Decision on IRL-Champ Car merger expected within the week

A team director for one of the Champ Car World Series teams said he expects a decision to be made on the potential merger between Champ Car and the Indy Racing League by the end of the week, but added that it would be a "rough deal" to switch this year.
Tyler Tadevic, the team director for Pacific Coast Motorsports, said no one in Champ Car is saying anything, formally, about the progression in the merger talks.
"They're working very hard to make something happen," said Tadevic, whose two-car team is based in Oxnard.
As far as he has been told, the negotiations are at a standstill, yet he said he believes that is not exactly the case.
Ideally, he would like to see the merger happen next year in 2009 to give teams time to introduce new equipment, engines, chassis and properly market races at new venues that would be on the IRL schedule.
Tony George, the founder of the IRL, is in Japan with representatives from the IRL and Honda Performance Development to work out a deal that would allow the merger to take place. It has been reported that the main obstacle standing in the way of the merger is the date of the IRL race at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan. It is the same weekend as the Long Beach Grand Prix, the opening race for the Champ Car World Series. If the Motegi race can be moved, a spokesman from the IRL said a merger agreement is likely.