Competition This Week.(Roger Penske leaves CART; who is next?)

Penske leaves CART

So, Roger Penske has moved the most successful open-wheel team to the Indy Racing League. Now answer these questions: Who is surprised, and who's next to leave CART?

As for the first, it seems plenty of people on both sides of the fence were surprised despite two months of speculation, including former series champions Buddy Lazier (IRL) and Jimmy Vasser (CART). Lazier called it ``a hell of a surprise.'' Vasser said he couldn't believe Penske didn't keep Gil de Ferran in CART to pursue a third straight series title. Both thought Penske's ties to CART, which he co-founded in 1979, were too strong to break. Wrong. Now de Ferran, Indy winner Helio Castroneves and Marlboro are officially IRL-bound.

Penske remained unavailable for comment at AutoWeek's deadline, but Dan Luginbuhl, a Penske Corp. vice president and trusted friend of Penske, said The Captain didn't like the way CART's schedule was trending away from ovals in general and International Speedway Corp. tracks (Michigan, Nazareth and Homestead, among them) in particular. Penske also liked having the opportunity to showcase Marlboro in Richmond, Virginia, where parent company Philip Morris USA has a manufacturing facility.

Luginbuhl said Penske was generally dissatisfied with the way CART was doing business, and he cited the disbanding of Indy Lights as an example. ``As events unfolded and CART took action, or didn't take action, we wondered what really was the strategic plan,'' Luginbuhl said. ``This unfortunately has been a series-wide issue. The sky was constantly blue and everything was going to get better on every issue, but we never saw much progress.''

Luginbuhl said Penske hopes their move to the IRL is ``one small step'' toward a reconciliation in open-wheel racing. Which leads us to the second question: Who's next to jump ship? Morris Nunn has already announced he'll be in the IRL for the entire 2002 season, and Chip Ganassi and Bobby Rahal will compete at least at Indy. Team Green came perilously close to going at Kool's urging only to stick with CART for another year. IRL president Tony George said last weekend there's ``a 50-50 chance'' his series will snare another CART team or two before the season begins March 4 in Homestead. Blair Motorsports, with Alex Barron, might be one.

As for the IRL, its leaders are just downright giddy about having Team Penske in their camp. This is by far the biggest validation of the league's worth. ``And there's still a lot of things in the works [for 2002] that are very positive,'' George said. ``Who knows what it will be and exactly when [it will be announced], but I'm very busy.''