IRL IndyCar starts well

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The IRL IndyCar Series race last Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway not only opened the 2008 season, it began a new era of open-wheel racing in America.

So far, so good.

The ongoing IndyCar teams were just as competitive as ever, running side-by-side and sometimes banging wheels at more than 200 mph on the 1.5-mile Homestead oval. And the eight transitional Champ Car entries in the 25-car lineup did their best to figure out their new equipment and, for many, the new demands of racing on an oval.

“The first 50 laps was a struggle with some guys working their handling and getting up to speed,” said Brian Barnhart, president of competition and operations for the IRL. “I think everybody eventually did a good job. It’s a steep learning curve obviously and most of them got the better part of 200 laps in and did a good job all evening long.”

The teams moving from Champ Car to the IRL had less than a month to get their new cars up and running and had only brief opportunities for drivers to test their Honda-powered Dallaras — considerably different than the Cosworth-powered Panoz cars they ran last season in the Champ Car World Series.

Their new Honda engines are normally aspirated, while the Cosworths were turbocharged, giving the drivers a very different feel on acceleration and a considerably different power band.

And the chassis, while similar to the eye, are considerably different in handling, with the Dallara less sleek than the newer design of the Panoz.

Despite the learning curve, there were only three caution flags in the race — only one caused by a transitional driver.