and still wet behind the ears wannabes.

Meanwhile, Champ Car had the technology, had the talent but didn't have the backing because Tony George was actively working to deflate the bubble that was CART/Champ Car. It really stinks too because in some ways CART/Champ Car was superior to F1. It was also well respected around the world as a highly competitive series. Lots of technology came out of the series too. Much of the Big 3's small engine technology and engine management and stability control stuff came out of CART testing. Nothing new comes out of IRL.

CART/Champ Car will be sorely missed. I always wanted to go to the Long Beach Grand Prix just to hear the cars tearing down the boulevard. I guess I missed my chance.

I hate Tony George. He's the worst thing to ever hit American Motorsports.

Jstas

Oh and names like Mears, Sullivan, Andretti, Unser, Rahal, Gordon, Fittipaldi, and so on are what made CART so big that it attracted other gigantic names like Johanssen, Zanardi, Mansell, Villeneuve, Hill and made talents like Bourdais, Vassar, Tracy, Montoya and de Matta.

What has come out of IRL? Drivers like Danica Patrick who has achieved alot but by no means is she the first nor the most accomplished female driver in auto racing history. Hell not even in American auto racing history. She wasn't even the first in an indy car or champ car. Castroneves maybe. Other than that, the only other driver you hear about is Tony Kanaan and not because of his driving ability but because of who he dates. He is quite a good driver but can't get an F1 ride. But you know what? The all-stars of IRL got started and came out of CART in the whole split ordeal. Dario Franchitti, Castroneves and Kanaan were all rising rookies in CART before the split. After the split, careers were hurt and the floundered for a while. Then they all landed rides with the IRL. Now they are pretty dominant. Kanaan seems to have had the unfortunate inheritance of his team owner's sting of luck at the Indy 500 and he's gonna go down in history as one of the best drivers to never win the Indy 500...just like his team owner Michael Andretti.

Yeah, I used to follow Champ Car pretty closely.

rskarvan

Jstas,

Don't be so negative about the Indy 500. The truth is that Tony George and CART favorites (Penske, etc..) had a falling out years ago. Tony George realized that the history of the Indy 500 (Speedway) was far more important than a few CART Teams. So, he told CART to stick it and formed IRL.

The George family has OWNED the Indy 500 track for generations. I give him a little credit for keeping the Speedway in the family and not letting the car-owners and drivers RULE THE FAMILY's racetrack.

The INDY 500 is a family business and big money doesn't have the power to change that. Most importantly, all the old CART drivers eventually found their way back to competing in the IRL circuit.

Now, the Indy 500 track hosts... IRL, NASCAR, F1 (a few times anyway), and soon Motorcycles will be racing there. This is especially great since the track is within ear-shot of my house and I could reasonably easily walk there if I wanted.

Its difficult to know who to blame in the fallout. Tony George and Roger Penske have ego's that don't compromise easily. It looks like IRL won though.

- Ron

66chevyIISS

Thanks for the Clarification on the leagues. I had it backawards in my mind. I think it's funny that Dario and Juan Pablo bailed to Nascar.

PhantomOG

I knew it was too good to be true.

greg2350

I used to be a big fan of champ car until they cancelled the race here in texas at the last minute.

Jstas

rskarvan wrote: »

Jstas,

I don't know what I'm talking about

- Ron

Um, two things.

One Penske has been running a Champ Car team AND an IRL team for several years now. Well not so much anymore but he was also one of the first big money CART teams to move to IRL. And Tony George did not have a falling out with Penske and decided to go play ball on his own. He was booted off of the CART Board of Directors because of his constant badgering to change the series which was wildly successful at the time. So he went off in '96 and made the IRL to compete with CART. Since he OWNS Indianapolis Speedway, he effectively booted CART off of the ticket for the Indy 500 by requiring that 25 of the 33 spots in the Indianapolis 500 be occupied by drivers in the IRL circuit. Then after that, George changed the rules in the IRL and basically outlawed CART/Champ Car specs. The fact that he is an abrasive, nattering twit didn't help matters. So the CART teams boycotted the Indy 500 and ran the U.S. 500 at Michigan International. In 2003 CART went bankrupt and thus fostered the Champ Car World Series. CART went bankrupt because it was publically traded and shares dropped to like 25 cents I think it was? All because FedEx pulled series sponsorship at the end of 2002 and then Toyota and Honda stopped supplying engines to CART because George offered crazy incentives to them thus leaving Ford's British based Cosworth as the sole provider of engines to the series.

Tony George killed CART and then he killed Champ Car over a gigantic egotistical hissy fit. I can't stand him and I can't stand the IRL. I'm glad I can still catch F1 on The Speed Channel. It's the only international open wheel series worth watching anymore that you can actually get on TV.


Two, I thought you were leaving?

BaggedLancer

PhantomOG wrote: »

I knew it was too good to be true.

I second this notion. I knew I thought I saw him lurking around here. Sneaky bugger.

Don't you have some yahoo self help group to participate in?

ohskigod

greg2350 wrote: »

I used to be a big fan of champ car until they cancelled the race here in texas at the last minute.

you mean the one where drivers were nearly blacking out from the G's pulled while lapping? yeah, I remember that...lol was a while ago.

nms

Oh well, all good things must come to an end. Apparently race cars were too much of a temptation for him!