One is Better Than Two

The feud between the Indy Racing League (IRL) and Champ Car has finally come to an end, mercifully, after 12 long years.

Anyone who has been following the open-wheel racing in the United States knows that it simply can't afford to sustain two similar but competing racing series. The only surprise is that it took THIS long for the merger to materialise.

I have always been more a Champ Car fan than an IRL fan, and it's so agonising to see Champ Car struggling to field cars in each and every race. I love Champ Car's healthy mixture of road races and oval races, and its willingness (or do they have a choice?) to field young and promising drivers unknown to many of us.

Meanwhile, although IRL has taken with them the legendary Indianapolis 500, as well as most of the top teams and drivers from Champ Car, it has struggled to gather mainstream status due to its over-reliance on in oval racing. It took them all the way until 2005 to start racing on street and road circuits.

In the absence of a major open-wheel racing series, NASCAR has become the biggest beneficiary as media attention and sponsorship money keep pouring in. Hopefully the merger will allow the newly unified series to regain the recognition and status it deserves, and once again becomes the hotbed for promising open-wheel racers for the US.