ESPN Bulletin (2-22-08) 1:00pm EST Detroit, MI - The Indy Racing League and the Champ Car series have signed a deal to unify the two American open-wheel series.
IRL spokesman John Griffin said Champ Car co-owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe 
signed the agreement with IRL founder Tony George on Friday. As many as six of the nine teams expected to compete in Champ Car in 2008 could field cars in the IndyCar Series, including Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, PKV Racing, Forsythe/Pettit Racing, Conquest Racing, Walker Racing and Dale Coyne Racing. The addition of up to 10 regular entries from Champ Car teams would increase the size of the IndyCar field to more than 25 cars for the first time since the late 1990s. -30- (End of ESPN bulletin)
SPEEDTV's Robin Miller, America's best open-wheel series journalist, broke the story about the rift being healed earlier this week, and we carried it on this website. And now, the papers are signed, the champagne uncorker and "Let's go racing!" is the call heard throughout the land. Well, at race tracks, anyway.
HERE'S THE BACKGROUND
There could not have been a better Valentine's Day gift for open-wheel racing fans around the world, and there's also poetic justice, with the split between Champ Car and the Indy Racing League (IRL) being repaired the same week that Roger Penske's Penske South Racing team won their first NASCAR race at the Daytona Speedway; that's because IRL founder/Indy track owner Tony George often held up Roger Penske as an example of everything that was wrong with CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). George would typically complain on and on at press conferences about how big-time team owners in the sport also had a say in the way the sport was being run, and George thought that a terrible idea. It's poetic justice because at the time of the CART/IRL split, George himself was a quiet-partner in the ownership of at least two IRL teams.
Reports say that George is supplying free chassis and engines, plus $1.2 million, to any Champ Car team able to compete the entire season, adding at least eight cars to the IRL grid.
This is all good news for everyone who is a racing fan and even those who aren't; the winner of this year's Indy 500 will once again be the winner of, truly, what the folks in Indy like to call "Greatest Spectacle in Racing".
It's absolutely good news for every single person in the sport, because by wisely bringing the two sanctioning bodies back together quickly, the all-important sponsors and TV networks willing (and wanting) to carry the racing should be trooping back to the sport with their millions of dollars and millions of viewers.
The best news, though, is that starting grids for this combined series will be filled by the best
possible drivers, and the flying starts of the races may see more than just the first row aligned properly; some IRL starts have been absolutely laughable, setting aside the inherent danger of having unskilled drivers in these 200+ mile per hour race cars. Join us now for a trip down Memory Lane ... No one said they'd be good memories, so hang on ... And be sure to let us know what you think, too, about this now-official rapprochement.
TONY GEORGE, USAC AND THE INDY 500 ... AND A LOT OF OLD, NASTY GUYS IN YELLOW JACKETS
There are many who believe that the real reason for George going his own way in 1996, with support for the new league from GM in the form of Oldsmobile engine blocks (and we all know what happened to Oldsmobile), is that several well-attended CART events, especially the Long Beach Grand Prix, were starting to outshine and even outdraw, in paid attendance and TV viewers, the signature race of the season, George's Indianapolis 500-miler.
But the roots of the problem go back as far as at least 1979, when CART was formed by most of the major open-wheel Indy-style team owners. In 1980, with encouragement from the then-Indy Speedway's president, John Cooper, CART and the United States Auto Club (USAC), which was founded in 1956 by Tony Hulman (George's father), built a tenuous relationship for sanctioning the Indy 500.
Then Cooper went back on his word that same year, and told USAC that if they wanted to keep the Indy 500, they had to split with the newly-formed CART. When the CART/IRL split occurred in 1996, USAC stayed-on with the newly-formed IRL as the sanctioning body for the Indy 500 and all other IRL events. But in 1997, several bad decisions by USAC, which put into question the winners of the Indy 500 and another IRL race at Texas Motor Speedway, rightfully saw its influence wane greatly within the IRL. They'd brought it on themselves, in a world new to them, a world where the track's owner didn't have the final say on events, like they always did at Indy.
USAC was forced into other fields, becoming moderately successful serving as "authenticators" of automotive testing conducted for advertising purposes (for instance, "The BMW 5-series beats the Infiniti G37, in testing authenticated by USAC" ...). When their biggest client for that business, Southern California's Automotive Marketing Consultants, Incorporated (AMCI), decided to authenticate their testing through other avenues, the loss of AMCI was just another nail in USAC's coffin. USAC does continue today as a sanctioning body for some of the medium levels of motor racing, including the USAC Silver Crown series for tube-framed, alcohol-fueled open-wheel cars racing on dirt and paved ovals, as well as national championships for sprint and midget cars.
And who are the "old, nasty guys in yellow jackets"? They were (and still are and will always be, probably) the security people at the Speedway. Like the million people who must have been on the "Mayflower" when that ship came to America, judging by the amount of current US residents who claim to have had relatives on her, Tony George and all his uncles and grandfathers must have known a few million people, too ... Because every one of the nasty old guys in yellow jackets will be happy (momentarily) to tell you that they're either a close relative or a great, long-time friend of the Hulman and George families.
IRL VS. CART; AMERICA'S MIDWEST AND AJ FOYT TAKE-ON THE WORLD, AND ALL SIDES LOSE
In 1995, Tony George, scion of the family which owns the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (which is actually located in Speedway, IN), made public his plans to wrest control of open-wheel racing in the US from Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). Many observers felt George had grown jealous of CART, which was enjoying a good amount of success with major events other than the Indy 500, like the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and wanted control of the series.
George and his long-time friend, four-time Indy 500 winner AJ Foyt, probably the best-known and most-
respected and loved race car driver in America's history, resented CART team owners like Roger Penske, Carl Haas, Paul Newman and Chip Ganassi; some close to the pair say they felt those owners, and others in CART, thought themselves smarter, more sophisticated and maybe even wealthier (though that would be a tough arena in which to challenge either Foyt or George). They both spoke derisively, and publicly, about CART owners and many of its drivers, often Euro-types and super-wealthy, from places like Monaco, the UK, Italy, Brazil and Argentina; not from Terre Haute or Houston. But Foyt and George were both rich and well-traveled, something that, at times, seemed like an embarrassment for them both. In fact, for all his snide comments about "funny little foreign cars", Foyt himself was on the grid at the 1967 "24 Hours of Le Mans" sports car race, in a Shelby American and Holman & Moody prepared GT40, and along with co-driver Dan Gurney, Foyt won the race on June 10, 1967, placing first overall, driving GT40 Mk IV J-5, car number 1.
All that said, George started his IRL, claiming it would be less expensive than the CART series, feature a roster of all-American drivers who had come up through the once-traditional Sprint Car series ranks and would stage events only on American-style oval race tracks.
Neither IRL nor CART flourished in the past dozen years since the split, and in fact every open-wheel racing season has been worse than the one before.
And almost right on schedule, there was a new kid in town, called NASCAR, and even open-wheel race enthusiasts found themselves enjoying the racing, once they learned a little bit about it. NASCAR enjoyed such incredible growth in a short time due to the lack of high-level open-wheel racing anywhere in the country.
NASCAR welcomed sponsors who wanted to "wait out" the IRL/CART rift. NASCAR almost replaced open-wheel racing as a nationally-recognized sport with huge TV packages, on par with only the NFL, while charging $150 and more for a good race day seat at the track. But NASCAR has not replaced anything, and in fact the sport is on a downward trend, many analysts saying that NASCAR has become as big as it will ever be, and the important thing for NASCAR now is to try to remain on the plateau they've built, while not losing too many viewers and fans in the coming years.
IRL had its problems, but they also had friends in high places --- Including at ABC/ESPN TV, where friendships built-up over decades of ABC covering the Indy 500 guaranteed a TV package for the IRL which was, while not great, good enough for George to keep the series alive for several years, or at least until CART was ready to concede open-wheel car victory to George.
And as George had hoped, by the end of 2003, CART barely had a pulse. It had drained its once-deep reservoir of $30 million just keeping 18 cars on the circuit, promoting them, and buying TV time. Honda and Toyota had fled to the IRL, as had Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi. CART lost $100 million in '03 and faced bankruptcy.
So Kevin Kalkhoven, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-race-team-owner, Gerry Forsythe, 
another successful businessperson who had owned CART teams since 1983 and Paul Gentilozzi, a three-time Trans-Am champ and Rocketsports Racing team owner, whose family had made fortunes in Michigan real estate, came to the rescue by forming the Open Wheel Racing Series. OWRS's first battle was with IRL founder Tony George over acquiring CART's assets, a battle they won, and the three then changed the series name to Champ Car.
To save a much-longer story, Kahlkoven, Forsythe and Gentilozzi bought CART at a fire-sale price, and as the hopes of so many race fans had gone into bankruptcy, so had CART.
THE HULMAN/GEORGE FAMILY, "BACK HOME IN INDIANA"
The Hulman/George family roots in Indiana are very deep, several generations deep. George counts as one of his great friends another son of Indiana, the former Vice-President of the United States, Dan Quayle. Maybe there's something in the water "in the Wabash" in Indiana ... Or maybe it's just good old fashioned American in-breeding.
George's great-great grandfather started Hulman & Company grocers in 1879, producing a series of baking powders including Clabber Girl, which remains the company's main product. Decals promoting the product were seen often in recent years as a sponsor on various IRL race cars. The Hulman family built the Terra Haute, IN airport (Hulman Field) and has various, and usually successful, business in the state, including the Terre Haute Tribune and The Terre Haute Star newspapers, radio and television station WTHI and WTHI-TV, the Terre Haute Gas Company and the Terre Haute Hotel, as well as the original grocery firm. George's grandfather also was president of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Indianapolis. That grocery store connection, along with holdings in the state's dairy industry, are why the winner of the Indy 500 always taking a swig of milk after the race for the benefit of TV cameras and news photographers. (Photo - Anton "Tony" Hulman Jr., (l) with grandson, Tony George, circa early '60s --- Tony is already whining, which turned out to be his lifelong habit).
The first purpose-built race track in the world, the 2.5-mile, four-turn, low-banked (from 9 to 12 degrees)
Indianapolis Motor Speedway was first opened in 1909. Built by Carl Fisher, James Allison, Frank Wheeler and Arthur Newby, and paved with 3.2 million bricks, hence its world-famous nickname, "The Brickyard", the track was built for racing but also to serve as a test track for car-makers. At the time, it was thought the US auto industry would be centered in Indiana --- Besides the Auburn, Cord and Dusenberg autos, scores of other factories turned out cars and car parts in the Indianapolis area in those early, "brass era" car years). Fisher, founder of the Prest-O-Lite automobile headlamp company, went on to help found Miami Beach, deeply involved in the area with land speculation and the building of the rail line allowing vacationers from the big Northeast cities to come to Miami Beach non-stop, and make the trip in comfort and style. WWI flying hero Eddie Rickenbacker owned the track for a time just before and through WWII, and in 1945, he sold the facility to local businessman Tony Hulman, whose grandson, Tony George, is only the latest inheritor of the facility, which has grandstand seats for about 275,000 people, and infield room for about 100,000-or-so more and its own 18-hole golf course and the fantastic Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, which holds an example of every car which has won the 500-mile race.
AND, FINALLY ...
It remains to be seen how the Indy 500, the NASCAR Brickyard 400 and the newly-scheduled World MotoGP motorcycle race, slated for Indy as a replacement for Formula 1 and the disastrous 2005 event when only six cars started the race, may be effected by this rapid and welcome coming together. As they sometimes say at weddings, "What god has put together, let no man rip asunder". Our guess is that if anything happens to split this rapidly-crafted mending of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League, high-level, world-class open-wheel racing in this country will be dead, and never recover.
Let's not let that happen, ok, guys?
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