Surfers Paradise, Australia.

The IndyCar Series made its debut at Surfers Paradise last month in a non-points race where Ryan Briscoe claimed victory. During the race weekend, IndyCar Series executives met with event organizers and government officials to discuss various date and commercial options for 2009 and beyond. The Gold Coast event, along with the Edmonton race, was added to the 2008 IndyCar Series schedule after the unification of North American open-wheel racing was confirmed in February, less then a month prior to the start of the 2008 schedule.

On July 30, the IndyCar Series announced its 2009 schedule featuring 18 races, including two new destinations, bookend dates for the state of Florida marking changes to the season-opening and closing venues, and expanding the season-long championship by a month. Themerger but believed it was needed for the sport to survive.

But so far since the merger TG has failed. Basically it is looking more and more like he wanted to merge just to get the Long Beach race and expand into Canada. Losing the Gold Coast race is a big slap in the face to the Champ Car fan base that will now start to turn their backs on Indy. To some Champ Car fans the Gold Coast race was even better then the Long Beach race but it was a definite second to most.

I really thought TG wanted to reverse the damage he did to the sport and make amends with the fans by blending both Indy & Champ Car and making it into a better product