Dale Jr. & Graham Rahal To Swap Rides?

KevinWI

KevinWI

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Now that they have the same sponsor, Graham Rahal wants Dale Jr. to take his IndyCar for a spin and drive Dale Jr.'s stock car.

From Jayski:

Earnhardt, Jr, Graham Rahal interested in ride swap: Verizon IndyCar Series driver Graham Rahal believes the timing and circumstances are just too perfect not to do the much-ballyhooed car swap with his National Guard NASCAR counterpart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Rahal attended the Auto Club 400 in Fontana on Sunday afternoon with girlfriend Courtney Force and her father, 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion, John and reached out to Earnhardt after the race, via Twitter, about the possibility of swapping rides somewhere down the line. For his part, Earnhardt seemed agreeable. Rahal says the Twitter exchange was calculated but "100 percent authentic" and something that the second-generation IndyCar ace has wanted to do for quite some time. "I wouldn't have said it if I didn't want it to happen," Rahal told Popular Speed. "Dale and I share a sponsor now (National Guard) and my dad (three-time champion, Bobby) and Rick (Hendrick) have always had a great relationship." Rahal believes the shared National Guard sponsorship makes for a great marketing opportunity for both himself and Earnhardt, allowing for Rahal to knock a machine off his personal bucket list - the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car. Rahal, who is pushing for the car swap to take place on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is just looking forward to potentially hanging out with Earnhardt, believing that their similarities could establish a fast friendship.(Popular Speed)(3-25-2013)
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Anybody remember when JPM and Jeff Gordon swapped rides and Gordon drove the Williams F1 car?

By the way, I doubt this happens. Graham seems to be the only one talking about it and Rick Hendrick is from the school of thought that IndyCars are death traps (he vetoed Kasey Kahne trying to get a ride for the ill-fated 2011 IndyCar Las Vegas race and the $5 mil prize). At the Indy road course, maybe, if the National Guard really wants it.
 
I'd love to see it! I love watching these swaps.

Would be good for NASCAR and Indycar. Hope it happens.
 
IndyCar needs to get Toyoya involved in IndyCar. Then we could see a Kyle Busch or Mat Kenseth car swop. Or even better yet get Ford involved. Penski could move to Fords in IndyCar. With more manufactures involved IndyCar would get more fan interest/potential.
 
blue92 said:
IndyCar needs to get Toyoya involved in IndyCar. Then we could see a Kyle Busch or Mat Kenseth car swop. Or even better yet get Ford involved. Penski could move to Fords in IndyCar. With more manufactures involved IndyCar would get more fan interest/potential.
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Now you're making sense.
 
blue92 said:
IndyCar needs to get Toyoya involved in IndyCar. Then we could see a Kyle Busch or Mat Kenseth car swop. Or even better yet get Ford involved. Penski could move to Fords in IndyCar. With more manufactures involved IndyCar would get more fan interest/potential.
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They've been trying for years. RM said Randy Bernard went to multiple manufacturers, including Audi, Infiniti, Ford, etc. and Lotus was the only one they could sign up. Part of the problem is that IndyCar requires their manufacturers to spend national advertising dollars on the series, so Chevy and Honda have to spend bucks promoting IndyCar nationally. This is why we don't see any one-off special Indy engines like the Buick/Menard V6 from the oldern days.

Toyota is probably never coming back to IndyCar. They've been there, done that and gotten the T-shirt. Ford would be a better fit to return, but they seem to be retracting on motorsports spending, not expanding, what with their withdrawal from the nitro NHRA classes.

Problem is, according to the guys at Racer.com, you need to spend in the neighborhood of $40 million to get a quality open-wheel engine program started if you want to compete against Honda and Chevrolet. Lotus thought you could just build a small V6 and slap a turbo on it and they were embarrassed. These are highly engineered engines. To play the Andy Marquis card, with IndyCar's god awful TV ratings outside of the Indy 500, plus the onerous requirements on marketing and such, what manufacturer is going to spend that?
 
KevinWI said:
They've been trying for years. RM said Randy Bernard went to multiple manufacturers, including Audi, Infiniti, Ford, etc. and Lotus was the only one they could sign up. Part of the problem is that IndyCar requires their manufacturers to spend national advertising dollars on the series, so Chevy and Honda have to spend bucks promoting IndyCar nationally. This is why we don't see any one-off special Indy engines like the Buick/Menard V6 from the oldern days.

Toyota is probably never coming back to IndyCar. They've been there, done that and gotten the T-shirt. Ford would be a better fit to return, but they seem to be retracting on motorsports spending, not expanding, what with their withdrawal from the nitro NHRA classes.

Problem is, according to the guys at Racer.com, you need to spend in the neighborhood of $40 million to get a quality open-wheel engine program started if you want to compete against Honda and Chevrolet. Lotus thought you could just build a small V6 and slap a turbo on it and they were embarrassed. These are highly engineered engines. To play the Andy Marquis card, with IndyCar's god awful TV ratings outside of the Indy 500, plus the onerous requirements on marketing and such, what manufacturer is going to spend that?
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Well then IndyCar is SOL-ed then. May as well kiss this series goodbye. I know I quit watching the Indy500 because it just doesn't have the appeal it did back in it's hay-day. My favorite time watching was when all kinds of cars/manufactures participated including that cool turbine engine.
 
I'd love to see Ford and maybe Audi or Mercedes come to Indycar. If I'm not mistaken, I heard that Honda stated that if another manufacturer did not join by like 2016 they were leaving Indycar. Cant remember where I read it.

Audi has shown interest though.
 
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