The North is gonna rise again ...

A decade ago, when this IRL thing was a fledgling operation trying to get off the ground, I used to wonder where the "stars" were going to come from -- who was going to be the next Rick Mears or A.J. Foyt -- the next household name that would bring fans back to open-wheel racing?

Would it be Billy Boat? Buddy Lazier?

Well, Tony Stewart was right there -- the next A.J. Foyt, for sure. But he didn't last long, and now he's inventing Helio Castroneves' moves and terrorizing catch fences everywhere in the South.

A couple of years later, when Sam Hornish Jr. came along, he was undoubtedly the next Rick Mears -- smooth, unbelievable on ovals, always there at the end (well, except at Indy), and the master of the high-side pass. He'd be the next open-wheel star for sure, especially when he finally wins an Indy 500.

But the only reason they've garnered major interest is when they've been considering making a run for the border. The border being the Mason-Dixon line, of course.

IndyCar fans used to worry about CART -- worry about them taking taking IRL drivers, taking the top teams, taking attention away from the Indy 500 (until they waved the white flag and started coming over in 2000). Pole day 2000 left a stunning pit in the stomach, when Juan Montoya's warmup lap was good enough for the pole speed, and many in the media center were openly high-fiving each other at the embarrassment the CART "professionals" had laid on Tony George's hacks.

Of course, we all know what happened. IndyCar didn't lose people to CART -- the opposite happened. Suddenly, all of the top CART teams (minus Newman-Haas) were in the Indy camp -- Ganassi, Penske, Green (with Michael Andretti), Rahal, even Fernandez. What the heck was left of CART? Well, they did hork one driver/team combo from the Indy world -- Oriol Servia and Conquest Racing -- but that was about it. CART went away, but the CART-centric national open-wheel media still continued to beat the drum of "the split" and the competition between the IRL and the series that was awarded the remnants of CART.

But "the split" we needed to worry about was never CART. It was NASCAR -- which had slowly begun to become the 800-pound gorilla of the motorsports world in the early 1990s. NASCAR has been great for racing, in that its rise has helped bring the sport from having a niche following to being a cultural phenomenon and a mainstream sport.

However, there's a catch. NASCAR was happy to split the pie when racing was a niche sport -- they took the Southerners, IndyCar was the domain of Midwesterners and West Coasters. Now, it's mainstream, and NASCAR doesn't want to share the stage with anyone but themselves.

The series running in CART's shadow is of no consequence to the IRL nowdays -- other than a few owners who could help boost the car count. They're losing races all over the place (San Jose, Denver, Phoenix, China, Korea, and possibly Portland and Vegas in the last year alone), and are looking overseas to Europe to be their savior.

However, NASCAR is.

NASCAR has been a decent partner at a few places -- the Richmond, Kansas and Chicago races on France-owned ovals have been successes -- but they've produced a ton of damage in other areas. Nazareth & Pike's Peak -- two strong IndyCar oval venues and great tracks -- were lost because the Frances bought them and shut them down, one in an attempt to build a NASCAR-centric track up the street.

But NASCAR also gobbles up whatever talent is available. We used to have to worry about every top American driver going south -- the Hornish-to-NASCAR rumors have been ongoing for years, and a lot of talented young open-wheel racers -- such as Kasey Kahne, J.J. Yeley, Tracy Hines, Bryan Clauson and Josh Wise -- have begun looking south before even giving top-level open-wheel racing a shot. That begun in earnest with Jeff Gordon, but the pipeline from USAC to the south has never really stopped. J.J. Yeley told me back in 1998 that NASCAR was his end goal, because "that's where it's at, and you want to be where it's at."

Once Chip Ganassi put JPM in a Cup car, the barn door was opened. Now, NASCAR isn't an American-only series, and the door is now open for Villeneuve, Franchitti, and presumably Wheldon & others, to go South.

That's frustrating, but it's not invincible.

IndyCar racing could come out in better shape, even despite losing its stars.

Losing Tony Stewart was a blow, but the IRL recovered, cultivating new stars such as Sam Hornish Jr.

And Sam has stayed in the league 8 years, won 3 titles, an Indy 500 and loves OW racing. Even if he ventures south, I can't see him venturing too far away from open-wheel cars.

When the CART migration began in 2002, IndyCars found new stars -- Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti -- the latter not really a superstar until this year. It cultivated its own, such as Dan Wheldon, Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti. Buddy Rice and Scott Sharp are there to be the pipelines to the "old days," as well as being strong veteran American racers in the series.

Now, it seems that several of those guys are looking elsewhere -- Wheldon reportedly wants to check out NASCAR. Patrick has looked, but then come back. Mario Andretti wants to get his grandson into F1-world, and Sharp isn't getting any younger.

But the IndyCar Series will survive. It survived the loss of Stewart, and cultivated a host of new stars, even if they didn't necessarily get the cache that Mark Martin and Carl Edwards get in the south.

It survived the retirements of Michael Andretti & Al Unser Jr. It will survive the loss of Hornish & Franchitti -- the latter was going to go anyway, to ALMS if this Ganassi deal hadn't come up. There will be new talent, new stars. Marco & Danica & Dan & Scott & Helio & Tony are all still around. So are Tomas & Buddy. Even with those two defections, the IRL has one of the most stable driver lineups in any form of racing -- to the point where Milka Duno was the only rookie this year until RHR (another young, talented American driver) showed up.

Not to mention, NASCAR's sudden fascination with foreign racers (and the large number of Busch double-dippers & Truck Series seats filled by washed-up Cup vets) means fewer seats available down there for up-and-coming Americans. IndyCars might be seen as a way to run big-time racecars AND get noticed by NASCAR, which is better than trying to schlepp through the Busch Series for several years and then being too old to do anything else.

The IPS has given us knowledge of some of those guys -- Mutoh, Lloyd & Cunningham for the near future, Logan Gomez & friends for the more distant future -- but all in all, the racing will still be top-notch. It will still feature the side-by-side battles. The fields will likely be bigger than what we've seen the last couple of years. And the IndyCar Series will move on.

It got stronger after Tony Stewart's defection. Don't be shocked if that keeps happening, even without Dario & Sam.