In a perfect world, more than 30 cars would line up on the starting grid this weekend for the Bombardier Learjet 500.Fans at Texas Motor Speedway would see Paul Newman sitting on the pit box, glaring over at old rival Roger Penske as they got ready to watch their drivers compete.

Sebastien Bourdais, possibly the best open-wheel racer in America, would go wheel-to-wheel with the last two Indy 500 winners - Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon.

Danica Patrick would try to show a thing or two to Katherine Legge.

Indy-car racing would be one big happy family again for the first time in more than a decade.

Unfortunately, American open-wheel racing is not a perfect world. Far from it.

The IRL and Champ Car went their separates ways 11 years ago. But for the first time, there’s realistic hope that the bitter split will come to an end soon.

Dario Franchitti, who competes in the IRL, is one of several drivers who have raced in both leagues. He is cautiously optimistic of seeing the merger come to fruition.

“I would love for it to happen,” Franchitti said. “I don’t think having two different series is helping anybody at this point. We want to race against all the best drivers in open-wheel racing. And we want to go to all the best venues.

“It just makes so much sense for everybody concerned - drivers, teams and sponsors. If were up to us, it already would have happened. I just hope the guys trying to do this can get it together. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

The two men trying to work this out are IRL founder Tony George and Champ Car boss Kevin Kalkhoven. They continue to discuss the ramifications of a possible merger.

Kalkhoven attended the Indianapolis 500 last week as George’s guest. It was his first trip to the Brickyard since 1966 when Graham Hill won the event.

George won’t say how the talks are going. Kalkhoven spoke about it before the Houston Champ Car race last month, but didn’t give many details.

“The best thing people can do is leave us alone and let us work on it,” he said.

Penske disagrees with that idea.

“I don’t think this little dating game between Tony and Kevin is going to work,” he said. “What we need to do is get all the (team) owners in a room, see if we can hammer out a schedule and go from there.”

Some people would say that’s what caused the breakup. Team owners had too much say in how CART, as Champ Car was known then, was run.

How the two leagues got to where they are today in ancient history. All that matters is how they can become one again.

Full Article at Mercurynews.com