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A brand new Indy Racing League will debut Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
But in the end, it will more than likely look a lot like the old IRL.
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| Getting to No. 1 will be a tall order for ex-Champ Car driver Justin Wilson. (Getty Images) |
Newcomers from the Champ Car side include Graham Rahal, Oriol Servia, Justin Wilson, Bruno Junqueira and Will Power, whose presence instantly makes the series deeper and more talented.
Just don't expect much from this bunch in the early going as the learning curve for the former Champ Car stars will be steeper than the 20 degree banking at Homestead.
"It's going to be hard to get up to speed here by the race," Power said after a test session at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. "But, it's a learning year for us. I'm taking in as much as I can and trying to learn what makes these cars go fast."
The Champ Car brigade will have a whole lot more than a new set of tracks like Homestead to learn this year. Figuring out an IRL car, a much different animal than the turbocharged machines of Champ Car's past, will be an equally difficult task.
Jimmy Vasser, co-owner of the KV team, has enjoyed watching his team be successful in the winter testing sessions but knows once the bell rings for the season to begin it will be a very different challenge.
"We are not overly confident right now," the former CART champion said. "We have our eyes open. I know we have a great group of people here and we are all focused on working hard and learning, but certainly we understand that the teams we are going to go up against have a lot more familiarity with the chassis and the series. That puts us at a big disadvantage, but we will chip away at it."
Just getting seat time and making laps in the new cars has been difficult for the incoming Champ car teams.
"We've got to judge the competition when we get there but it's going to be a tough road because we have no time in these cars, let alone the fact most of us have very little experience on ovals," said Power, who does have five oval-track starts in his career. "We've got to be realistic and these first few races are going to be very difficult."
Power is one of the few newcomers who has at least a limited oval-track background. For some, like Conquest Racing's Enrique Bernoldi, turning left only will be a completely foreign experience.
"I think here on the grid, I'm the guy who has more Formula One starts and spent more time in Formula One," said Bernoldi, a Venezuelan with 28 Grand Prix starts. "I have a good CV, but from what we will race, people like Tony (Kanaan), (Dan) Wheldon, Helio (Castroneves), they're more experienced than me in this ground here. So I have to learn from them. I'm not the expert here now."
