Graham Rahal says it’s all about credibility.
At 19, the open-wheel racer won the first big race of his career on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., last year. It was his debut in the Indy Racing League’s IndyCar Series and a nice win. But it wasn’t just about him.
The race was the first major signal that the long-awaited merger last Feb. 22 of America’s two open-wheel series — the IRL and the Champ Car World Series — was going to work.
Rahal, the son of longtime racing star Bobby Rahal, had moved to IndyCar from rival Champ Car along with the powerhouse Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team.
With completely different equipment, the Champ Car teams making the transition had a major trial, trying to find cars, parts and pieces and get them prepared in time for the first race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Rahal missed that race after crashing his new IndyCar — the only car he had at that point — in a preseason test.
But once he did take to the track, the youngster showed that the transitional Champ Car teams would be up to the challenge.
“I think it’s one of those things that if I had won in Champ Car, it certainly wouldn’t have gotten the same credibility (as) if you win in IndyCar, the unified series,” Rahal said. “No matter what anybody says, a lot of people probably looked down upon some of the Champ Car guys, and vice versa, as far as how good they are.
“Then, once you put them together, it obviously showed that some of the best drivers in the world were out there competing against one another. It gives you more credibility.”
Now, a year later, the unified series is preparing to start the season on April 5 at St. Petersburg, with competition on road courses, street circuits and ovals expected to be considerably closer.
“It’s definitely going to be tougher,” said seven-year IndyCar veteran Vitor Meira, who will drive for A.J. Foyt Racing in 2009. “With the offseason that we have, the new teams have had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to correct their mistakes.
“Since their learning curve is higher than ours, they’re going to be able to start in better shape than last year.”
Like every other sports entity and every part of American society, the current economic woes are affecting IndyCar.
Last year, there were as many as 28 cars at several races other than the Indianapolis 500, which annually features a 33-car starting field. Heading into the first preseason tests Tuesday and Wednesday at Homestead, it appears the early season numbers will hover around 21 or 22 cars, with teams still working on sponsorship and signing drivers.
Both IndyCar and Champ Car had been struggling for several years, but the unification immediately produced better TV numbers, bigger crowds at the tracks and better marketing opportunities for the series, the tracks and the sponsors. Terry Angstadt, the president of the IRL’s commercial division, said that even in this economic climate, he expects the series success to continue.
“From a commercial standpoint, unification continues to bring unparalleled successes,” Angstadt said. “Previously, half of our battle was trying to explain the differences between two racing series. That battle is gone, and doors are opening much easier now.”
Scott Dixon will be back to defend his 2008 series title with Target Chip Ganassi Racing, joined by new teammate Dario Franchitti, back from a brief foray into NASCAR.
Franchitti left Andretti Green Racing after winning both the Indy 500 and the series title in 2007, joining Ganassi’s NASCAR effort. But Ganassi was unable to find sponsorship for Franchitti’s team and closed down the operation in July.
Now, Franchitti moves to Ganassi’s very successful open-wheel team and finds a completely different landscape than the one he left behind two years ago.
“I watched a lot from a distance last year to see what was happening,” Franchitti said. “You saw the potential of the new teams, with Graham winning at St. Pete. I think as those teams get more and more used to the regulations in the IndyCar Series, you’re going to see the field get even more competitive, the drivers get more used to driving on ovals.
“It’s going to be tough,” he added. “I said to Scott recently, ‘We’re going to have to have everything together.’”
Eric Bachelart, who moved his two-car Conquest Racing team from Champ Car to IndyCar, said it was amazing how everyone from both series pulled together to get the unified series up and running.
“When we showed up at the first race in Homestead, basically the transition teams were looking to be the best out of the transition teams,” said Bachelart, a former open-wheel driver. “There was incredible solidarity between everybody and the league. … Everybody jumped on board and everybody was quite excited about this new opportunity.
“From there, there was a lot of hard work just to keep up with the heavy schedule. Over the winter, we kept working hard. I think that the transition teams managed to catch up quite a bit and understand the cars better, understand what it takes better.
“So now we’re going to go into 2009 with, I guess, a better understanding and probably even closer competition,” Bachelart added. “I don’t think that we’re going to talk about transition teams anymore, just IndyCar teams. It will make things simpler for everybody. We won’t have to explain what it was about before.”
Tony George, founder and CEO of the IRL, which began competition in 1996, said the unification has healed a lot of wounds from the 12 years of internecine warfare. But it wasn’t easy, especially coming together so close to the start of the 2008 season.
“There was plenty of opportunity to have not lived up to anyone’s expectations,” George said.
“After we got through the first couple of races, it was always my feeling that by Indianapolis we would really start to come together, and I think we did. Getting to Indianapolis, you had a couple of weeks of practice and four days of qualifying and then a 500-mile race with the big stage and the spotlight on everybody. I think it kind of settled everyone and that’s when we started coming together as one.”
Overall, there were five first-time winners, including AGR’s Danica Patrick, the most popular driver in the series, and there were a record-tying nine winners in the 17 races. Thirteen drivers earned a top-three podium finish and 21 recorded at least one top-five finish.
Now there are no more transitional teams and drivers and George said he looking forward to even better competition in 2009.
“I think unification was a long time coming, but it’s now behind us and we have a very deep and competitive field of cars,” George said. “There will be some challenges pulling things together, but we’ve been through the biggest challenge and I think that was pulling it together at all.”
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