IRL. Sorry didnt want to excite some of you. Now you see where Honda puts its money? As much as I love drag racing IRL events are so much fun too.

General Motors pulling Chevy engines out of IRL

02:49 AM CST on Thursday, November 4, 2004

By TERRY BLOUNT / The Dallas Morning News

General Motors, the one manufacturer that has been a part of the IRL since the league began in 1996, will leave the series after the 2005 season.

Chevrolet officials made the surprise announcement Wednesday in Indianapolis after meeting with IRL president Tony George and the IRL teams that use Chevy engines.

"We found ourselves at a crossroad," said Doug Duchardt, director of GM Racing. "This was a difficult decision made at the highest levels of our company. It came down to a value situation of how much we were spending and what we were getting out of it."

Chevrolet, which had four teams and six cars in the IRL this year, did not win a race. Honda won 14 and Toyota won two.

GM, with Oldsmobile, and Nissan were the original engine suppliers for the IRL. But Toyota and Honda left Champ Car to join he IRL in 2003. The GM brand was switched to Chevrolet in 2002. Nissan only competes in the Infiniti Pro Series, a feeder league for the IRL.

Ken Ungar, the IRL's vice president of business affairs, issued a statement about Chevrolet's decision:

"While we are disappointed, we understand that GM has to deal with its own competitive issues, both on and off the track."

Honda reportedly spent $80 million this season on its IRL program. Toyota spent $40 million and Chevrolet spent $20 million.

 

No wonder Honda has no money for us (Sport compact racers) and GM does.

John

 

Dang, 80 million is crazy money but if you think about it. It makes a lot of since when the factory Honda motors run forever and 500+whp cars can have stock oil pumps, head gaskets, valves and many other parts that can withhold all of that extra stress.

All I'm saying is that they probably consider that to be research and development money for all of the materials and parts later put into production vehicles.

 

I guess GM can concentrate more on sport compact racing now.

 

Drag Racing All The Way

 

evil empire pulls out???? No way!!!

Yeah now they have extra 20 mil for their sport compact effort

 

figures you would do something like this

 

Ford is also out of F1 from here on out... This seems like a trend here...

I wonder whats gonna happen when Honda enters Nascar (which is going to happen on 06' I believe) and with Toyota doing well, there wont be too many forms of racing that the domestics can hide...

 

dang now they will put more money into drag racing....

 

GM chickened out. They only want to stay in a series in which they can dominate. hehe.
Where's the challenge in this?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Turbologist &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wonder whats gonna happen when Honda enters Nascar (which is going to happen on 06' I believe)</TD></TR></TABLE>

Is there any truth to that? Thats the first Ive heard of Honda getting involved with NASCAR... Someone please confirm or deny this... Id love to see it happen!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Turbologist &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wonder whats gonna happen when Honda enters Nascar (which is going to happen on 06' I believe) </TD></TR></TABLE>

I actually think nissans going to be next in the truck series in 06 and then Honda will follow and it should be FULLY BLOWEN with toyota, nissan, and honda will be in the Nextel Series in 2010.