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!

WOW! I feel bad for ChampCar

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Not only does it suck to loose a member of your team to a competitor but geez. I could not imagine what people were thinking after this happend. AR1 reports

Funny send-off for Eric Mauk In the press meeting Sunday morning at Long Beach John Oreovicz from ESPN got about 100 photographers to stamp their feet, clap their hands and sing chorus to the tune of Queen's "We Will Rock You" to John's revised lyrics: "I am, I am, Indy". Mauk is moving to the Rahal Letterman IRL team to head up their PR to be closer to his roots in Ohio. Then Michael Levitt from LAT gave Eric an IRL backpack straight off a merchandise rack which reads "I am Indy" and inside a bottle of powdered Kool-Aid, which Eric drank, happily.

This happened at a ChampCar Race, their biggest RACE!!!! Maybe it really is worse than we thought! Notice he drank the "kool-aid"(which was supposed to be condescending) with joy, everyone wants a sugar-buzz and that's what you get at an INDYCAR RACE BABY!!!!!

Sarah Fisher signs AAA

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I never said that I was on the cutting edge of delivering underground information.

Apparently you need to know somebody to get the info! Anyway I pirated this file from Youtube and the info from mynameisirl. Unfortunatly I can't really provide any information about the sponsorship so defer to mynameisirl for the real goods. Here's the clip, enjoy and get pumped up, it appears that unlike ChampCar the IRL can get sponsors.(It just helps being a female...I wonder what Katherin Legge's problem is?? Maybe its because she's a frigg'n Brit!!!!)

33: It is just a number!

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Its just a frigg'n number, it always has been, so shut up and deal with it. A little history lesson for all of those "Haters" that like poke fun at Tony George for his comment "33 is only a number".

In case you are old, grumpy and have nothing else to do and are confused of what "Haters" means---its you! so shut up because the old days are over, just like a 10cent movie ticket! I am sure all of you remember in 1979 (the first year of CART) the Speedway allowed 35 starters and I believe you would consider 1979 as being in the "hey-day".

40 cars started in the inaugural race in 1911, the Contest Board of the American Automobile Association (AAA), the sanctioning body at the time, mandated a formula for limiting the size of a starting field according to the size of the track. It was determined that the safe distance between each car spread equally around a course would be 400 feet, thereby limiting the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway to 33 cars. Speedway President Carl Fisher, however, placed a limit of only 30 cars for the “500” between 1912 and 1914 and did not adopt AAA’s 33 maximum until 1915. Although there had been numerous occasions between 1912 and 1928 when the field was not filled, the allowed number was increased during the Depression years to 40 cars between 1930 and 1932 (only 38 made it in 1930) and further to 42 in 1933. The maximum has been at 33 ever since 1934, although extenuating circumstances expanded the field to 35 starters in 1979 and 1997.(courtesy of Indy500.com)

So if I hear another wise crack about "33 is only a number" I am going to do something frightening like show a clip of Dan Wheldon trying to throw the first pitch at a Mets game!!