By Andrew Cutler
January 29 2010

And now Tony George's withdraw from AOWR seems to be complete. After being forced out of his spots as head of the IRL and of IMS and then voluntarily resigning his position as a board member of Hulman and Co. (which controls the afore-mentioned entities), he has now been forced to shutter Vision Racing due to lack of sponsorship funds.

Home improvement company Menards, which has been Vision's primary corporate backer for the past few years, has not renewed their sponsorship of Tony's squad, and he is unwilling to use his personal savings to keep the shop open. George vowed to keep looking for sponsorship in an effort to get Vision back on the grid, but currently has nothing promising on the horizion to accomplish that.

Vision's (hopefully only temporary) closing highlights the growing sense of concern about the fate of most of the squads normally found on the back 2/3 of the Indycar grid. It is already nearly February and few have made official announcements as to their driver line-ups for this year. NHL, KVRT, HVM, Coyne, D&R, and Conquest has all been mum to this point as to their line-ups. As is to be expected in these tough economic times, sponsorship $ is the sword that is hanging over everyone's head.

The growing fear among IndyCar fans is that the car count could prove to be down markedly from last year, and that some of the sport's top up-and-comming stars will find themselves without a ride.