No merger in sight for IRL, CART

? The Indy Racing League and CART shared a room Tuesday. They weren’t talking merger. In fact, they weren’t talking with each other at all.

The Open Wheel Racing Summit brought together representatives of the dueling series, ostensibly to discuss their view of a sport that has been plagued by poor crowds at some venues and even worse television ratings.

The meeting also produced speculation that IRL could be ready to talk merger with Championship Auto Racing Teams, which has moved its headquarters to Indianapolis.

Tony George, founder of the IRL and president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, doused those hopes.

“Only time will tell if the two entities ever do somehow get together, but today there is nothing ongoing that I work on or anybody in my organization works on,” George said.

“We’re just trying to build the premier racing series in the world, and we believe the future of Indy-car racing is totally upon our shoulders to carry.”

CART officials weren’t discussing a merger, either. Instead, they refuted the generally held view that their company is in trouble and may have only a limited future.

“We’ve got plans for the future,” said Steve Fusek, vice president of marketing for CART. “We know where we’re going.”

The IRL gave a slick, bullet point-filled presentation touting the future of its upwardly mobile American all-oval series.

George raised some eyebrows when he said, “Our goal in five years is to be the premier motorsports series in the world. Yes, that means compared to NASCAR and, yes, that means compared to Formula One.”

George, whose grandfather, Tony Hulman, brought the decaying speedway back to prominence after World War II, said the IRL has already come a long way from its beginnings.

Open-wheel racing was already losing ground to NASCAR and George was accused of forming the league for ego gratification and sounding the death knell for Indy cars. Some critics predicted the IRL would never turn a wheel.

“Now, seven years later,” George said, “we have converted many new believers and an increasing number are joining with us to create for the first time a competitive, stable and growing open-wheel series.”

Since 2000, several of the prominent CART teams have returned to race in the IRL’s cornerstone Indianapolis 500, current or former CART car owners Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi and Morris Nunn are now fielding IRL teams, and the rival series moved its headquarters from Troy, Mich., to Indianapolis.

The two-day Open Wheel Racing Summit was put together by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal.