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IRL Cuts Down Pre-Season Testing to One Event

In a recent attempt to cut down expenditures of the teams lining up for the 2010 IndyCar Series, the North American championship officials decided to reduce the pre-season testing to only one session prior to the season opener in Sao Paolo, in mid March.

The teams will only have the chance to test their 2010 challengers on the Barber Motorsports Park road course, in a testing event scheduled for February 24 to 25. Therefore, there will be no more oval testing in the pre-season from now on, mainly because the first 4 rounds of the 2010 calendar includes only road courses.

The traditional oval course testing session has therefore been moved to May 4th, a few days before the practice session for the famous Indy 500 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That will give the teams plenty of time to evaluate their car's development on oval tracks.

The way the 2010 schedule falls allowed for the opportunity for our teams to focus their pre-season plans on the road and street course events to open the season. By shifting the oval testing portion to in-season Open Test dates, teams have the option of keeping their equipment in road course trim until they are ready to focus on the oval portion of the schedule, including the month of May at Indianapolis,” announced Indy Racing League competition president Brian Barnhart.

In addition, the oval test will not go down at Homestead-Miami as until now, but switch to Kentucky Speedway.

Furthermore, in order to save his teams some more money for the 2010 season, Barnhart announced a reduction in racing fees for all teams from $962,000 to $935,000 ($15,000 lease reduction and removal of $12,000 shipping fee).

We're still offering a variety of options, but the basic price for an Indy-only team is $150,000. Last year it was $225,000,” further announced the IRL boss, referring to the teams that only want to compete in the Indy 500 race.

In addition to the cost-reduction changes, the IRL also announced that “almost a doubling of the horsepower boost (provided by the Honda overtake assist system) will be realized for 2010.
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