Debut for reunited IRL

Milka Duno sits aboard the No. 23 Dallara Honda during practice for today's season opener Homestead-Miami Speedway. (DARRELL INGHAM/Getty Images)

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - No longer a house divided, the Indy Racing League will attempt to put on a united front for the first time in 12 years in tonight's IndyCar Series season opener, the Gainsco Auto Insurance 300, at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

After a divisive split in 1996, open-wheel racing operated under two sanctioning bodies: the IRL, and the rival Championship Auto Racing Teams, which folded and later became the Champ Car World Series.

The years apart led to resentment between the camps, confusion among race fans, and the demise of open-wheel racing's popularity in America in the face of NASCAR's boom.

Concerned about the future economic viability of their sport, IRL founder Tony George and Champ Car co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven declared a truce in February that resulted in the reunification of open-wheel racing into "one series, all the stars," as the IRL is promoting itself these days.

"It has been about 30 days since we were last here to officially announce reunification and since that time it's been going pretty well, I think," George said yesterday. "Everybody's been working really hard to try and help manage the traffic and the logistics involved and trying to get the equipment to the Champ Car teams coming aboard.

"I know the Champ Car teams have had a really big challenge in trying to organize themselves to be here this weekend. It's been tough on everybody, but it's going pretty well."

Yesterday brought nothing but sunny skies and 80-degree temperatures in the first unified practice session. It was the first opportunity Champ Car refugees had to practice with their new IRL band of brothers (and sisters, too: Danica Patrick and Milka Duno) in this union of 26 race teams.

"The huge impression, for me, was when I came into the pits and I saw that the pit lane was full from the first box, coming in, to the last box, [going] out," said Andretti Green Racing driver Tony Kanaan. "I'm the third pit out, so I had to drive [past] all the teams and I was just smiling big-time inside my helmet."

The IRL had to mount a Herculean effort to absorb the five teams with nine drivers that migrated from Champ Car in time for tonight's opener. To give the new teams proper engine and chassis support, George passed around the hat in the garage area and asked his IRL teams to pitch in with any spare cars, parts, and supplies.

But spare parts and cars were so limited that Graham Rahal, the 19-year-old son of 1986 Indy 500 winner and IRL car co-owner Bobby Rahal, was forced to withdraw from tonight's opener when he wrecked his car during a test session Tuesday night at Homestead. It whittled an expected field to 25. It could be reduced to 24 if rookie Jay Howard of Roth Racing, who crashed into the wall and injured his right knee during his qualifying run last night, is unable to go.

"That's disappointing," said Brian Barnhart, IRL president of competition and operations. "But it's a reflection of the challenges. We're really challenged from an equipment standpoint. There aren't many spares. But in this case, I think we would have been able to come up with enough spares to get the thing together [for Rahal], but the timing in doing it, we wouldn't have had all the parts. It was a pretty big crash and needed quite a bit of repair work."

With Scott Dixon surviving a late challenge by Ed Carpenter to capture the pole in a four-lap average of 213.341 miles per hour, the show must go on.

"I'm really appreciative of the effort everybody's put in," said George. "All the teams, both on the IndyCar side, who pitched in to help ensure that we had some equipment available, to the Champ Car teams who have been, by and large, very appreciative of the efforts and certainly I'd say the league, who's managed to play traffic cop in trying to pull it all together. I couldn't be more proud of the job everyone's done."

Thrill from Brazil

It seemed their ranks had dwindled to but a few in the last few years, but IRL drivers Vitor Meira, Helio Castroneves, and Kanaan were bolstered by the addition of three Brazilian compatriots from the Champ Car Series: Bruno Junqueira, Enrique Bernoldi, and Mario Moraes. "It's pretty nice to see a bunch of Brazilians again," said Kanaan. "They always complain about the 'Brazilian Invasion' and here we are again. It's going to be a great year for us and it's going to be totally up to us to make this series as good as it was back in the '90s, so I'm very excited for the start of the season." . . . IRL officials determined that seven of the nine incoming Champ Car drivers would be regarded as IRL rookies this season, with Oriol Servia and Junqueria enjoying veteran status because of their combined 48 career starts. "We simply looked at what we are: We're still very much an oval-based racing series that centers around the Indianapolis 500," Barnhart said. "We looked at the backgrounds of the drivers [who] are joining us. With the exception of Bruno Junqueira and Oriol Servia, none of the other seven had started more than five. I believe Justin Wilson had five ovals and I think Will Power and Graham Rahal had one or two. Everyone else was zero. So based on sheer numbers of oval experience, we decided it made sense, based on what our series is, that we would classify them as rookies." . . . Dan Wheldon, who has won the IRL opener three years in a row, crashed on his second warmup lap during yesterday's qualifying. "We crashed here in practice last year, so I'm sure we'll bounce back and be fine." . . . David Donohue, of Malvern, Pa., set a qualifying record at Homestead-Miami's 2.3-mile infield road course after he won the pole position for today's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Cart Series race, the Gainsco Grand Prix of Miami, with a fast lap of 113.390 m.p.h. Donohue will co-drive today with Darren Law. In the GT3 class, Kelly Collins led a front-row sweep by Pontiac with his lap of 103.867 m.p.h., with fellow Pontiac driver Andrew Davis taking the outside pole (103.706). R.J. Valentine, of Braintree, Mass., qualified 20th in the GT3 class with co-driver Bryan Sellers in the No. 68 TRG Porsche GT3 Cup.

Stolen property

Jeff Gordon captured the pole position for tomorrow's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville, Va., but it was hardly as entertaining as the fireworks that erupted yesterday when Roush Fenway Racing owner Jack Roush accused a "nondescript Toyota team" of stealing a proprietary Ford sway bar from under one of the team's tool boxes on pit road last September at Dover, Del. "They went behind my toolbox and took my bar out of my inventory and put it in their inventory and took it home with them," Roush said. "That is a fact. It has not been refuted and it has been discussed with the team involved." Michael Waltrip, the principal owner of Michael Waltrip Racing, told SceneDaily's Bob Pockrass that MWR had taken it by mistake and returned it. "Look at the back of these toolboxes," Waltrip said. "There are sway bars, there's jack handles, and it wound up in our possession. We called them and said, 'We want to give this back.' " Roush said he took the issue to NASCAR, but "I still don't have satisfactory resolution to that," he said . . . After finishing a career-best eighth in his season debut two weeks ago at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol, Tenn., Aric Almirola continues to impress after he qualified third. Jamie McMurray, who had to qualify on time after dropping out of the top 35 in owner points, was fifth. Despite a hairy fourth-turn fishtail, Sam Hornish Jr. was the fastest of five rookie qualifiers and will start in the 26th position on Row 13 . . . Todd Szegedy was voted media favorite to capture the 2008 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship when the series kicks off next Sunday with The Icebreaker at Thompson (Conn.) International Speedway.

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, various sanctioning bodies, race teams, sponsors, and track publicity departments was used in this report.