Well you might be looking to watch the IRL this weekend as the season kicks off at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Florida.

So you try ABC.  Nope not on the station. 

ESPN?  Nada! 

ESPN2?  Sorry! 

SpeedChannel?  Try again!

It is on Versus!  Versus?  Yeah, Versus!

Do I need digital cable for that?  No, it is actually Channel 68 on Time-Warner Basic Cable.  603 on DirecTV and 640 on AT&T's U-verse.

I don’t know if many of you watch Indycar racing.  As I have posted on it before, I do.  For the people that do, rumors are starting to run pace laps.

Source

Rumor #1 is that Tony Kanaan of AGR is having issues with Marco and Michael Andretti and with his contract up may leave the team at the end of the season.  Rumor 2 and 3 play into it.

Rumor #2 is At Team Penske Ryan Briscoe was/is in the hot seat at Penske Racing.  Tony Kanaan could be going there.  Helio Castroneves is a country man and friend of  Tony Kanaan and would be a good fit.

Rumor #3 is at Target/Ganassi with Ganassi's IndyCar team could open up if Wheldon fulfills his stated desire to race in NASCAR.  Now Wheldon would be highly pushing for him since they were teammates before.

It is very early in the season for the silly season to begin, but Tony Kanaan’s displeasure with the team on TV has revved this up.  I think Tony has valid points and it is hard to work with the boss’s son.  My guess he will need up at Target/Ganassi next year.

Open wheel fans can rejoice in the fact that the series is whole again, after twelve years of damages to open wheel racing.  In the end a stalemate and understanding that they both need each other forced them together.  This year IRL would have had only 16 cars running and Champ Car with 13.  All that time and money lost was a plus for NASCAR.

Tony George offset the cost of the new car the Champ Car just developed last year by giving a free car and 1.25 million dollars to each team per car for the running of the full circuit.  For the 2008 race year, three of Champ Car’s venues will be added to the current IndyCar schedule and more to be added for the 2009 year.

More details to be released Thursday or Friday on Speed Channels Website SPEEDtv.com

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