Sour ChampCar Fans!!!

I love when pictures like this show up. A couple of racing fans that have nothing better to do than to reminice Robin Millers defaming articles from the first 8 years of the CART-now ChampCar/IRL IndyCar split. These fans claim that the IRL doesn't have or get crowds at its races and that ChampCar infact does have crowds at its races. Ok so lets go down the list of what the IRL has and what the ChampCar people wish they had.

Lets just go about it this way. The guys to the left probably even work for ChampCar...

IRL Sponsors

Honda, Ethanol, Firestone, Marlboro, 7-Eleven, Target, Canadian Club, Vonage, Jim Beam, NYSE, Motorola, AAA, AAMCO, GoDaddy.com, KN Filters, RITMO watches, Red Bull, Miller Light, Patron, Delphi, XM Radio, Panasonic, CITGO, Kodak just to name a few...

Vs. ChampCar

Lost Ford, Lost Bridgestone as a presenting sponsor, McDonalds's, Medi-Zone, Pay By Touch, Indeck(what's that), TELMEX, Sonny's BBQ, OZJET(What's that?), PG Canada, 42 Below Vodka, Aussie Vineyards, Roshfrans, Sherwin Williams, Red Bull, CDW

Advantage--IndyCar! IndyCar's sponsors are real consumer products that support competitive teams and rely on drivers with name recognition and understand the importance of drivers that have raced in the IndyCar Series and North America for the past 10 years.

Attendance

All I really have to say is the Indianapolis 500. Seriously if you are going to assume that becuase you have a large crowd at your biggest race that it means that the IndyCar Series doesn't! The Indianapolis 500 month destroys Long Beach. ChampCar does have some nicely attended races but lets put it into perspective. If you count everyone 3 times it doesn't really mean that you had 90 people! Look to the left at some fans that actually have merchandise of their favorite driver and FOLLOW the sport. And guess what...he's from OHIO!

Drivers

IndyCar-

Sam Hornish Jr. (Indy 500 Winner, 3 time IndyCar Champion, Toyota Atlantic), Helio Castroneves (2 time Indy 500 Winner, Indy Lights), Dan Wheldon (Indy 500 Winner, IndyCar Champion, Indy Lights, Toyota Atlantic), Scott Dixon (IndyCar Champion, Indy Lights Champion), Tony Kanaan (IndyCar Champion, Indy Lights), Dario Franchitti (ChampCar runner up in tie breaker with JP Montoya), Marco Andretti (Indy 500 Rookie of the year and Race winner as rookie), Danica Patrick(Best Female driver ever, Marketing machine), Scott Sharp ( 1996 IndyCar Champion, CART, Trans-Am), Jeff Simmons(Indy Lights, Indy Pro Series), Vitor Meira (7 Years in IndyCar), Kosuke Matsura(Indy 500, IndyCar rookie of the Year), AJ Foyt IV (a FOYT!, Indy Pro Series Champion), Tomas Scheckter (7 years of IndyCar, Son of F1 world Champ, Race winner..) Ed Carpenter(USAC driver, Indy Pro Series Win), Sarah Fisher (First Female to really race, Popular with fans), Buddy Rice(Indy 500 Champion, Toyota Atlantic Champion) and the list can go on! Only 2 of those drivers have been racing in North America for less than 10 years. That's call consistency!

ChampCar-

Sebastian Bourdais (3 Time ChampCar Champion), Graham Rahal(We have his Father, Indy 500 Champion), Paul Tracy(ChampCar Champion), Mario Dominguez(Indy Lights Champion), Will Power(Europe), Simon Pagenau(Atlantic Champion), Robert Doornobs(F1 reject), Neel Jani, Tristen Gommendy, Ryan Dalziel, Alex Figge, Mathew Halliday, Katherin(First woman to win at the Atlantic level), Bruno Junquira(Indy 500 pole sitter).

Advantage-IndyCar. Not only are the drivers better known, have more experience but almost half are American!

I am sure this list could get even longer. Just put it this way; ChampCar's fan base is dying with bitter old men and cheese balls with high end sports cars. See those two old men in the photo at the top? Well look at this young group who have just started their life in racing. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon!