Opinion: A Quantum Leap Back Towards Legitimacy

Those of you lamenting the recent unqualified ride-buyer trend in the IZOD IndyCar Series, take note.

IndyCar's TEAM program - which allocates about $1.3 million to full-time teams in lieu of purse money in 16 of the series' 17 events - has been restructured to accommodate 22, instead of the previous 24, teams.

Those sitting on the sidelines? The second cars of Conquest Racing - which saw five pay drivers take the reins this year - and Dale Coyne Racing, who employed the relentlessly mocked and embarrassingly slow Milka Duno.

With that single step, IndyCar drew a hard line in the ground between who deserves to be there and who doesn't.

Granted, the reality is slightly more complex than that for Conquest. They started the season with Mario Romancini and added Bertrand Baguette in a second car after missing the series' first two events. As the season went on, Romancini yielded to other drivers with more money, and Baguette became the team's lead driver, the two cars' numbers - 34 for the lead car, 36 for Baguette - swapped in reflection. But in the end, the 34 (now Baguette's team), the more deserving team, got paid, and the 36 didn't.

Of course, it seems like a slap in the face to longtime owners Dale Coyne and Eric Bachelart, ex-CART drivers and Champ Car owners. And in a way, it is. These guys have their own side of the story - neither are big-time owners with multi-million dollar sponsorship contracts like Chip Ganassi or Michael Andretti. Neither can afford to employ too many drivers that don't bring at least some money with them.

But, at the same time, they chose to bring on drivers who were clearly miles off the pace. Duno drew the ire of competitors for her consistently slow times, as she has since joining the series. Meanwhile, Bachelart brought on the previously unknown Francesco Dracone, who wasn't much faster in his brief audition with the team, and followed him with Tomas Scheckter and Roger Yasukawa.

Understanding that drivers like this weren't going to cut it if IndyCar ever wants to approach NASCAR again in legitimacy, Randy Bernard and Brian Barnhart had to act quickly. They started by putting Duno on probation over the summer and threatened not to renew her license for 2011; she's not likely to be back. Now the TEAM parameters have been adjusted to penalize the two owners most guilty of hiring unqualified talent last season.

Don't think the rest of the sport isn't taking notice.

While Jimmy Vasser is attempting to retain all three drivers from last year's horror show at KV Racing Technology, he's also talked enthusiastically about putting Paul Tracy, the 2003 CART champion, into a full-time ride after two years of limited schedules. Panther Racing is looking at J.R. Hildebrand, the 2009 Firestone Indy Lights champion, for their lone seat. Chip Ganassi appears poised to start a two-car satellite team out of ex-drag racer Don Prudhomme's shop with young American standouts Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball.

And perhaps best of all, after a dismal 2010 that saw the team suffer through poor runs with Hideki Mutoh and only employ Rahal for five races - a long way to fall from their seventh place performance in 2009 - Newman/Haas Racing is testing 2010 Lights runner-up James Hinchcliffe and longtime Champ Car stalwart Oriol Servia at Sebring International Raceway in mid-December with the intent of bringing both to the series in 2011.

There's not a single driver on that list that doesn't have the confidence and respect of the majority of the IndyCar paddock. Most have taken victories in IndyCar, Champ Car, or Indy Lights. The only one who hasn't, Kimball, had four runner-up finishes in Lights this year.

That's a huge jump forward from Duno, Dracone, and Mutoh, and an even bigger jump forward from past backmarkers like Marty Roth, Kosuke Matsuura, and Enrique Bernoldi.

It also puts potential sponsors in a bit more of a pressing position. It's still a free market, under which they can shift money to whomever they please. But in order to tap into IndyCar's highly populated markets, desirable fan demographic, and recent positive momentum, and to make sure that the team they work with gets paid at the end of the season, they have to hire a driver with the chops to put on a good show and not stink up the back of the grid.

And, like it was in the sport's heyday, the only ones lamenting will be the ones who aren't fast enough to make the cut.

IndyCar History: Chevrolet

In celebration of today's announcement that Chevrolet will return to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012, a look back at Chevrolet's open-wheel history:

The name Chevrolet has been present at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the earliest gestations of the Indianapolis 500. French-American brothers Louis, Gaston, and Arthur Chevrolet all took starts in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Arthur was the first to compete, in 1911; Louis debuted in 1916, while Gaston made the first of his two starts in 1919. Gaston was, by far, the most successful behind the wheel, taking the win in 1920 behind the wheel of a Frontenac, the race car company owned by the Chevrolet brothers.

The Chevrolet Motor Car Company itself had been founded in 1911, but founding brother Louis sold his share in it in 1915. As such, Chevrolet the brand was less associated with the speedway than its namesake. As Miller, Offenhauser, Ford, and Cosworth engines began to dominate the sport and the Indianapolis 500, there seemed like less and less of a place available for the famed bowtie at the speedway, besides appearances as the pace car.

When CART was established in 1979, Cosworth engines continued to dominate the day, but Chevrolet took the first non-Cosworth win in the series when Mike Mosley won at the Milwaukee Mile in 1981 in Dan Gurney's Pepsi Challenger. It would mark the only non-Cosworth win in the series until 1987.

Roger Penske, then a five-time Indianapolis 500-winning car owner, began fielding a Chevrolet in selected events in 1986 for Al Unser, the defending series champion. Unser's lone finish in five starts came in the season finale at Miami, where he placed 15th.

The next year, Chevrolet powerplants found their way inside the cars of some of the sport's top teams and drivers. Mario Andretti took a season-opening win at Long Beach for Newman/Haas Racing with the motor, as Penske and Pat Patrick also opted to outfit all of their cars with the new powerplant. The brand took four wins that year, with former Formula 1 champions Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi each scoring two.

Unfortunately, the new engine was still no match for the established Cosworths. Chevrolet could muster no better than fifth in the CART championship that year, with Rick Mears, as the brand's top drivers - Andretti, Mears, Fittipaldi, Danny Sullivan, and Kevin Cogan - were plagued by mechanical problems. Adding insult to injury, Unser's Indianapolis 500 win for Penske that year came in a March-Cosworth that had previously been used as a showcar.

1988 was the first year that the Chevrolet brand truly began to shine in CART. Taking the first six wins that season, 12 of 15 overall, and its first Indianapolis 500, Chevrolet scored its first championship with Sullivan in a Penske-Chevrolet. Sullivan scored an incredible 11 top five finishes and led laps in all but two events that season. Meanwhile, Mears won his third of four career Indianapolis 500s, pacing the field once dominant teammate Sullivan crashed out after 101 laps.

1989 through 1993 represented a remarkable five-year stretch for the brand, which won the Indianapolis 500 in each of those seasons and the CART championship in the first four. Chevrolet-powered cars won 66 of the 80 CART-sanctioned races over the course of those five years, sweeping the 1990 and 1991 seasons and winning 41 events in a row from September 1989 to June 1992.

But 1992 represented the first challenge to Chevrolet's established open wheel authority, as defending champions Michael Andretti and Newman-Haas Racing switched to new Ford Cosworth power. Andretti mounted a series challenge for the title, losing to Bobby Rahal by only four points. But the IndyCar wars were now at full strength, as Andretti took five wins with the new powerplant.

Andretti left CART for an ill-fated Formula 1 experiment in 1993, but his replacement was no slouch either. Defending F1 champion Nigel Mansell slid into Andretti's seat after a falling out with Williams F1 and won his debut event in Queensland. At the top of his game, the Brit won a season-high five races and the title despite missing the second race of the year at Phoenix due to injuries suffered in a practice crash. Chevrolet, Penske, and Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi were defeated by eight points.

At this point, Chevrolet decided that enough was enough. On September 14, 1993, the manufacturer decided to end its relationship with the sport and with engine manufacturer Ilmor, citing the rising costs of going to war with Ford.

2002 marked the brand's return to open-wheel racing. General Motors had been the premier engine supplier in the Indy Racing League since 1997, running engines badged with its Oldsmobile Aurora brand. But as Oldsmobile was being phased out at GM, the powers that be decided to replace the badging with that of Chevrolet. Few were surprised by the brand's dominance that year, winning 14 of 15 races and easily taking the top nine spots in IRL points.

Unfortunately, that dominance was short-lived. Honda and Toyota decided to abandon CART for chances at Indianapolis 500 glory, bringing most of the sport's top teams with them. Chevrolet quickly fell to third in a three-horse race, even after replacing their original engine with a new Cosworth-built motor. Of the 18 races that Chevrolet won in IndyCar between 2002 and 2005, only four came in those last three years; all were with Panther Racing.

The brand pulled out of the sport once again in 2005, as did Toyota, with both focusing their American racing programs on NASCAR first and foremost. But with the new engine formula adopted by the IZOD IndyCar Series for 2012 and beyond, and the brand seeking a new opportunity, a deal for Chevrolet to return to the sport with Penske and Ilmor appears imminent.

Finally, Rahal Returns to Newman/Haas

Earlier in the season, Robin Miller at SpeedTV.com reported that Graham Rahal would reunite with his old team, Newman/Haas Racing, at Long Beach and beyond, saying that the young American talent had finally found sponsorship to resume his IZOD IndyCar Series career.

That didn't happen; instead, Rahal lent his services to Sarah Fisher Racing for that event, while also making appearances for Rahal Letterman Racing at Indianapolis and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing at Iowa. But after tweeting last night that he had "good news" to announce today, Rahal and Newman/Haas have revealed that they will return the No. 02 car to the track for this weekend's Honda Indy Toronto, as well as subsequent races at Mid-Ohio, Infineon, Motegi, Chicagoland, and the season finale at Homestead.

Quick Trim, which backed the father-son Rahal effort at Indianapolis, will sponsor the car.

Rahal finished 7th in points last year with Newman/Haas in the No. 02 car, scoring a pair of pole positions and third-place finishes at Richmond and Motegi. Last year, Rahal qualified sixth or better in each of the six events that he will drive for Newman/Haas this year.

Rahal did not return to the team this year when sponsor McDonald's exited the sport and the team could not find a replacement in time. Subsequent offers from Dale Coyne Racing and a handful of other teams were not to Rahal's liking, and so he sat until Fisher offered him her seat at the three road course events at St. Petersburg, Barber, and Long Beach. A poor chassis kept the team towards the back for the greater part of those runs, and a crash at Long Beach ended his SFR tenure.

Rahal finally finished an Indianapolis 500 this year, coming home in 12th, though not without controversy, as drivers complained that he was blocking too aggressively on the track. Regardless, Dreyer & Reinbold, looking to replace the injured Mike Conway, gave him the call two races later, and he matched his best finish of the season by coming home ninth.

Now Rahal gets to go home again with the team that launched his major open-wheel career and try to re-establish them as contenders. While Hideki Mutoh has proven himself a worthy driver in the past, luck has not been on his side for much of this year. The No. 06 team has finished no better than 12th all season, with more DNFs (four) than lead-lap finishes (three).

Weekend Roundup: April 25, 2010

A collection of news clippings from around the IZOD IndyCar Series over the past few days:

- The team formerly known as Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing will return to its original team name, Newman/Haas Racing. Team officials have not commented on the reasons behind the name change.

Founded in 1983 by actor Paul Newman and businessman Carl Haas, Newman/Haas won eight CART/Champ Car championships, including four consecutive from 2004 to 2007. The team gained a new partner in 2007 when Illinois businessman Michael Lanigan bought into it. Lanigan owns Mi-Jack Construction, which sponsored open-wheel racecars from 1992 to 2006.

Newman/Haas has fallen on some tough times recently, losing top drivers like Graham Rahal, Justin Wilson, and Sebastien Bourdais in the past three years. It also lost sponsor McDonald's after last season, forcing the team to run a single car in 2010 for pay driver Hideki Mutoh, a huge step down from the three they had originally planned to campaign.

- Dreyer & Reinbold Racing will welcome Tomas Scheckter back into the fold for this year's Indianapolis 500. He will drive the No. 23 Dallara-Honda, which has not seen the track since Ana Beatriz drove it in Brazil. While the team claims it will make its sponsorship announcement on April 27, the sponsor is all but certain to be Mona Vie, an acai berry juice company for whom Scheckter does extensive promotion.

Scheckter first secured the Mona Vie sponsorship early last year, taking it to a second car for Dale Coyne Racing in last year's 500. There, he drove alongside former Coyne driver and current DRR leader Justin Wilson, qualifying 26th and finishing 12th. Based on his Indy performance and personal sponsorship contract, DRR signed Scheckter to run ten races for them, either in the No. 23 or No. 43 cars. Scheckter had three top-10 finishes, including a best finish of sixth at Iowa. He finished 20th in points, second best of all drivers running limited schedules.

DRR still has one seat open for Indianapolis, that of the No. 25 car. Beatriz could drive it; other ex-DRR drivers still looking for May employment include Buddy Lazier, Darren Manning, Buddy Rice, and Roger Yasukawa.