Ryan Briscoe, driver of the #6 Team Penske Dallara Honda, during the IZOD IndyCar Series Honda Indy Toronto on July 18, 2010 in the streets of Toronto.
When the IndyCar Series moves to its newly chosen chassis in 2012, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to let the Indy Lights drivers test their mettle in the Dallara-Honda it now uses.
That's the view of IndyCar team owner Roger Penske, who took his 150th open wheel win as an owner when his driver Will Power crossed the line to take the victory in the Toronto Honda Indy last weekend.
"We have not ever competed in the Indy Lights series and I think at the moment the fact that the main program - our IndyCar side is doing well - we need to be sure we don't lose any momentum and have a series where people can run," he said.
"Why don't we run the cars that are going to be obsolete in 2012? Why don't they take these cars and let them be the Indy Lights cars? We would probably run someone with as much stuff as we have."
The IndyCar series announced its choice for a new chassis last week, which will again be built by Italian supplier Dallara. It will supply a "safety cell" which the teams will then complete with aerodynamic packages they or other manufacturers develop.
Its arrival means the series will retire its current Dallara-Honda. But that might be a mistake, considering that it's a known quantity and many teams have both inventory and experience with them.
"We have been running these cars for six or seven years now, parts are available, people know how to work on them, guys go through the teams and they know the set-ups so there's a good cross-pollination and then the racing is good," Penske said.
Unfortunately it seems the series has already decided that moving the retired IndyCar to its feeder series is not a good idea. In fact, IndyCar president of competition and racing operations Brian Barnhart slammed the door shut on talk of having the chassis transformed into an Indy Lights package.
"I don't think they'll be the Indy Lights cars for 2012 or 2013," Barnhart said.
"The fact it was an eight-year-old car that was designed to run on ovals only and converted to run on the road and street circuits that are currently on the schedule, has created a situation where we have excess parts inventory."
But the bigger reason Barnhart resists moving the Dallara-Honda to Indy Lights is the price tag. He feels it would be too much of a burden for the Indy Lights teams to run the IndyCar in the feeder series.
"I think this would be a cost-prohibitive car, so it will not move in that direction," Barnhart concluded. "The fact we'll get to 2012, at this point the car will have raced nine years, and I think it will be time to become show cars."
While the series balks at replacing Dallara's Indy Lights chassis with the one the company supplied to the big boys, it seems most key people in the paddock feel a new feeder series car needs to appear shortly after IndyCar makes the switch in 2012.
"One of the challenges I see is the cars that the young guys are driving right now is not relevant to what the IndyCar is, so they have to get that fixed a little bit and get them closer to what the IndyCar guys are driving," said Chip Ganassi, owner of his eponymous team.
"Let's face it, a good guy hasn't come out of Indy Lights in a long time."
And it will have to give the feeder series a distinctive look of its own, so it won't fall into the trap that stock car series NASCAR has created for itself where its top-tier Sprint Cup drivers cross over into the Nationwide Series to compete.
"There was some talk about using the same safety cell [in Indy Lights] but I think there has got to be differentiation," Penske said.
"I think in NASCAR they have to be careful. You've got Saturday [second tier Nationwide series]and Sunday [top tier Sprint Cup]and they have the same cars and the same drivers. I think you have to have a series where you can bring people up and grow drivers."
Triple Chip dip
This weekend, Ganassi has a chance to become the first team owner to win the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same season if one of his NASCAR drivers, Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray takes the chequered flag at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday.
With McMurray's win in February's Daytona 500 combined with Dario Franchitti's May triumph in Indianapolis, Ganassi is already the first owner to win "The Great American Race" and the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" in the same year.
"I remember in my childhood and wanting to race and you always dreamed about winning a big race," said Ganassi. "But if I told you that I dreamed about winning those big races in the same year, I'd be lying."