Plus Highcroft has stated they will be back… IMO, Patron will be flipping the bill for the Acura engine leases being the only difference. Mazda still needs to develop their P2 motor & will have Acura & a private Porsche as their competition.

Sadly, Atlantics has no TV & requires a budget of Indy Lights (how has a slight TV deal & a more direct road to the ICS). Now rumors have Mazda branding the Indy Lights motor… so another sign Atlantics are dead

And I hope I am wrong about ALMS, but some of the stuff I have been reading about them in the past week is bumming me out. One of the saddest things about the past 2 years has been the decline in the ALMS series.

Sadly the ICS Dallara would be SLOWER than GP2 & the Super League OW packages that Europe has. Also sponsors from A1GP those were not very plentiful. When CART had 900+ HP cars… that was something you could “export” & win over new fans. Oval cars converted to RC’s with less HP than the EU’s home series is not gonna have the masses rushing the ticket gates!!!

I do agree a new peace with NAPCAR & ISC would allow the Indycars to strengthen its home schedule. Suddenly the ICS could be re-welcomed @ ovals that provided exciting races in the past (& matched their package). This is the only positive I see in regards to Daytona being involved

I hear you, and you are right about a few point. The France’s aren’t masters of the universe at running a business, and their support series are nowhere without Cup to prop them up. And I agree, making money is Open Wheel racing is far from a sure thing as CART-CCWS-IRL-and A1GP are showing.

However, I don’t think you have to be perfect to succeed and make money. The France family empire is clear proof of that. The product is lackluster, the lowest common denominator often rules the day, but, (and this is a NASCAR sized “butt”, including ample crack ) Money and Size can cover up a lot of mistakes. Sure, the race on Sunday had a lot of empty seats, but they had more full ones than empties. Put the IRL race at Homestead up next to the Charlotte race and there is no comparison.

I don’t think the France’s buying the IRL is a sure fire homerun, but I do think they have more of the pieces in place to be successful than any other potential buyer, owner, or operator of the IRL has. It will still take a lot of hard work, but the right pieces are there to make it work.

Regarding success overseas, I still stand by my assertion that there is unmet demand for top level OW racing abroad, and that the IndyCar brand has a better chance of succeeding due to the Indy 500 Legacy & credibility than any small upstart OW series like A1GP. However, success will still take a lot of doing, and probably pouring out a lot of cash in the short term to make it stick.

The other fact is that tough times in any industry lead to consolidation, and the companies that typically survive and expand their presence are the bigger ones. It’s the little guys that go belly up. A France owned IRL would be stronger, and well positioned to pick up new sponsors and manufacturers left behind by the folding of A1GP, ALMS, Atlantics, etc…

The biggest drawback to this scenario is what would become of the product. I think that Grand Am is an unfortunately glimpse of what a France owned IndyCar series would look like. Crummy technology, in a butt-ugly package. Of course, many people already say the same about the Dallara-Era IRL.

Oh, but it doesn’t have to be like this. Perhaps if the France’s would just give me all their money and let me run things I could rule the world. yes, that’s it! Look out Bernie, here I come!

On NAPCAR being business geniuses…. I saw a heluva lot of empty seats @ Charlotte last weekend. They had ISC & others over-build during the boom time IMO. Really study the success of their lower tier series. Nationwide NEEDS Cup drivers to bump it up. The truck series has lost Dodge. Roush was the Ford effort & he has pulled the plug for 2010. Grand-Am puts on decent races , but the cars are hideous & they average about 20 people watching the events live.

Sorry, but I don’t but much faith in them having answers for the Indycars when they have proved that they also can not focus on anything but their “main event”.

Too funny. I have to admit, the thoughts are scaring me too. I was hoping you’d convince me I was crazy. I think I’ve been hanging around my dark corporate overlords too long, to have concocted such a sinister plot.

There is something oddly alluring about the thought of Bernie and the France’s locked in mortal combat. Kind of like watching Hitler & Stalin Square off. (You can guess which one would be Hitler in this analogy Maybe we’d all be lucky and they would both lose.

As much as I hate the thought of all of that coming to pass because the France family owned the IRL, I’d love to see it. Man. These are some complicated feelings I’m having…

You may be right. But the France’s are business people too, and the one thing they like to do above all else is make money. I think what the IRL has to offer them has little to do with the Indycar series really. It has everything to do with F1. Stay with me here…

Despite the behemoth size of N-word, it still pales in comparison to F1. The numbers that F1 generates globally make the GDP of some countries seem small in comparison. N-car cannot be “exported” so it’s growth is limited to North America alone. I think they have bumped into that ceiling in the past few years. That’s where the IRL comes in. Open wheel can be exported outside of the US. Once upon a time the line between Indy and F1 was pretty faint. Drivers and even cars crossed the line back and forth. Since the 60′s though they have diverged, but that’s not to say they have to stay that way.

If N-word bought the IRL they would have the #2 open wheel series in the world. They could use it as a platform to attack F1, which has priced itself out of the market in many places, and left a lot of open tracks, and hungry fans, which is potential $$$ just waiting to be harvested in the eyes of the France Family Inc. I think they could find some willing manufacturers to back the endeavor, which the IRL has struggled with, because they could bring the needed marketing exposure that the manufacturers are looking for. It is also worth pointing out that F1 has turned it’s back on the North American market, which sure can’t make their sponsors and manufacturers too happy.

In this scenario, the IRL would not have to rival, or exceed F1 in terms of worldwide popularity to be effective. There is unment demand for top level open wheel racing, and a France funded CART-Part Duex could exploit that by taking the Indycar Series to the parts of the world that F1 is ignoring (South America, parts of Europe, North America). The 500 will always be the 500 and that prestige gives Indycar global credibility that A1GP, and other open wheel series can never obtain.

I don’t advocate any of this. I’m just speculating, because that’s what is so much fun about these intertubes.