INDIANAPOLIS — While Dallara chassis are being prepared for delivery to Champ Car teams that are expected to join IndyCar, one area that is not a concern is the availability of engines from Honda Performance Development.
According to both IndyCar CEO Tony George and IndyCar President of Competition Brian Barnhart, HPD is in great position to have extra engines ready for new participants.
“I think they have been preparing for it along the way,” George said. “They have always had to prepare for 33 cars for the Indy 500. I think with a little forethought and planning they can handle any incremental full-season load that may present itself. They have probably planned on 22-car fields anyway.
“I think we would be fortunate to get to 24 with 26 a max for the season. It’s hard to say because I don’t know who will really be able to take advantage of the opportunity to transition. We know there will be 33-36 at Indy. There may be a few more.
“Those are all the questions we have to answer. As I say, the work really starts now. We have to start figuring this stuff out.”

• When some of those Champ Car teams make the switch to IndyCar, they will be greeted by a familiar face as Tony Cotman now works for the IndyCar Series as the vice president of competition.
Cotman had a similar position at Champ Car before leaving at the end of the year to join IndyCar.
“It’s a comfort level for them knowing it’s somebody they can communicate with and have a relationship with, that they have familiarity,” Barnhart said. “I’m sure that’s a very important aspect of it. It was necessitated when John Lewis made the move to the marketing side. It left a vacancy that needed to be filled. I was looking and exploring various people for that role.
“When Tony contacted me at Phil Casey’s retirement party on Dec. 12 and said he wanted to have lunch, we got together and he told me he was considering leaving Champ Car and wondered if there was an employment opportunity for him in the League. I couldn’t have been more happy at that time because it is somebody with tremendous capabilities and qualifications that not only fills the void of what has been created within the organization, he will take a lot off my shoulders as well.”

• Champ Car team owner Derrick Walker is well aware of the tight time demands that he and other new team owners will be faced with to get up to speed with the Dallara/Honda combination.
“We were well into the red in order to meet the competition as merging series on an equal basis,” Walker said. “Everybody on the Champ Car side goes into this with the knowledge it won’t be easy, it won’t be an overnight thing where we will be as competitive as the best teams in the IRL.
“An IRL car is a different package than what we run. It’s a different animal. Nothing we have can be carried over to the car. We are behind from the get-go but nobody went into it with the realization everything would be perfect. It was getting the series together and going in a positive way. Champ Car is going into it with a pretty realistic expectation of being behind and we have a lot of work to do to catch up.
“Getting the equipment and getting it all together will be spent in the hours leading up before we can test. I suspect Champ Car teams will be on the run from today onwards because they will condense a lot of work to get to the first test. They have to do it all again to get to the first race, plus development with the Dallara, plus go racing and find the additional dollars to pay for it.
“It will be a task for the Champ Car teams but I don’t hear anyone complaining. It’s let’s go do it. The sooner we get it done the better, for all of us.”
 
• Not all Champ Car teams will agree to come to IndyCar so the fields may not grow as big as some people may expect, and some Champ Car teams may come as a one-car team rather than a multi-car team.
“I think if we see anything in the seven- or eight-car range of new participants joining as a result of this unification is a home run,” Barnhart said. “I think it’s a very real possibility. When it’s all said and done, I wouldn’t be surprised to see us with eight or 11 additional cars.
“We have an orientation seminar on Monday in Indianapolis. That’s extremely short notice but we notified everybody on Friday. We’re doing driver physicals, the same process we went through on Jan. 8 and 9 we will do for all the new competitors that are joining. We will have orientation for physicals, administrative, operational, procedural, and medical — every aspect of it. We’re doing everything we can to help facilitate this transition.
 “We have made it our effort in every way possible from teams and the League to welcome these people in with open arms, get them up to speed as quickly as possible and to move forward as one as soon as possible.”

• This season, three-time IndyCar champion and 2006 Indy 500 winner Sam Hornish, Jr. and 2007 IndyCar champ and 2007 Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti are both rookies in NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Both had a positive reaction that there is now just one IndyCar series in the United States.
“I think it’s great,” Franchitti said. “There is a part of me that thinks I wish it had happened five years ago. For my friends in the IRL, my friends in the Champ Car series, I think it’s fantastic because they’ll all get to race together in one series. From that point, I’m really happy and as a race fan I’m happy.
“It’s been a long time coming.”