Competition.

Drastic measures

* How desperate was Honda to land another first-tier team in the IRL? The company has joined forces with an outfit it once blacklisted.

As expected (AW, Nov. 25), Honda will power a Dallara entered by Team Rahal for 1998 IRL champ Kenny Brack, with full-season sponsorship from longtime Rahal partner Miller Brewing. The surprise element in the official announcement, which came Dec. 6: Pioneer Electronics USA will also sponsor Rahal's IRL entry.

Official details regarding team personnel are still pending, but it's known team owner Bobby Rahal is negotiating with engineer Don Halliday. Halliday gave up an ownership stake in Adrian Fernandez's CART outfit when he abruptly left the team two-thirds of the way through the 2002 season. Halliday was Brack's engineer at Team Rahal in 2001, when the driver won a CART-high four races and finished second to Gil de Ferran and Team Penske in the championship.

The Rahal/Brack entry represents only the fourth Honda-powered car in the IRL for 2003, following the three-car Andretti-Green operation with Michael Andretti, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti. Honda is expected to add a fifth car-most likely entered by Fernandez Racing with a Japanese driver-before the IRL season begins in March.

Rahal and Brack form a grade-A combination with a proven track record, particularly if Halliday comes aboard. Honda's eagerness to sign good teams can be measured when you consider that for nearly a decade Team Rahal sat atop the company's list of least-favored teams.

A brief history: In 1994, when Team Rahal was Honda's development team for its first season in CART, Rahal ditched Honda and borrowed an Ilmor-powered Penske just to make the field at the Indy 500. Rahal and Honda parted company at the end of the season and Honda's bitterness lingered, to the point that years later, when its engine had become the preferred CART powerplant, Honda had life-size cutouts of Rahal in its hospitality area scribbled with the words ``I wish I had a Honda.''