The Indy Racing League, which more or less began in desperation with ragamuffin teams, faceless drivers and one engine, opens its eighth season Sunday at Homestead, Fla., sporting a total makeover and a sizeable swagger.

Nothing about the old IRL is recognizable and the new look is fast, familiar and formidable.

	IRL champ Sam Hornish Jr., left, and contender Gil de Ferran will have plenty of competition in 2003.

Michael Andretti, the all-time winner in Championship Auto Racing Teams, bought Barry Green's team and moved it to the IRL -- taking along CART regulars Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan.

Scott Dixon, CART's rookie of the year in 2001, migrated to the IRL with owner Chip Ganassi and 1998 IRL champion Kenny Brack has returned to the all-oval track series with Bobby Rahal.

Roger Penske and Ganassi, whose teams dominated CART from 1994-2001, are now IRL full-timers with two cars. Ditto for Morris Nunn, who engineered Ganassi's team before starting his own. CART regulars Adrian Fernandez and Rahal are also fielding one-car efforts for 2003.

Honda and Toyota dropped CART and took their millions of dollars of development, promotion and sponsorship to the other side of this open-wheel war.

"This is a much different series than the one I left in 1999," said Brack, who won five times and led more laps than anybody during his three years in CART. "There were only a half a dozen cars that could win a race back then but now look at all the established teams and talent coming in from the outside. Just about everybody has what it takes to win in 2003.

"I still like CART's challenges but I wanted to be in the series with the most competitive environment in 2003 and I think that's going to be the IRL."

With Penske's 1-2 punch of Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, plus Tomas Scheckter, Buddy Rice, Al Unser Jr., Felipe Giaffone and Sam Hornish Jr., the IRL has become a melting pot of talented road racers who now make their living turning left.

"It's a interesting challenge and a totally different car to drive," said Franchitti, who lost the '99 CART title to Juan Pablo Montoya on a tie-breaker. "You're going much quicker through the corners than we did in champ cars but the cars are fun to drive.

"I've never raced against my boss before so that should also be interesting."

Andretti, who announced he would quit racing following the Indianapolis 500 in May, will run Homestead, Phoenix and Motegi (all places he was victorious in CART) prior to Indy and he's been among the quickest drivers in pre-season testing with his Honda.

"We did a lot of hard work over the winter and I'm really looking forward to my first race as an owner," said the 40-year-old veteran. "We've had some good results in testing but we're not walking into this race, or season, thinking it's going to be easy.

"We're still learning about our cars and engines."

Those engines figure to play a pivotal role in determining the champion of this 16-race schedule. Honda powers Andretti, Franchitti, Kanaan, Brack and rookie Roger Yasukawa, while Toyota's lineup is Castroneves, de Ferran, Scheckter, Dixon, Giaffone, Unser, Scott Sharp, Tora Takagi, Shigeaki Hattori and rookie A.J. Foyt IV.

General Motors, which has captured all seven IRL titles as either Oldsmobile or Chevrolet, boasts defending champ Hornish, Robbie Buhl, Buddy Lazier and Jaques Lazier.

But the Chevy clearly got out-classed during winter testing and some say the Japanese manufacturers may have as much as a 30-40 horsepower advantage. Added to that are reliability issues.

	“	This season is going to be awesome. Everybody has new cars, there are two new engine manufacturers and the level of competition has really jumped up. ”
		— Scott Sharp

"We've got our work cut out for us, I think that's obvious," said Hornish, who beat Castroneves for the championship in 2002 in a thrilling duel in the season finale at Texas. "It's going to take us a while to get where we want to be (in the engine department).

"We're also one of the few one-car teams and that makes it tough. We don't seem to get a lot of respect at the moment so maybe we'll just have to surprise some people."

While Honda and Toyota dominated the time sheets in testing, G-Force had the upper hand at Fontana and Dallara was more stout at Phoenix and Homestead.

Nunn, whose G-Force with Giaffone was first in class last year, recently purchased a Dallara chassis. "They seem to make more downforce so I don't want to get to Indy and not have one," he said.

It appeared the entry list would be 20 but some last-minute deals for Sarah Fisher and Buddy Lazier may get as many as 22 cars on the opening grid. Fisher supposedly has a two-year deal in place for Buhl's operation, while Lazier's longtime owner, Ron Hemelgarn, claims he's finally secured enough money to run the full season. The 1996 Indy winner and 1999 IRL champ has yet to turn a wheel of testing in 2003.

For the first time in its history, the IRL will leave the USA and compete abroad -- taking over for CART at the pristine oval in Motegi, Japan.

With new cars, engines and teams, budgets have esculated and longtime IRL stalwarts like Fred Treadway, Greg Beck and Sam Schmidt are on the sidelines. Jeff Ward, Billy Boat and Greg Ray are still scrambling to get on the track.

Sharp, who along with Buhl, Eddie Cheever (Indy only this year) and Buddy Lazier are the lone holdovers from the IRL Class of '96, said it's hard to imagine the IRL racing getting much closer but it probably will.

"This season is going to be awesome," he said. "Everybody has new cars, there are two new engine manufacturers and the level of competition has really jumped up.

"I think the IRL has really arrived."