Thursday, September 25, 2008

IRL Musical chairs continues.

The music plays on as Vitor Meira secured himself a seat with AJ Foyt enterprises starting in 2009. This leaves Darren Manning the next man looking for a seat as it is he who is losing his job. Manning and Meira finished within one point of each other in 2008 with both men being consistent challengers for the top 10 and both men having a season best finish of second. I like Vitor Meira and am happy that he has landed on his feet, but at the expense of another quality driver is unfortunate. I think that Manning deserves a ride somewhere and this move is more of a step sideways than a step forward for AJ Foyt enterprises. AJ is still dreaming of running a second car full time, possibly for Franck Perera, but that does not seem likely. This move also rubbishes any rumours that Meira will replace Tomas Scheckter at Luczo Dragon racing, although we still may see Darren Manning jump to Jay Penske's squad, if they run next year.

The other piece of news comes way out of left field and it has to do with a brand new team and a brand new Indycar driver. The team is called 3G motorsports (or three guys motorsports) and is run by Greg Beck, who has previously fielded a cars in the IRL as early as 1996 and ran two races last year with Roger Yasukawa, at Motegi and the Indy 500, where Roger failed to Qualify. There had been rumblings that Beck was trying to get something together but nobody took them really seriously until this announcement. The big surprise is the choice of driver, NASCAR veteran Stanton Barrett. Barrett will be 36 when the season starts and has no open wheel experience. He also has very little in the way of road racing experience and was a journeyman in NASCAR at best. He will probably struggle mightily in the first few road races and may end up in the wall at some of the street courses, but he will probably improve as the season progresses. He is a veteran who knows full well that you are only as good as your last race. He may start the season in Milka-Marty land, but will certainly improve as the season progresses, especially on the ovals. It is nice to see new teams having a go at it and hopefully this becomes a permanent thing. This announcement brings the confirmed car count up to 20 with teams like Dale Coyne, KV, Dreyer and Reinbold, and Roth yet to confirm their 2009 plans.

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