The rumours have been flying about Team Penske leaving CART for the Indy Racing League. Combined with all the uncertainty about CART’s future created by the current 2003 engine fiasco this could be the start of teams defecting to the IRL.
7 November 2001 The rumours have been flying about Team Penske leaving CART for the Indy Racing League. While this may seem a surprising step for the top team in the “Major League” of American motor racing to go to a minor league, they will be there.

Roger told me he was out of CART, period,” CART team owner Morris Nunn told a website on Sunday at California Speedway in Fontana.

Why? Because of tobacco sponsorship.

The Team Penske tobacco sponsor wants their product promoted at the Indy 500, one of the world’s great motorsport events, and the only real asset of the Indy Racing League. The way the U.S. television tobacco advertising laws work is that Team Penske can only use that sponsorship in one series, either CART or IRL not both. So while they look like cigarette packets on wheels in CART they can’t run those colours in the INDY 500.

Combined with all the uncertainty about CART’s future created by the current 2003 engine fiascothis could be the start of teams defecting to the IRL.

After losing two major engine suppliers, in Honda and Mercedes Benz, the news that Toyota are committed to going IRL it doesn’t look good. Without engine specifications decided for the new 2003 CART powerplant Ford may not want to supply the whole field.

Some team owners may jump ship altogether while more will be looking to hedge their bets by having a presence in both series. One rumour has Penske running in both series, IRL with tobacco company backing and a CART team with Mobil colours. Mo Nunn is taking no chances; he had a two-car CART entry in 2001 and will be running one car in CART and one in the IRL next year.

I heard speculation at the recent NASCAR race at Rockingham that the days of Penske’s Mobil team there may be numbered. Certainly there have been some bizarre goings on there with the team providing driver Jeremy Mayfield with cars he considered so bad that he parted company with the team before the end of the season in disgust.

It seems CART itself is not sure of where it is heading and what it wants. At home in the US it is not doing well in the all important television ratings and at some of the tracks there are large numbers of empty seats clearly visible. It is doing very well in the international events in Mexico, Germany, England and Japan.

What about Australia? Well, the 2001 Honda Indy 300 drew a world record crowd for any CART race meeting. Even in the middle of such a successful meeting the uncertainty over where CART are going had the local V8 Supercar series exploring ways to take over the race meeting in future for a major endurance race instead of the Champ Cars. The new V8 Supercar race at Adelaide, using a street circuit based on the old F1 track, draws a very big crowd and costs a lot less to put on than Champ cars.

It would be a shame to lose the series as it provides close racing over a wide variety of circuit types. I love the road courses they go to, Portland, Road America, Laguna Seca with its famous Cork Screw and my absolute favourite, Mid Ohio.