Charles A. Toupin

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...or-newman-haas

That is very sad. It was not the same in the last few years, but it still, it used to be one of the greatest Indycar team...

c.

Benton

<--- Really sad to see this.

skl

Figured it was doomed when PLN died- and Carl ain't exactly a spring chicken either.

Will have to dig out "Super Speedway" and watch some of it tonight!!! And fondly remember the good old days of CART...

TexasRider

I am sorry to hear about this. A storied racing outfit thats been around 50 years.

I am sure the loss of Newman hurt, but the economy hurt too.

But in my opinion I think Indy car is doomed. It is between the two best race series, NASCAR in the US and F1 internationally, and it is clearly down the ladder to both. In organization, in fan appeal, and in money.

First, without the American car companies involvement IndyCar is nowhere. Sure I realize Honda is American as is Chevy. But it going to take more than that.

And IndyCar wrapped their own ballz with barbed wire and keeps pulling and wondering why it hurts.

It sounds great in the board room to say we will introduce a new car, go faster, run longer, do it cheaper, and have more fan base. That sounds wonderful. In reality it doesnt work that way. Their objectives are not consistent with each other. You are not going to accomplish all of those in one swoop.

I also think they made another honking mistake to put Dallara as the chassis.

And then there is the engine choices. More mistakes. Why not go with something proven. Are they really trying to impress the Green Crowd and convert them to fans.

Of course I still want the Indy 500. But who knows? And then there is this thing of them losing there "best" driver to NASCAR. I bet she shows up for the500 in some form.

Somehow Indy Car has to get back to its roots. American cars and American drivers. Maybe with NASCAR mired in the COT thing, Indy could just let the builders and racers do their thing - more or less. But then they risk another
Wheldon type crash or more deaths. So it is going to be rough going over at Indy Car.

chris walrod

Yes, truly sad to hear this. I had the pleasure of getting to know the NHR crew as they spent a lot of time at our shop preparing cars each year in the late 90's. They were a large team, they traveled 50 people to each event back then. A powerhouse team, they were.

Paul Newman visited our shop as well, a very cool cat that was a true race fan through and through!

A recap of those years with NHR: http://www.speedcenter.com/features/sc_f0805_99.html

Matt Romanowski

It's certainly a sad day for racing when they close their doors.

Charles A. Toupin

Texas Rider, I agree.

The best of CART was in the 90's. At that moment in time, the cars were downright beautiful, color schemes were attractive and drivers were coming from all over the world. The racing was exiting, much more than almost anything else. Ovals were in limited quantities, which IMHO, was good. And drivers were quite outspoken. The split killed it.

Now the cars are fugly, sponsors are lacking, racing is mostly on ovals and who can give me the names of 5 drivers? I remember Unser, Vasser, Herta, Andretti, Hearn, Sullivan, Rahal, Mears, all those brasilian guys (Fittipaldi, de Ferran), Mexican Fernandez, our canadian ones, the british guys. Man, that was the golden age of Champ Car.

Open wheels cars don't belong on oval tracks IMHO. Let's make Indy 500 the single oval event of the season. Give the guys the month of May to practice there and spend the rest of the season on road race tracks.

c.

uscarrera

Another link to the CART days going away, I hold to the memories of the best days of open wheel racing in the USA, was going fan for fan with F1 those days how the racing world has changed.