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IRL Notes: Potential sponsors find more than meets the eye with Versus-IRL deal

Talks still ongoing as league looks to nail down title sponsor by year’s end

At first glance, many people wondered if the Indy Racing League had lost its mind when it decided to make Versus its official cable outlet starting in 2009.

But looks can be deceiving. While the network doesn’t possess an ESPN-like pull on the casual sports fan, it has promised to give the IndyCar Series expanded programming and the spotlight that comes with being one of their top properties.

Anthony Schoettle of the Indianapolis Business Journal is reporting that despite having to re-do a few things with their presentations to potential sponsors as a result of the Versus deal, the league is still on-course to bag a title sponsor for the ICS by year’s end. In fact, the field of suitors appears to have increased as “two technology companies” have entered the hunt according to Schoettle, joining Subway, Kodak and William Rast Jeans as prospects.

I just hope for the league’s sake that Zak Brown and his team at Just Marketing can land a company with a known name and a proven track record of good marketing and promotion. In my opinion, I think Subway fits this bill the best. But we don’t know who those new tech companies are, either. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Can Dan Wheldon put Panther back on top?

Indy 500 champ to drive No. 4 car Down Under in October

A lot has happened since Dan Wheldon last zipped up a Panther Racing firesuit in 2002 for his first starts in the IndyCar Series — the two biggest things being his Indianapolis 500 victory and his points championship, both coming in 2005.

However, the British driver has also seen his fortunes fade somewhat since losing the 2006 series title in a tie-breaker to former Team Penske pilot Sam Hornish, Jr. While he certainly hasn’t stunk up the speedways with a fourth-place finish in the points last year (and a third-place standing heading into Sunday’s ‘08 finale), he’s also been repeatedly put in the shade by his Target Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon.

Panther’s been through a lot of changes too. And while they’ve managed to remain competitive, they have also failed to win a race since the 2005 campaign. The team has gone through a pair of so-so seasons and while ‘08 has been an improvement over ‘07, it’s clear that they have yet to reclaim their past glory.

Or as one reporter termed it during this week’s IRL teleconference, being the “king of the hill.”

But despite past history, Wheldon doesn’t think that the team has far to go in order to be winners again. He’ll be the man behind the controls of Panther’s No. 4 machine for the 2009 season and he feels that with a strong start, they’ll both be able to bounce back and fight for the team’s third IndyCar crown:

“Judging by their race car lately, I don’t think they’ve really come down from that hill. The car certainly has been very, very competitive all season.

“I think the biggest thing is all of the ingredients are there to win. We’ve just got to make sure that we prepare in this off‑season and really knuckle down and make sure when we come back out for 2009 we score very strongly in those first five races.”

Wheldon is right. While the team is still climbing upwards, the No. 4 and its driver Vitor Meira have been quite racey at multiple points this year. Throw out a couple of ill-timed wrecks and the Brazilian would be solidly in the top ten in the standings right now.

And the team still adores Meira, whose easy-going personality outside the cockpit and his long quest to score his maiden IndyCar Series victory (going on its 93rd start this weekend) have made him a fan favorite. In fact, the Panther website is currently opening up with a five-second photo with the words “Thank You Vitor.” A story on said site calls him “Our Winner.”

Should Panther decide to expand to a second car in 2009, it’s possible that Meira could stay with the team — although as mentioned earlier, he may have to fight some other drivers to get the spot.

When a driver of Wheldon’s caliber wants to race for your team though, you have to take the opportunity and go for it. That’s what John Barnes and Panther have done and with this move, he’s signaled his intentions for the 2009 season:

“Dan has equaled everything we’ve done and surpassed it by being an Indy 500 winner. Growing up here in Indianapolis, there is nothing more important to me than winning at Indy, and surrounding ourselves with people like Dan puts us in a position to do that.

“So I can tell you everybody here gets up every morning thinking about one place, and that is [the Indianapolis Motor Speedway]. To have Dan here with us, and helping us guide that ship, we’re stoked.”

As Wheldon tells it, the deal began to take shape after the Kentucky weekend, where Tony Kanaan signed a five-year deal to stay with Andretti Green Racing and spurn the advances of Wheldon’s car owner Chip Ganassi.

To his credit, Wheldon played his possible intentions close to the vest as he dealt with his boss’ betrayal. While he kept relatively mum in public, he was making overtures to the team that gave him his start behind the scenes. He insists that the Ganassi-Kanaan incident isn’t what is driving him from TCGR, something that can be brought up for debate.

No matter. The fact is that one of the top drivers in the garage is outside the Big Three teams of AGR, Penske and Ganassi. That cannot be overstated for fans who wish to see somebody — Panther, Rahal-Letterman, Vision, anybody — destroy the current state of things in the IndyCar Series. Or at least, disrupt the status quo.

There still remains that pesky question about Wheldon getting better road course results to match up with his oval results. It’s widely believed that Ganassi went behind Wheldon’s back to go after Kanaan because of the league’s movement to include more road and street events alongside their oval nucleus.

Wheldon has not won a road race since 2005 at St. Petersburg, Florida. This year, he’s kvetched about not having a decent car throughout the whole weekend despite winning at Kansas and Iowa. Improving his road racing skills is a priority for him, but admitted that he doesn’t think it’s “as much of an issue as everybody else does:”

“…If you look at all the different road courses this year, the only one we really struggled at a little bit was Detroit. I think the others, for whatever reason, it didn’t just kind of pan out the way we wanted.

“But that is something we’ll definitely address in the off‑season. From a results standpoint, it probably looks worse than it really is.”

For Panther’s sake, let’s hope so. This is a completely different IndyCar Series than the one the team ruled in the early 2000s.

In order to contend, an all-around driver that brings the goods in both disciplines of oval and road racing isn’t just preferred. It’s essential. Anything else makes thoughts of a championship nothing more than pipe dreams.

But with Wheldon’s arrival, they’re working to make sure those dreams become reality.

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All quotes used in this article were taken from this week’s IRL teleconference.

Alex Tagliani keeps Conquest No. 36 car for Chicago, Australia

Alex Tagliani, who drove the No. 36 Conquest Racing machine last week at Detroit for the injured Enrique Bernoldi, will see his one-off with the team turn into an extended engagement.

The former Champ Car World Series pilot will drive the No. 36 for this weekend’s season finale at Chicagoland, as well as next month’s exhibition race at Surfer’s Paradise, Australia.

This is going to be pretty interesting to see — Tag hasn’t ran on an oval in three years and he’s with a team that’s constantly toward the back of the field on the speedways. If he can get the No. 36 toward the top 15 or so in the Windy City, he may be able to impress Conquest enough to ditch Bernoldi and give him the ride for next season.

Such a thing would go along with speculation that’s existed since July that the Canadian has been a prospect to replace Bernoldi. We’ll see how this turns out.

IRL Notes: Where does Vitor Meira go from here?

Plus: Franck Perera to drive second Foyt car this weekend

Vitor Meira still believes that he can stay with Panther Racing if the team decides to go ahead on a second program for the 2009 IndyCar Series campaign.

Meira lost his ride in the No. 4 Delphi/National Guard machine yesterday to Dan Wheldon, who comes back to Panther after getting replaced by Dario Franchitti in the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car.

But according to Curt Cavin of The Indianapolis Star, the Brazilian pilot feels that pending sponsorship, the second Panther drive can be an option for him. In the meantime, he got word on Monday from team officials via e-mail that his contract for the No. 4 car would not be renewed.

Does this mean that Meira’s been fired from the team? Not exactly. But if Meira wants that second ride, he may have some competition to go through.

There’s a trio of Brits that want the job as well — current Panther Indy Lights driver Dillon Battistini, former Formula One driver Anthony Davidson and GP2 pilot Mike Conway, who tested with the team recently at Infineon Raceway.

BritsOnPole also has a snippet of an article that reports on Davidson being slated to do a Panther test that got scotched when he injured his shoulder in a mountain bike accident.

However, Meira may have to look at returning to his former team, Rahal Letterman Racing. All summer long, a persistent rumor that RLR will go to two cars next season has been wafting about. I personally think that a combo of Meira and Ryan Hunter-Reay has a lot of potential if that team continues to improve.

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A little more than a week after scoring his first Firestone Indy Lights victory at Infineon Raceway, Franck Perera is set to make his return to the IndyCar Series.

Perera, who lost his Conquest Racing drive three races into the season after his sponsorship went away in a giant financial cluster, will drive the No. 41 A.J. Foyt Racing machine in this weekend’s season finale at Chicagoland Speedway.

It appears that “Super Tex” is also mulling over a second program. But the credit for this one-off pairing goes to his team director and grandson Larry Foyt, who said in a press release:

“At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Franck was one of the quickest among the transition team drivers to adapt to the IndyCars. He fared well on the oval in Homestead and qualified well at St. Pete.

“We thought then that he was a talented driver and, as we’re looking to become a two-car team next year, we thought he might be a good asset to our program. We’ll see how we get along with him this weekend.”

Perera’s top finish with Conquest was a sixth in April at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

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All quotes used in this article were taken from team press releases.

MOVIN’ BACK, MOVIN’ OUT: Franchitti returns to IndyCar, Wheldon joins Panther

Well, that was a crazy day, wasn’t it?

Yesterday saw the landscape of the IndyCar Series change dramatically as ‘07 Indianapolis 500 and series champion Dario Franchitti will resume his open-wheel career next season for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. With that, Dan Wheldon has decided to take his leave of TCGR and head to the team that gave him his start, Panther Racing, where he’ll replace the talented but winless Vitor Meira.

I must say that a Franchitti-Scott Dixon could be a deadly combo as the league continues to shift from the ovals to a blend of speedways and road racing. But it also bears noting that one of the top drivers in the series is finally outside the Big Three.

Wheldon is not a road course master, but if Panther can get more consistent cars, this combo can be a major force for next year’s championship with the 2005 Indy 500 and IndyCar king behind the wheel. And if I’m not mistaken, the league could certainly use another team — or three — to challenge the Andretti Green/Penske/Ganassi triumvirate.

Anyway, you can see my full opinion as written on FoxSports.com last night below the dashes. I don’t normally do repurposing of articles, but considering that I’ve been busy settling into my new home, I haven’t had much time to sit down and do proper work lately. Forgive me.

-CE

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“This is the toughest challenge of my career and that’s why I’m doing it.” — Dario Franchitti announcing his switch to NASCAR, October 3, 2007.

Dario Franchitti appeared ready to tackle said challenge. But with his stock car career on cinder blocks, he’s now preparing to head back home.

Last season, the Scottish driver bolted to Chip Ganassi’s NASCAR operation with the 2007 Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series titles, dealing the IRL a vicious blow. Now, nearly two months after his Sprint Cup ride went under due to sponsorship woes, one of American open-wheel racing’s biggest names for the past decade is returning to the IndyCar Series.

Next year, Franchitti will drive the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing car, currently piloted by Dan Wheldon, and team up with reigning Indy 500 king Scott Dixon. In a series that’s continuing to change from an all-oval slate to a mix of speedways and road courses, it has the potential to be a lethal one for Ganassi’s rivals.

Meanwhile, Wheldon is set to defect from TCGR to Panther Racing, where he’ll take over for Vitor Meira in the No. 4 car. After watching his boss go after Tony Kanaan, the British pilot has signed a multi-year agreement with the two-time IndyCar champions — the team where he got his start in the series. He’ll be in the No. 4 at Australia in October.

Suffice it to say, silly season has begun in the IndyCar Series. Two Indy 500 and series champions have made shifts that will alter the future landscape of the circuit while it heads into Chicagoland Speedway this weekend for the season finale.

For Franchitti, his move seems to reveal the backup plan he had in mind just in case his jump to the stock cars didn’t work out. It also shows that he’s realized the IndyCar Series is moving in a direction that he wants to be a part of.

“Part of the reason that I signed with Ganassi last year was because of how many options that Chip has at his disposal for a driver,” Franchitti said, referring to his boss’ teams in NASCAR, IndyCar, and Grand American sports car racing. “You can do almost any form of racing that you want.

“With unification and the new schedule having more road and street courses, it made me think about this more and more. I have really enjoyed this last season in stockcars and have not completely closed that chapter of my professional career, but the opportunity that arose was just something I could not pass up.”

Strangely enough, he said in May that with his burgeoning NASCAR career, the open-wheel part of his life was over, too.

“I don’t miss driving the (IndyCar),” Franchitti was quoted as saying by NASCAR.com. “I really enjoyed driving the cars at the time, but this is where it’s at for me now. I missed being at Indy for the fact that it’s Indy, but I didn’t miss driving the car. I went and I closed that door on my career. This is where I want to be and what I want to do.”

But while he may have closed the IndyCar door, it’s now clear Franchitti never locked it up and threw away the key.

And now Ganassi appears sure to benefit from one of the best pound-for-pound drivers in the garage. He’s found what he had been looking for and had hoped to get from Kanaan before he re-signed with Andretti Green Racing a few weeks back: a driver who excels on both the ovals and the road.

“It is going to be very exciting to have Dario in one of our IndyCars next year,” he said. “I have always admired his competitive spirit when he raced against us and have really grown to see more of what he is about this season while he raced in NASCAR. When there was a possibility of an opening on our IndyCar team, the only person I thought about was Dario. This is going to be a great move for Dario and for our team.”

As for Wheldon, he’s ready to make up for lost time with Panther, where he made his first two appearances in the IRL in 2002.

“I’m very excited to be joining the entire Panther Racing crew,” Wheldon said. “This is the place where I started my career in 2002 and with the personnel and leadership that (team CEO) John Barnes has put together, I know that we’ll be fighting for outright victories, the Indianapolis 500 title and the league championship.

“I’m looking forward to when my obligations with my current team have been honored, so I can get with the entire Panther family and start moving towards all of our goals of winning races and championships together. It’s great to be back.”

It also shows that Panther’s bent on reclaiming its championship pedigree. After finishing fifth in the points as a one-car outfit with Meira the previous year, they’ve been through more tough times than good out on the track over the last two seasons.

While Meira is certainly a good driver, he still has yet to win an IndyCar Series event. On the other side of the coin, Wheldon instantly makes Panther a true dark horse for the 2009 championship.

Barnes was ecstatic and said that the team has “a tremendous future in front of [it]” with Wheldon in the cockpit.

“I remember watching him drive for the first time in the Indy Lights series years ago, and I knew he was going to be a special talent,” he said. “Since then, he’s become one of the best open-wheel drivers in the world, and for him to make his return to our team at the height of his racing career is a tremendous compliment to our team.”

There’s a “full circle” vibe with all of these bombshells. Franchitti goes back to what suits him best and Wheldon returns to the team that gave him his first chance in major-league motorsports.

The IndyCar Series gains a good deal of strength through these events as well. It gets back one of its former champions and another one is now part of a team outside the Big Three of Andretti Green, Team Penske and TCGR.

Don’t expect the competitive balance to get turned over by just one move. However, it’s certainly a step in the right direction for a series that could use somebody to break the stranglehold of this dominant trio of squads.

To think that 12 months ago, the league — and the sport — looked as if it was on its last legs with Franchitti going to NASCAR and Wheldon set to follow. Now as the IRL heads for the Windy City to crown a champion, they’re both firmly in the fold.

What a difference a year makes.

By skill and by luck, Justin Wilson earned this victory

A rough first season for Justin Wilson in the IndyCar Series appeared set to get rougher last Sunday morning before the Detroit Indy Grand Prix.

The British driver only ran two laps during the final warmup session as steering problems plagued his No. 02 McDonalds machine. But fortunately for him, his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate Graham Rahal was ready to help him out. Wilson said:

“Graham did a similar change to what we did overnight and didn’t like it, so we both went back. Without having Graham as a teammate, there’s no way we would have had that information. So it’s just a team effort, knowing what steps to make and we calculated it best to go back to what we know as opposed to take that risk and running something we’re not sure about.”

As the old saying goes, knowledge is power. But Wilson didn’t know if this plan would work until he got into a rhythm on the tricky street course at Belle Isle Park.

“The car was good. It just got better and better. The more tire rubber that went down, the better it got, and the more the car floats. So I was very pleased with the way my car was working. And I figured once we went a lap further than Oriol Servia on that first stop, we figured, ‘OK. The car’s not that bad. We’ve got something we can race with.’”

It certainly was “not that bad” and it would soon find itself parked in Victory Lane, the result of both hard work from a championship team and a controversial decision from IndyCar Series race control. Either way, the former Formula One pilot finally scored his maiden victory in America’s premier open-wheel series.

On Lap 72, Wilson got close to the rear wing of leader Helio Castroneves’ No. 3 machine. He dove to the inside of Castroneves as they came out of Turn 12, but with Castroneves fighting for every point in his quest to hunt down Scott Dixon for the series crown, he was emphatically blocked by the Brazilian. Race control saw the incident and forced Castroneves to give up the lead. On the next lap, Wilson took the point and ran away with the race.

After the race, Team Penske howled over not getting a warning after the block, but the IRL’s Brian Barnhart was having none of it as he said that warnings are always given before the race:

“We talk about blocking every week in the drivers’ meeting and tell them what they can and can’t do and what the code of conduct is on the racetrack. (Helio Castroneves) clearly moved his car to impede the progress of a following car (Justin Wilson) and moved his car in response to the actions and the line taken by a following car. That’s what I tell them in the drivers’ meeting every week.”

Castroneves had a different story, telling the press:

“Honestly, he was talking about blue flags, most of it. I had an incident in Sonoma and that’s what he talked about. He always emphasizes it. To be honest, he did not emphasize here. He said here it’s very difficult, we’re going to be watching all of the cars. It’s a difficult track. 

“Again, he always emphasized every race, not only on the road course, street course, but ovals. And I’m very, very disappointed and very surprised with that.”

Who knows how much of an effect the ruling will play into the outcome of the title, which will be decided next Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway?

Castroneves appeared ready to trail by just 20 points, but getting knocked down to second caused him to lose ten more markers he couldn’t afford to let go. Now all Dixon has to do is finish eighth or better on the 1.5-mile oval in the Windy City ‘burbs and the title is his.

Speaking of the New Zealander, he came home with a fifth-place finish and was almost as relieved as Wilson himself for how Sunday played out. At the same time, he felt like he had been in a “pretty pitiful” race that wasted a car capable of winning and burying the championship once and for all:

“The car was clearly quicker than anybody’s. We were saving a ton of fuel up front and sort of having a merry old day, and that changed pretty quickly. We left with a half tank after that caution. I think I was probably the only person or maybe a couple of others.

“It’s just a hard situation when you’re in that point when nobody else pits and you have a lot of slower guys that pitted early on and have a lot of fuel and you have to try to pass them. That was pretty much the race.”

For the second year in a row, the Motor City had been the setting of controversy involving the IndyCar Series’ title contenders. This year, Wilson was the beneficiary.

But while he certainly had a bit of luck during his day, he also showed his great road racing skill and his team showed the heart that made them eight-time CART/Champ Car World Series champions. What could have been another calamity in a season that’s seen plenty of them turned into the IndyCar Series’ second tale of triumph over adversity in as many weeks.

This tale also carries poignancy in the face of team co-owner Paul Newman’s fading health. Wilson talked about how much it meant to win for him:

“It’s something I really wanted to do. Paul is a great part of the team. He calls me after every single race, and he passes on his regards to how well we’ve done or how unlucky we’ve been. It’s great to finally be able to repay his comments and nice words.”

Surely, Newman must have been proud.

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All quotes used in this article were taken from Sunday’s trackside report and post-race press conference.

Is Detroit last shot for Servia to pull a stunner?

KVRT driver aims for the podium in the Motor City

Last weekend should have been a step in the right direction for KV Racing Technology and Oriol Servia. While they have shown some decent results on a few ovals this year, road racing is their forte and Sonoma was expected to be a big day for points — and perhaps, a podium was in the cards as well.

But a sixth-place starting position was squandered, but an untimely yellow knocked Servia deep into the pack and he was unable to make up the ground, finishing 15th.

With just one more road race this season coming up — this weekend’s Detroit Grand Prix on Belle Isle — he and teammate Will Power will look to erase what was a tough weekend in the California wine country. Power suffered early brake failure on his No. 8 machine in last Sunday’s event.

In today’s IRL teleconference, Servia said that he and his team expect to perform solidly this week:

“Detroit is a race we really think we are going to perform well, and we’ll know [where we are] after Detroit. We can only go step‑by‑step and do the best we can…I really feel we are going to be contenders this weekend and after that we will see where we are.”

Servia may also see himself with a new operation; neither he or Power have signed new contracts with KV for next season.

But even though he’s racing with that nagging thought in his head, the Spaniard already has his future plans laid out should he stay with Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser’s operation:

“…I’m pretty sure if I stay at KV Racing Technology over the winter and we do some work on the car for the ovals, we should be contenders for the championship. If we finish top five and everything goes well to be going for [next year’s] championship, I don’t see any reason why not.”

Servia was ninth-fastest today over the two combined practice sessions at Belle Isle Park in preparation for Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix. Power was 11th.

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This weekend, Helio Castroneves continues his quest to overcome Scott Dixon and win the IndyCar Series championship. But with a 43-point deficit to hack apart, he’s still in danger of seeing his rival clinch the title in Detroit.

The two drivers claimed the two fastest times in Friday practice with Castroneves (101.795 m.p.h.) besting Dixon (101.113) by almost half a second. The two-time Indy 500 winner had a smoother go of things than Indy’s reigning champion, who tagged the wall twice during the sessions.

When repairs were made to his No. 9 machine, he quickly found himself fighting with understeer in his car. He dished the details after practice:

“We actually had to repair the car in the middle of the [morning] session and had to end early because we had to fix it. The car was actually quick out of the box. I think we were quickest in the first 10 minutes, but we had a lot of understeer. We tried dialing it out and made the car a lot worse. We put a set of stickers [new tires] on the car and it was pretty average.

“I think the car can be a little bit quicker, and using the baseline setup from this morning, it should have been quicker. Helio is quite fast, but I don’t know if the track changed because of the weather. A lot of people seemed to have a lot of understeer during the session.”

Vitor Meira was third-quickest, followed by Ryan Briscoe in fourth and Danica Patrick in fifth.

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All quotes used in this article were taken from Wednesday’s IRL teleconference and today’s trackside report.

Indy Racing Revolution out of action for Detroit Grand Prix

MVN shut down all weekend, relaunches next Tuesday!

Hey readers,

We’re getting pretty excited over here at Most Valuable Network. The higher-ups have been working their tails off all summer to create an all-new MVN and they’re set to reveal what they’ve been up to.

This is a major overhaul that isn’t just skin-deep (although you will see a different look). In order to pull this off, the entire site is going down for maintenance starting this Saturday morning at 9 a.m. ET. This will last until next Tuesday at 6 a.m. ET, when the best independent sports media site on teh internets is reborn and relaunched!

Unfortunately, this means that everybody on the MVN network will be unable to post on their respective blogs — including me.

I’ll do as much as I can before Saturday to write about Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix, but when that morning comes, you’ll have to fend for yourself. I’m sure that Jeff from MyNameIsIRL or Bill from Pressdog can keep you up-to-date and I’ll still have post-race reaction over on FoxSports.com.

Just wanted to give you guys an early heads-up. I’m just glad this isn’t coming one weekend later. Thanks for your support and keep reading Indy Racing Revolution!

Sincerely,

Chris Estrada