Sunday Morning Warm-Up: Still Feels The Same
Last week, the IndyCar Series ran their season premier at Homestead, and everyone’s response was that open-wheel racing is back, and that you could already feel the tide turning. We’re now back to the old days of when IndyCar was the premier racing series in America.

No, we’re not.

That was an IRL race Saturday night. And it will be at St. Petersburg today, and will continue to be for the rest of this season. Let’s face it, there were no big stars or big teams coming over. Just about any star Champ Car had has either jumped to F1, NASCAR or were already in IndyCar. The only major team was Newman-Haas, post-Sebastain Bourdais . The only other significant Champ Car principle was Gerald Forsythe, and he commited Hari Kari as soon as the deal was announced. And IndyCar has already signed classic circuits like Mid-Ohio and Milwaukee. And for the last time, they didn’t merge: Champ Car died.

Now, next year, if they add most of the Champ Car calendar including Road America, Cleveland, and Long Beach, we can say American open-wheel racing is coming back. Especially if there are thirty teams every week. But until then, IndyCar has about six or eight new back markers.

Gravy Train Update: Give it up to Micheal Waltrip Racing for always finding the worse ways to find the headlines. SportsCenter has pretty much worn out the tape of their new driver Michael McDowell turning right and tearing out the SAFER barrier in Turn 1 at Texas. But that is nowhere near as horrible as the fact that MWR is heading back in the field as they did last year. After some success at Daytona, the team is just where we left them. And after Dale Jarrett retired, UPS showed what we all knew: they were more interested in DJ than MWR, and as soon as that relationship was over, they wanted out. Moving promising driver David Reutimann into the seat was a good decision, but it may not be enough, especially considering the team failed to qualify this week. After last weeks’ sway bar controversy, coupled with the jet-fuel/sterno/unknown substance fiasco the team started off with, UPS may just want to avoid any more bad press. Toyota chose horribly for their factory team, and are no doubt quickly embracing Gibbs as they continue to win race after race as MWR sits in the back. And if UPS is bailing, how much longer can Micheal expect to sell auto parts and used furniture? Because if he’s not careful, he’s bound to wind up as the Knicks of the Cup Series.

I think I tried that logic when I was five: I have to admit, I loved Greg Biffle yesterday. When confronted with the accusation of tying up Carl Edward’s transporter driver’s bike to the fence yesterday (which, by the way, was only horrible because of that Rutledge character), Biffle said it wouldn’t have happened had he had something to do Saturday‘s, such as race a Nationwide Car…
Posted: 4/6/2008 1:50:07 PM
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