Hornish, Patrick offer IndyCar a view of bright future

	IndyCar hopes that with middle America roots and a track record of success, Sam Hornish Jr. can become a marketing force. AP

IndyCar opens its 12th season Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway with an accomplished, maturing and stable group of drivers and teams that, just as important, has demonstrated signs that bigger things are still possible for the series.

The top eight drivers from last year's down-to-the-last-lap championship return with the same teams and may well be headed toward a similar finish. The series built around the Indy 500 that began life as the Indy Racing League has evolved into a single chassis (Dallara), engine (Honda) and tire (Firestone), a major factor in the ultra-tight competition seen in 2006.

Despite the tight finish, Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing had a stranglehold on the series last year, winning 12 of 14 races while Andretti Green Racing won the other two.

Can any of Andretti Green's four-driver armada of Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Dario Franchitti and new-import Danica Patrick elevate their games and challenge Penske's Sam Hornish Jr. and Helio Castroneves or Ganassi's Dan Wheldon or Scott Dixon for the championship? Can another? Like they say, that's why they race, and we'll find out in an expanded 17-race schedule.

It won't be easy. Hornish Jr. won the championship last year, his third in the past six seasons, in a tiebreaker with Wheldon, the '05 champion. They each finished with 475 points, but Hornish's four wins -- to Wheldon's two -- broke the deadlock. The two had plenty of company; Castroneves scored 473 and also had four wins last season, and Dixon, the '03 champ, also was in contention in the last race and finished 15 points behind.

The '06 season also showed how quickly the balance of power can change.

Andretti Green had been IndyCar's dominant team in '04 and '05, winning 18 of 33 races, including nine by Wheldon. Utilizing Toyotas, the Penske and Ganassi teams found themselves underpowered compared to Andretti Green's Hondas in those seasons.

With Hondas in every car last season, Andretti Green found themselves doing the chasing for a change.

But not all Dallaras are identical. IndyCar allows development work to the suspension and shocks on cars, which may account for the superiority Penske and Ganassi demonstrated on the 1.5- and 2-mile tracks. Andretti Green will be challenged to make a jump in those areas this season if it hopes to recapture that magic from two seasons?

Hornish thinks it's likely and will create a deeper field.