Home » Sports » Indy Racing League » Penske's Back

Penske's Back

© Seth Ronald Eichhorn

The rift between CART and the IRL is narrowing, and now there's been a proposal by Mark Cipolloni at AutoRacing1.com to have the two series exist side-by-side, much to the delight of all open-wheeled race fans. According to Cipolloni, why not have CART sanction the road/street courses and the IRL sanction the oval track races?

Races on oval tracks would utilize the IRL powerplant and on the road course circuit, the CART engines would be allowed. One team, however, appears to have found a better solution. Roger Penske, who's withdrawal from events sanctioned by Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IRL President Tony George, has let it be known that he is interested in returning to the IRL circuit for 2002 and dropping his CART affiliation.

According to reports from ESPN's Robin Miller, "Roger told me he was out of CART, period!" If this is the case, it could be the biggest defection in racing history, or at least since Penske bolted to CART and left the IRL and the Indy 500 high and dry. Since when has the 2 time defending champion of a racing league left and moved to another venue?

According to Miller, Penske's driver, Gil deFarran, who has won the CART championship the last two years said, " My allegiance is to Team Penske. My greatest ally is this team, and I don't take that lightly." Of course, this would mean that the popular driver from Brazil would miss out on any road course competition, which could lead him to Europe and Formula One after his current contract expires. Also joining deFerran is 2001 Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, who likewise might just move on to the European circuit when his contract expires.

It is reported that Penske is unhappy with the way CART is moving, and especially at their decision to drop Michigan Speedway from the 2002 schedule. This is significant since Penske owns Michigan. It also is rumored that his primary sponsor, Marlboro, wants into the IRL markets and since the tobacco settlement, they can only race in one series. Let's face it, racing is a business and teams will go where the money is.

Could this move by Roger Penske bring the two bodies back together, as was mentioned in the opening of this article? In my opinion it could, and nothing would be better for open-wheeled racing. Let CART run the road and street courses and the IRL run the ovals. Let teams run two car types for different events. Let's face it, NASCAR has short track and superspeedway cars. Why can't Indy cars have the same type of system. Then teams could run one or both series, the top drivers would be able to appear in both, and we'd truly have a sport that includes the best of both worlds.