In the 1960s, things like “driver interchange,” the notion that someone racing with one sanctioning body could cross over to another was, at best, a thorny issue.
Each organization, like the United States Auto Club, NASCAR or even the Sports Car Club of America, never mind the National Hot Rod Ass’n, jealously guarded what they saw as their prime assets — their drivers. Sharing them was not something that was done willingly.
Even so, it was done through the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile and its North American agent, the Automobile Competition Committee United States. While maintaining their sovereignty, these top organizations all joined ACCUS, allowing them the space to permit those of their drivers holding FIA issued licenses to race where they wanted without fear of being penalized by their own sanctioning bodies.
It was obviously cumbersome, but it worked at a time when what happened to one governing group did not necessarily effect what happened to other ACCUS members. Today that has all changed, so much so that no one gives a thought about crossover between the various segments of the sport.
For example, even after he was a full-time NASCAR participant, Tony Stewart managed to commute between Indianapolis and Charlotte, running both the Indianapolis 500 in the morning and the Coca-Cola 600 that same evening, the only question being whether or not the plane and its coveted passenger would arrive at its destination on time.
Still, the abandonment of isolationism now goes far beyond just drivers. A walk through the Mooresville, N.C., shops of Roger Penske reveals that Penske is not only heavily involved in NASCAR with his multiple Cup teams, but at the same time is a leading contender to score yet another Indy 500 triumph, all this while prepping to defend the LMP2 title he secured for Porsche and himself in the 2007 American Le Mans Series campaign.
Penske is just one of many whose motorsports universe is multifaceted, which is why the fallout from this past week’s merger announcement between the IRL and Champ Car goes far beyond the open-wheel universe. The current intertwinement of racing is such that the shock waves like those of an earthquake spread outwards from the epicenter to encompass a far broader section of the motorsports community than could have ever been imagined in those first tentative days of ACCUS so long ago.
The ALMS’s 2008 schedule includes, or did include, three joint weekends with Champ Car — Long Beach, Houston and Road America. In the first instance, little will change, since Champ Car will stage its last event as scheduled on the California city’s streets, while Road America appears happy to have the ALMS as its “Sunday show” in place of Champ Car. But what about Houston? There the answer is murky. Will the promoters take a chance on just a single race? More importantly, will the ALMS be willing to pay the whole cost of the television production?
Those questions will determine the future for an event that has little to do at this point with the single-seat set, other than the abandoned plan to share track time.
And, more important perhaps, what about those who supply the labor for the television shows that now won’t happen, or the equipment suppliers who won’t be building spare parts for the Champ Car community? Will they be able to remain within the motorsports industry, or will their skills, which are needed to ensure the sport’s future, be lost to the industry?
Racing today is in many ways a single community, and if it is to have a prosperous future, all within need to keep that in mind.