Sorry to keep repeating myself, but here is the poop. The owner
of the Indianapolis track has started a new open wheel series that uses
cars similar to Indycars. However he has an aversion to road courses and
foreign drivers. So he is trying to start an all American race series.
One of the problems with this is that to encourage membership in his
racing series, the Indianapolis Racing League(IRL), he's restricted
qualifying at one of the world's premier events--the Indy 500. Of the 33
starting spots, all but 8 will be guarenteed to IRL racers. that means
the 30 or so Cart/PPg Indycar drivers will be competing for only 8 spots
against not only themselves, but any other IRL drivers that couldn't get
the 1st 25 spots.
Cart is seriously considering a boycott of Indy to try and force
Tony George to open qualifying to all comers. There is a strong
possiblitly that at the same time Indy is running with it's IRL crowd,
the CART racers will be at Michigan running a 500 mile race there. Given
the choice of TV coverage, I'll watch Michigan and turn off Indy until
the IRL backs down and opens the race in the traditional manner.
Dave Henrie
* JABBER v1.1 * "Die! You Furless Freak!"--WC]I[
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