IRL and CCWS will merge

[Krys TOFF]

IRL (Indycar Racing League) and CCWS (ChampCar World Series) will merge into 1 single championship.

Some history :
CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) was the single-seater championship for ages when, in 1996, IRL was created as an alternative mainly based on oval speedways to get closer to Nascar style. CART was mainly based on "standard" race tracks.
Since then, 2 series existed, dividing the interest of fans and also the investors interests.
In 2004, CART went bankrupt and was re-born as CCWS, still mainly focused on standard race tracks.

Now, the 2 championships will merge and it seems tracks of both series will be raced, so now the new championship (named IRL) should be half on oval tracks, and half on race tracks.
Same car will be used for this new big championship : the Dallara-Honda car used in IRL.

Source : http://www.indycar.com/news/story.php?story_id=10557

[Duplode]

Even though I never really cared that much for Indy/IRL/CART/ChampCar/etc. that much (damn the yellow flags!), I suppose it's good news they will have another shot at an unified, strong open-wheeler championship.

[Krys TOFF]

IRL and ChampCar re-unification is not good news for some drivers.

Paul Tracy or the French (ex-F1 driver and test driver) Franck Montagny will be without possibility to race after 1st Champ Car GP of 2008 (and last ChampCar GP of all time it seems) due to Forsythe team bankrupt. This team had money for ChampCar, but with the re-unification with IRL the number of races is highly increased, forcing all teams to find money and sponsors.

Forsythe team is the 1st to confirm they had no new sponsor and therefore decided to stop. Some other teams (mainly from ChampCar, because budgets in IRL were always higher so they should have less problems) may follow, sadly for their pilots.

I feel sad for Montagny, but he is still driving because he has contract with Peugeot for 24H of Le Mans. For Paul Tracy, it's a disaster. After beeing last ChampCar's champion in 2003 before Sebastien Bourdais' domination, he expected to be Champ Car champion again now that Bourdais joined F1. Now, he is unemployed.

[Krys TOFF]

3 ChampCar (so far, but list may be longer soon) teams confirmed that, due to budget issue, they won't join IRL : Forsythe, Walker Racing (aka Team Australia) and now Minardi Team USA.

These teams will be there for the very last CCWS race in Long Beach (that was supposed to be 1st race of 2008 season of CCWS), but then they will join ChampCar Atlantic, promotion serie of CCWS which is then, obviously, not merged with IRL promotion serie named IRL-pro.