IRL and CART is the same crap racing, so it does indeed answer the question. I think Bourdais is legit.

 

I'm not trying to pick a fight here but CART went away a long time ago... it was a mix of ovals and road courses.

It became ChampCar which did almost all road courses.

IRL sadly has done almost all ovals the last few years.

So someone coming from ChampCar has a BIG advantage over someone coming in from IRL as they will already be more familiar with the style of racing that F1 does.

 

Mostly street circuits, really, which are somewhat different from road courses. But ChampCar did do a few real road courses. Lately IRL has also expanded to doing a few road courses.

I'm not sure either prepares a driver for F1 better than the regular F1 feeder circuits.

For the most part, open wheel racing in the US is a dead end and has been so for several decades.

A few have escaped from it to NASCAR (Tony Stewart, et al.) and a few have moved to F1 (Juan Pablo maybe being the only really successful one?).

If not for the Indy 500, there probably would be no big-dollar open wheel racing in the US. Nobody pays attention to it unless a) it's Indy, b) it happens to come to your home town, or c) somebody dies. ChampCar and IRL didn't merge -- ChampCar went out of business and IRL picked up some of the pieces.

 

Yes, sorry, you are correct of course Most were temporary tracks, setup for the occasion. Still closer to F1 than IRL

JP is the only one from US open wheel I can think of in recent years.

I'm hoping with the merger we'll see even more road courses and/or street courses for IRL. I was at the Glen for their first race there.

CART actually used to race on the oval at NH. I saw 2 races there including Honda's first CART win.

 

It was funny, so was using a 4 syllable, double consant word on this site!!!

I was joking Mike... i think i starting to get psoriasis of the liver as we speak

 

Screw him, thats what he deserves for 2 reasons.
1. do an s2000 commercial and making a retarded comment about no right turns
2. Having the privilage to be the teammate of the greatest driver EVER (Aryton Senna) and not putting in 1 bit of effort.

Bastard deserves psoriasis of the testicles for both reasons above!

 

You better take care of that liver Marco, if you want to live long enough to see Honda win a world championship again

On the other hand, I know you want all your special Honda stuff to goto a good home when you are gone... I'll PM you my name and address so you can put me in your Will

 

Not likely, I think. For instance, they dropped Portland, which was one of the few real road courses on the ChampCar circuit.

NASCAR is trying hard to expand into the Pacific Northwest, but open wheel is willing to walk away from the only race it had in the region. The IRL always has been just a support mechanism to keep the Indy 500 alive. I doubt that will change much. Guess we'll see.

 

Eh, I can dream I'm also hoping for two new engine manufacturers

Which scenario do you think is LESS likely

I'd love to see them goto Miller with the ALMS and Touring car guys.

 

Miller and Road America are hands down the 2 best tracks in USA.