American open wheel racing's bright new future begins at 8pm local time at Homestead on Saturday, when a 26-car field will take the green flag for the first unified IndyCar race in over twelve years.
Newman/Haas will finally share a grid with fellow US titans Penske again. Rising sons Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal can go head to head at last. The likes of Will Power, Justin Wilson, Danica Patrick and Dan Wheldon get an overdue chance to see how they compare to all their peers, rather than just those who washed up on their respective sides of motorsport's most damaging divide.
And most importantly, the days of struggling to explain the difference between an IndyCar and a Champ Car, and why these two all-but-identical concepts weren't part of the same championship, are over.