The Indy 500 *is* Today!

[Dutch]

Okay, confessions.

I was a huge CART fan. I was a huge anti-Tony George man. I loved the drivers in CART. I loved the tracks in CART. I hated the drivers in the IRL. I hated the tracks in the IRL......except one.

This one.

I love the Indianapolis 500. And these days the best drivers are no longer just CART, it's a split with IRL.

It's not the same field as yesteryear, but it's improving. I will of course maintain my loyalties to the drivers that I have known and followed for years in CART and root for them.

http://www.indyracing.com/indycar/grid/500grid.php

(bold indicates guys I used to watch every weekend (except when I was in Turkey of course.....italics are the guys I will root against because of bad blood with the original IRL creation)

Buddy Rice
Rahal-Letterman Racing
Pos. 1

Dan Wheldon
Andretti Green Racing
Pos. 2

Dario Franchitti
Andretti Green Racing
Pos. 3

-----

Bruno Junqueira
Newman Haas Racing
Pos. 4

Tony Kanaan
Andretti Green Racing
Pos. 5

Adrian Fernandez
Fernandez Racing
Pos. 6

-----

Vitor Meira
Rahal-Letterman Racing
Pos. 7

Helio Castroneves (W)
Marlboro Team Penske
Pos. 8

Kosuke Matsuura (R)
Super Aguri Fernandez Racing
Pos. 9

-----

Tomas Scheckter
Panther Racing
Pos. 10

Sam Hornish Jr.
Marlboro Team Penske
Pos. 11

Roger Yasukawa
Rahal-Letterman Racing
Pos. 12

-----

Scott Dixon
Target Chip Ganassi Racing
Pos. 13

Mark Taylor (R)
Panther Racing
Pos. 14

Darren Manning (R)
Target Chip Ganassi Racing
Pos. 15

-----

Ed Carpenter (R)
Red Bull Cheever Racing
Pos. 16

Al Unser Jr. (W) (ex-CART but I still don't like him)
Patrick Racing
Pos. 17

Robby Gordon
Robby Gordon Motorsports
Pos. 18

-----

Sarah Fisher (Our annual female curiosity)
Kelley Racing
Pos. 19

Scott Sharp
Kelley Racing
Pos. 20

A.J. Foyt IV
AJ Foyt Enterprises
Pos. 21

-----

Larry Foyt (R)
A.J. Foyt Enterprises
Pos. 22

Bryan Herta
Andretti Green Racing
Pos. 23

Alex Barron
Red Bull Cheever Racing
Pos. 24

-----

Felipe Giaffone
Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
Pos. 25

Tora Takagi
Pioneer Mo Nunn Racing
Pos. 26

Greg Ray
Access Motorsports
Pos. 27

-----

Buddy Lazier (W)
Dreyer & Reinbold/ Hemelgarn Racing
Pos. 28

Jeff Simmons (R)
Pioneer Mo Nunn Racing
Pos. 29

Richie Hearn
Sam Schmidt Motorsports
Pos. 30

-----

PJ Jones (R) (Pirelli Jones kid of CART's past???)
CURB/Agajanian/Beck Motorports
Pos. 31

Marty Roth (R)
Roth Racing
Pos. 32

Robby McGehee
PDM Racing
Pos. 33

[Ryan S]

I was a huge CART fan over the years, and would not miss an Indy 500 (I still try to watch CART races when I can).

I have also been a big F1 fan for as many years as I can remember. I have not missed a race in 16 years, and I am only 24 years old. I also much prefer road racing to oval racing.

So what was the race I was most looking forward to today? The Coca Cola 600. I guess that says everything about my opinion of US open wheelers, and for that matter, no passing F1.

I totally stand by my comment from last year.

Sad to say, but I kind of hope the Indy 500 dies completely in the next few years.

I would rather not see the Indy 500 at all, than see it in the state it is in.

[Dutch]

I agree. That is why I no longer interested in the IRL-CART war. Either side winning is ultimately better for the sport than the constant bickering and back and forth. CART ultimately is just as responsable for the demise of open-wheel racing in America as is IRL.

In any event, the last F1 race at Monaco was outstanding!

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by Dutch

CART ultimately is just as responsable for the demise of open-wheel racing in America as is IRL.

I disagree.

Tony George is totally responsible for the death of American open wheel racing.

[JeffNights]

Sarah Fisher is hot.

[QuikSand]

I wonder how many names from that list the typical sports fan in American would recognize. I'm not a racing fan by much of any stretch, but I was certainly familiar with the top names from the Indy 500 when I was growing up.

A bell rang for me on about six names from that list, and at least two were simply because they had famous ancestors. Indy is still Indy, I suppose... but I'm definitely in the "...today?" crowd rather than the "...today!" crowd.

Wonder if they sort of lost a generation with all this fighting in the sport? (And sorry if all this is well-worn territory)

[finkenst]

Originally Posted by Ryan S

I would rather not see the Indy 500 at all, than see it in the state it is in.

I agree...

indiana is kind of a dump.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I wonder how many names from that list the typical sports fan in American would recognize.

Out of curiosity, I took that particular "test". Fair warning though -- I don't think I'd qualify as anything like "the typical sports fan".

8- I have some mental image of who they are
11- I've heard their name before but that's about it
14- They could be running the Boston Marathon for all I know about 'em.

And of the first 8, two of them I know only because of their involvement with NASCAR (R. Gordon & L.Foyt). And of the 2nd group, 2 are "name only" (Foyt IV & P.J. Jones).

At this point, I'd say I could probably recognize ARCA or ASA series drivers as well as this Indy 500 field.

[Nyarlahotep]

Originally Posted by finkenst

I agree...

indiana is kind of a dump.

Hell yeah it is. Especially when the dregs that turn up for the 500 and the Brickyard are in town. Luckily the Eurotrash stopped showing up for the F1 race. after 9/11.

[TLK]

I am familiar with all 33 guys in the field, but you couldn't of paid me enough to watch this crap. The IRL as it was supposed to be, is dead. CART teams finished 1-11.... with the top original IRL team in 12th. Tony George needs to be shot for what he has done to the 500 and to open-wheel racing in general....

Checkered future
The rise of NASCAR and the hubris of the Indy 500's owner have reduced the race to a shadow of its former self


By Michael Hill
Sun Staff
Originally published May 30, 2004


Forty years ago, there were only two ways to see the Indianapolis 500 -- be among the lucky 400,000 or so who got into packed track on race day, or go to a closed circuit television broadcast of the race.

That's right. In the early 1960s, thousands spent their Memorial Day in darkened movie theaters watching cars race around this venerable 2 1/2-mile rectangle.

Few events other than championship boxing matches could sell tickets to closed circuit broadcasts. But the Indianapolis 500 could.

It was that big. In the Midwest, it made Memorial Day the equivalent of Christmas and July 4. It drew the most spectators of any sporting event. It had the fastest cars, the bravest drivers.

It attracted more attention than any automobile race in the world.

"It was the race," says Robert Post, retired curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Institution. "There was nothing like winning the Indy 500."

That is no longer the case.

It's not the greatest race in the world anymore. It is not even considered the biggest race in America. That title goes to the Daytona 500, NASCAR's premier stock car event.

Where once scores of mechanics and drivers descended on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the entire month of May, all searching for the speed needed to get their car in the race, now there are barely enough cars to fill the field.

Since 1986, the race has been broadcast live -- no need to pay for a closed circuit showing. But now ABC is having trouble giving it away. In 1992, 14.1 million people watched the Indy 500. Last year, 6.7 million watched. Almost every NASCAR race gets a bigger audience than that. The Daytona 500 is up to almost 18 million.

And, there were plenty of tickets available for today's Indy 500.

The decline and fall of the Indianapolis 500 is a story of an increasingly parochial America changing its tastes and its relationship with technology. It is the story of the transition of sporting institutions into entertainment industries.

It is also a tale of hubris on the part of Tony George, who seemed to think that the Indy 500 was so big and important that it could never sustain serious damage. But he managed to land some crippling blows on the American institution that was in his care.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway that George owns was built in 1906 by automotive pioneer Carl Fisher.

"The track was really built as a test facility in the hope of bringing automakers to Indianapolis," says Ben Shackleford, a graduate student in the history of technology at Georgia Tech. "It didn't really work, so they had this idea of putting on this big race.

"Indianapolis really didn't have that much else, so you have to put this in the early-20th-century context of large urban areas trying to position themselves as centers of culture," he says.

After an early race proved disastrous - there were several fatal accidents as the surface of the track broke up - Fisher repaved the track with bricks. Though only a yard remains at the start/finish line, the name brickyard has stuck. Five hundred miles was chosen as a distance that could be run in a day.

"There is a reason the Daytona 500 is called that," says Shackleford, who is writing a doctoral dissertation on the history of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. "Because that's what Indianapolis was. Anything to do with auto racing in this country after the 1920s was in the shadow of the Indy 500."

Roy Harroun won that first race averaging 74.59 mph. For the next few decades, the race was a showcase for manufacturers - particularly Europeans hoping to sell cars in America - who sought to demonstrate the speed and reliability of their products.

As Shackleford relates, it was run by the AAA - the Automobile Association of America - now best known as the people you call when your car breaks down. The AAA had a "contest board" for racing staffed by unpaid volunteers. "It was an adjunct to the general promotion of the automobile," he says.

Those early years of the race reflected the keen interests of the founders of the automobile industry, in the United States and in Europe.

"They were enthusiasts," says Stuart W. Leslie, a historian of technology at the Johns Hopkins University. "You can look at the old photos and see Henry Ford racing people like Barney Oldfield. They were gasoline-in-the-veins sorts of fellows."

Fisher sold the track in 1927 to a group led by World War I ace - and former race car driver - Eddie Rickenbacker. The race suffered from the Depression. It was not run during World War II and the track was abandoned, overgrown with weeds. Many thought it would be turned into a housing development for returning GIs.

But a new owner, Tony Hulman, pumped millions into the place just as auto racing in the United States was changing. No longer a showcase for the industry's products - American manufacturers were content to sell family sedans - the Indianapolis 500 became the province of speed specialists. The engine that dominated Indy for two decades after the war - the four cylinder Offenhauser - had no connection to a major car manufacturer.

The race thrived with the attention of a postwar country fascinated by technology and speed - whether it was a rocket headed to space or a car tearing down the Indy straight. Indy 500 victors were in the banner headlines of afternoon Memorial Day newspapers. Its winners became well-known sports figures - Bill Vukovich, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti.

By the 1960s, the race and its huge prize money were attracting the best cars - Lotus, McClaren - and drivers - Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Denis Hulme, Jochen Rindt, Jack Brabham - in the world.

Indy was a technological challenge. Teams tried all sorts of innovations - including a turbine car that came within a few miles of victory in 1967 - to win.

As speeds increased, so did restrictions on the cars. Post says this is a common occurrence in sports. "You make rules to keep technology within bounds. That is certainly true of all forms of auto racing," he says

Speedy decline

The rules applied to the Indy cars still allowed for variation and experimentation as designers and mechanics searched for extra speed. That all changed in 1996. George, the grandson of Tony Hulman who died in 1977, was trying to regain control of the race from the car owners who had formed the group CART in 1979 and forced changes in many of its rules.

George formed the Indy Racing League and said only drivers that ran its series with its cars - technologically far inferior to the CART models - could race in the Indy 500. It was as if the Master's golf tournament had said that players must use persimmon woods and hickory shafts to compete there.

The CART teams boycotted and kept their own series. For the first time really in its history, those watching the Indianapolis 500 could not say they were seeing the fastest cars and the best drivers in America. The race has never recovered from that.

This happened as NASCAR was rapidly expanding out of its southeastern base. American manufacturers had returned to racing and found the stock appearance of NASCAR cars a better venue for marketing.

With all American drivers - as Indianapolis was getting more international - NASCAR seemed to catch the growing wave of parochialism in a country that was showing a waning interest in many international sports.

With the IRL, George said he was trying to get back to the roots of Indy, to get more American teams and drivers. He was mainly trying to emulate NASCAR which puts its drivers in identical, low-tech cars to guarantee close competition.

It made sense. Computers were now the machines on the cutting edge of technology. The automobile had lost that appeal. As evidence of that, Post points to the lack of interest in setting a new land speed record in recent decades, contrasting that with the 1960s and 1970s when practically every year someone was trying for a new mark.

Instead of a duel of technology and skill, automobile racing as exemplified in the contrived slam-bang close-quarters action of NASCAR became pure entertainment. The so-called "spec" cars - built to identical specifications - of the IRL were supposed to do the same for Indy-style racing.

The problem was that the IRL was trying to beat NASCAR at its own game. Shackleford says that, unlike other forms of auto racing, NASCAR was in the entertainment business from its beginnings in 1949. It was not going to lose that fight.

"The way I would look at it, I would not take a 'spec' series and go anywhere near butting heads with NASCAR," he says. "You've got to do something different."

Mystique is lost

Indy could not get NASCAR's entertainment crowd even as it was losing those interested in automotive technology. Shackeford notes that IRL mechanics that he has talked to say that the Indy cars are now boring to work on. To control speeds, the engine has a limiter that restricts its rpm, something unimaginable when Indy cars were pushing the edge.

"It deprived the Indy 500 of its mystique," Shackleford says.

George's IRL Indy 500 did not have the technology or big name drivers. CART had the technology and the drivers, but lacked the sport's marquee event. The standoff damaged both sides. Driven by sponsors who wanted to be on the Indy stage, CART drivers and teams began trickling back to the race in 2000.

But it was a shadow of the Indianapolis 500 they had left only a few years before.

The idea of a European Formula One driver interrupting his schedule to race the Indy 500 today is unimaginable.

And in America, where once every race car driver aspired to drive in the Indy 500, now most hope that they will drive well enough at Indy to get a ride in NASCAR.

[TLK]

Originally Posted by Nyarlahotep

Hell yeah it is. Especially when the dregs that turn up for the 500 and the Brickyard are in town. Luckily the Eurotrash stopped showing up for the F1 race. after 9/11.

you're kidding right?

[Buccaneer]

That was a good article. Kind of summarized what had happened since I stopped paying attention in the early 1990s.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

I would like to see more articles such as this one in the future. Really thought provoking and fresh.

[TLK]

Originally Posted by CHEMICAL SOLDIER

I would like to see more articles such as this one in the future. Really thought provoking and fresh.

well since you asked, here's one about my main man, Tony George..... keep in mind coming from a Fort Wayne Newspaper.... there is some gold in here.....

Mystery of Tony George

By Ben Smith

The Journal Gazette


Speedway owner likes to stay in shadows, but his effects on racing far-reaching

INDIANAPOLIS - Begin with this photo here.

It's a photo of a boy and his granddad, taken at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the early 1960s. Grandpa is sitting with his back against a chain-link fence, pant legs rucked up to expose his bare ankles, a joyous smile on his face. His grandson stands next to him, wearing a sun hat and a miniature racing suit. On his face is your basic kid's uncomprehending expression, the dark eyes vacant.

His name is Tony George. His granddad is Tony Hulman, heir to a family fortune that began with Clabber Girl Baking Powder in the 1850s, and who bought the Speedway from World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker in 1945 and restored it to its former glory, after it had become run down and neglected during World War II.

In a few years, the grandson will attend the first Indianapolis 500 he remembers, in 1968.

In a few more years, on the night of the 1976 "500," his father will die in a shootout with a family employee.

In a few more years, he'll marry, have a son, become embroiled in a bitter divorce in which his use of cocaine and marijuana will become public, marry again to Laura Livvix, to whom he's still married. He'll become president and CEO of the Speedway a few days before his 30th birthday. He'll become the man who brought the Brickyard 400 and the U.S. Grand Prix to the Speedway, and split Indy-style racing like a cord of wood by forming the Indy Racing League.

Look at the photo now, at that camera-struck little boy.

Sometimes you can still see him.

(BREAK)

Half of racing these days thinks Tony George hung the moon. Half thinks he's the devil walking.

He's been called a "visionary," by John Barnes, owner of Panther Racing, for whom George did a little low-level racing in the 1980s. Sarah Fisher, who drives for Kelley Racing, says, "Tony does everything he says he's going to do, . . . he's true to his word." And Chip Ganassi, who runs the high-dollar Target/Ganassi racing empire, calls him "one of the most polite" men he's ever met in racing.

And then there's that other half.

The other half says Tony George is a raging egomaniac, a spoiled, arrogant rich kid who ruined open-wheel racing by forming the Indy Racing League when he couldn't get what he wanted from the dominant Indy-style racing circuit, CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams). Mario Andretti - whose son, Michael, took his racing team to the IRL last year against Mario's wishes - remains cool toward him. Paul Gentilozzi, who once built Oldsmobile Aurora engines for the IRL, thinks George betrayed him by bidding against Gentilozzi's ownership group when CART's assets went up for sale in January. And Paul Newman, actor and longtime CART team owner, is still torqued about the IRL thing.

"To divide the series and break it up - it seems unconscionable," Newman said, on a recent segment of Dave Despain's "Wind Tunnel" program on the Speed Network. "I don't know what the purpose was."

So there you go. Either Tony George ruined the Indianapolis 500, the most famous of all auto races, or he dragged it screaming into the 21st century. Either he destroyed Indy-style open-wheel racing, or he redefined it. Either he threw tradition over the side by bringing NASCAR stock-car racing (rednecks in taxicabs!) and Formula One (snooty foreigners who don't race on ovals!) to Indy, or he redefined that, too.

Down on the track now, eight stories below this pagoda suite where all of Tony George's Speedway kingdom lies literally at his feet, a race car is yowling like a scalded cat toward the first turn.

The car is driven by Bruno Junqueira.

It carries the banner, in today's 88th Indianapolis 500, of Newman/Haas Racing, although Newman swears you won't see him here.

And now Tony George turns in his chair, and looks directly at his visitor.

"I don't have any hard feelings toward Paul Newman," he says, in his mild, halting way.

Half of racing believes him. Half never will.

(BREAK)

This is making Tony George uncomfortable. You can see it.

He fidgets in his chair like a schoolboy, now leaning this way, now leaning that. His gaze skates away, drifts back. He runs his hands up under the sleeves of his shirt, speaks distantly around long pauses, handles each word like fine crystal as his visitor, this stranger (What does he want, anyway?), waits expectantly.

"You know, I'm not a very good manager," George admits now.

(God, I hate this, talking about myself).

"I'm not very good from the standpoint of nurturing and that kind of stuff," he says.

(I mean, I really hate it).

"I guess if anything, I'm critical of myself for not being a very good communicator, because I think you have to set the tone at the top, and I maybe haven't done that," he says.

(Have I said enough now? Been forthcoming enough? Can I . . . wait . . . what's that?)

Suddenly he leans far to his left, over the arm of the chair. Stares hard at a spot on the floor, maybe 20 feet away.

The visitor follows his eyes. All he sees is sunlight on carpet.

(BREAK)

This kid here, Tony George. What kind of vision could he have?

He grew up a shy, quiet child of privilege, swimming in the motel pool next to the Speedway, his nostrils full of the sting of racing exhaust. His father, Elmer George, drove race cars for a living, running three times in the Indianapolis 500 between 1957 and 1963. Tony's mom tells him they used to travel all over hell's half acre, following Elmer around.

And then Elmer died, of course.

He died on May 30, 1976, hours after Johnny Rutherford won a rain-shortened 500, in some kind of OK Corral deal with a horse trainer named Guy Trolinger. Trolinger never goes to trial; both men had pieces, both used them, so the ruling was self-defense. According to several published accounts, Trolinger and Mari Hulman George were romantically involved.

Tony George - who says now he only wishes he could have known his father better - was 16 years old when that happened.

He was 17 when his grandfather died in 1977.

He was 29 when Joe Cloutier, the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, died in December 1989, and George succeeded him, as the only logical choice in a family with three sisters and his mother.

Eyebrows shot up all over racing.

"I think he was expected to fail," says Tom Kelley, who has known George since they were kids. "I think some people just thought he was going to be a figurehead."

"At first, it was a bit of 'Was he driving it or was it driving him?' " agrees Ganassi, then a CART owner.

George concedes as much. An indifferent student at Indiana State, he graduated in 1983 with a 2.0 average in business administration. He'd shadowed Charlie Thompson, the Speedway groundskeeper, for a few years, but he had no practical business experience whatsoever.

"I had a paper route," he jokes now, "but I didn't have a lawn service."

And he had no moorings, without his father and grandfather. He had his mom and his three sisters and, at 23, a wife, Lisa Dawn Clark, and a charge he first became aware of, he says, in his late teens. But it wasn't a charge he looked forward to.

"I don't know that I had that great an interest in it at the time," he admits now. "It wasn't clear to me that it was something I wanted to pursue or be involved with."

Long pause.

"But I don't know that I had anything in mind I wanted to do otherwise."

And if that sounds like the quintessential young man adrift, . . . well, Tony George played that role off its feet. Although he'd never had much interest in it before, he got into driving race cars in the 1980s, thinking vaguely it would help him better understand the business that loomed so constantly before him. He drove for his godfather, A.J. Foyt, and for Barnes. And somewhere in there, his marriage came apart.

Yet it was the racing, ultimately, that he took to the most. Although George downplays it, Barnes says now that he had some distinct talent ("He had no idea of holding back, was 10/10ths every lap"), and George himself admits that for "a fleeting moment" he thought of racing as a career. But it was only a moment. There was only going to be one destiny for him - didn't Joe Cloutier kept telling him that? - and he knew it.

His grandfather was gone. His father was gone. Who else was there, but this ambivalent, reluctant, unready young man?

And then of course he fooled them. He fooled them all.

Not long after taking over, he and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone had their first talks about bringing the premier European road-racing series to Indy for the U.S. Grand Prix. Not long after that, he had his first talks with the France family about bringing a NASCAR race to Indianapolis.

The Brickyard 400 arrived, to sellout crowds, in 1994. The U.S. Grand Prix arrived, after George sunk $80 million into a road course and new pagoda and other improvements, in 2000. And not everybody was happy about it.

"The thing with the Speedway before he was involved, it had one race a year and tried to maintain that," Barnes explains. "And when you went to work there, you went to work there at 20 years old and you left there at 70. And you never did anything else but that."

But tradition be damned, or at best faintly praised. Maybe it was vision or ego or just the right people bending his ear - "When you're in a business that's been in the family for so long, there's no shortage of people that have opinions about things," Ganassi observes - but his experiences as a driver did give him a certain insight.

And so 22 months after taking control, he proposed a new structure for Indy-style racing to the CART owners. He was still just 31. The CART owners - and George himself says he sensed this - still saw him as too raw for his job. At least part of that, some of those owners say now, sprung from their unfamiliarity with his natural reticence.

"Tony to me has always been a normal, ordinary guy," says Derrick Walker of Walker Racing, then a member of CART's board. "He doesn't put on any special airs or graces to anybody that I have seen. He is not a hard guy to talk about issues with, . . . (but) you don't always get a clear impression as to what he is thinking."

And so the upshot was, the CART owners came away from George's proposal thinking what they'd always thought, that George was a lightweight. But suddenly he was going ahead with plans for a new racing league, tied to the 500, focusing on racing on ovals and keeping the sport affordable.

Ten tumultuous years later, the Indianapolis 500 is still the biggest single-day sporting event in the world, and most of the former CART teams are back. But on George's watch, for better or worse, Indy is still not what it was.

NASCAR's Daytona 500 gets twice the TV ratings now. The Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race has beaten it head-to-head on Memorial Day weekend for the past three years. Tickets move less briskly, crowds are down dramatically except for race day, and the return of the big-name teams and engine builders is threatening to make a mockery of George's vow to keep costs low.

All of this is Tony George's fault. Or, it's not.

"I think it's unfortunate that the Speedway and the car owners, post-1977 (after his grandfather's death), haven't been able to work well together," he says. "Because it has suffered as a result of us not being able to do that."

That's as close as he will come to admitting culpability.

That's as close as he will come to admitting that his vision, or whatever is, might be flawed.

Or maybe we just misread him. Again.

(BREAK)

This is making Tony George uncomfortable. Tom Kelley can hear it.

He's on the telephone with George at the Speedway, where one of Kelley's race cars is driving in circles, testing for Firestone. It's the fall of year. Kelley's bored.

"I'd like to drive the car," he tells Brian Barnhart, the vice president of racing operations, who says he has to get George's permission.

Now they're on the phone. George is hemming and hawing.

"Weeeellll, . . ." he says.

And then this, from the man who owns the Speedway, the man who's one of the most powerful people in racing, the man so many people think is distant and humorless and, well, haughty: "I get to drive if you get to drive."

And so Kelley and George wind up hot-footing it around the Speedway like a couple of kids, no papers signed, no stinking liability waivers need apply. They even have to pull the seat out and wedge Tony in with moving blankets, because at 6-foot-4 he won't fit. The lawyers would have had nine cats if they'd known.

"Tony has that side to him," Kelley says now. "He's not as boring as some people think."

(BREAK)

Paul Gentilozzi thought they were friends. That was his first mistake.

And so when he talked to Tony George on the phone last fall, and George said he wouldn't bid against Gentilozzi's ownership group, Open Wheel Racing Series, for the assets of CART, which was struggling financially, he thought a promise had been made. He thought it was ironclad.

Problem was, George thought his promise was based on the fact that, at the time, the deal on the table was a merger with CART shareholders for about $6.5 million, for which George wasn't interested. Then the merger fell apart, CART declared bankruptcy, and the promise, George felt, was no longer binding.

So the IRL bid. And Open Wheel Racing Series, which had expected to pay $1.3 million for the assets, eventually had to pay $3.5 million for them. And Gentilozzi, stung, lashed out bitterly in the Indianapolis Star that George was trying to kill CART.

"It had to be painful to hear that from him, wasn't it?" George is asked now.

"Well, I'm not sure I know what Paul said that would have caused me that pain," replies George, who maintains that his relationship with Gentilozzi was never as close as it's been characterized.

And so there you have it: Tony George is a cold, callous, back-stabbing sumbitch. Just like his detractors say.

Or . . .

Or we don't understand him, we've got him all wrong; when he said what he said about Gentilozzi, it merely meant he'd learned to let slings and arrows carom off him. This is the thing with George: there are the words and then there is the way he says them, and the former, stark ink on a page, cannot properly convey the latter.

And so when he won't say whom he's leaned on most heavily for advice, wondering, "Who knows how that might be perceived?" the perception is that his colossal ego won't let him admit he's needed anyone's counsel. And when he says he can't think of anything he'd do differently, again there's the ego, until he adds that if he'd known then what he knows now, certainly he'd do some things differently. But he didn't, so he didn't.

So few people really know him. So many think they do.

"You know, it's no secret, I was pretty critical of Tony," says Bobby Rahal, who once ran CART. "And we had developed a friendship, played golf together. So it was very emotional for both of us, in our different camps.

"But I think what I really appreciated was I came back (to Indy) two years ago, and everybody was very welcoming. (Tony) had every right to be very cold toward me, and he was anything but."

So who is he, then? The man who either did or didn't cut Gentilozzi off at the knees? The man who tried to yank the Indy credentials of then-Sports Illustrated writer Ed Hinton in '99, after Hinton had been critical of the IRL's safety measures?

Or is he the man his vice president of communications, Fred Nation, says "never gloats"? And who seems most at ease not in a boardroom but around the drivers? And who says his family is most important to him, his mom and his sisters, Laura and the three kids?

Who is he? And why does he make it so hard for us to figure out?

"I think what Tony does is he thinks a lot before he opens his mouth," Barnes explains. "He's a really great listener. He listens to everybody."

"Very much an open guy," concurs Darren Manning, a CART driver until joining Ganassi's operation this year.

"I don't think he's ever veered right or left to get where he is today," Roger Penske says.

And George himself?

In his chair now he leans back and muses that the best thing about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is its history and tradition, and the worst thing about it is its history and tradition. It's not the early 20th century anymore, he says. Times change, racing changes, and you have to change with it. And people, see, people hate that.

"As I've learned and found out around here, sometimes change is a very hard thing to accept in respect to the Indianapolis 500, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway," George says. "I get a lot of people who are very appreciative of what we as an organization have here at the Speedway. And I know there are people who feel differently."

"So how do you not take that personally?" he's asked. "Do you take it personally?"

George thinks for a minute.

"It serves no purpose," he says at last. "I don't really even think about it that much. There's too many other things to spend my time thinking about."

(BREAK)

And so we end here, with a night at the movies.

It's the premiere of an IMAX film about NASCAR, early March of this year, at the Indiana State Museum. Tony George sits five or six rows back from the screen, invisible in the dark.

He has done what the smart guys said he would never do. He has taken the Speedway into the 21st century. He has made the IRL viable. He has earned admiration and provoked contempt, ruined relationships and repaired them.

And all without any of us really knowing him.

Now the movie is over, the lights come up, George moves into the aisle. He signs a few autographs. He moves off into the dark, still alone - and suddenly TV lights pierce the gloom, suddenly someone is interviewing 2003 Brickyard 400 winner Kevin Harvick.

The lights blaze. Harvick talks. And Tony George - one of the three most powerful men in motorsports, and sometimes that little boy in the photo, too - takes a deliberate step back into the shadows, becomes a shadow himself.

Ah. That's better.

[SunDancer]

I love the old CART. F1 I always loved, but it seems to be going through a downturn and I hate the "team system". Rumors were flying around of a new series breaking off F1??

[TLK]

Penske Renews Call for IndyCar/Champ Car Reunification

Written by: RACER staff

Indianapolis, Ind. – 6/1/2004

Roger Penske (LAT photo)




Pre-eminent car owner Roger Penske has renewed his call for a unification of the IRL and Champ Car rivals in an article published by the New York Times on Sunday.

“My goal, over the next couple of months, is to come up with a way to repair the split that led me away from Indianapolis for five years,” Penske wrote. “I'd like to see one group, not two, racing Indy cars again. It would benefit not only Tony George, the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway….

“Going to the Indy 500 is like going to the Kentucky Derby. But I didn't know what I had been missing until I came back. Now is the time for everyone to come back.

Penske added that in his view a title sponsor for the IRL could be the springboard for renewal.

“The trajectory of Indy-car racing is not down. It's not flat. The quality of the race teams has improved,” he noted. “There's support for the series within the automotive industry. The sponsorships are strong. In the future, we will need to find one sponsor who will be able to do for Indy car racing what Nextel can do for stock car racing.

“I think Tony George will be able to land a first-class sponsor for the IRL. Hopefully, that's on the horizon. If we have such a corporate sponsor for one series, with 35, 36, 37 cars available to compete regularly, I think it would lead to more competitive races and a better series over all than the two separate series we have now."

[TLK]

My thoughts.... summed up real quick.... one series with TG at the helm won't happen anytime soon..... if they could find a middle ground, with TG in control of the Speedway and third party in control of the series itself, then they might have something.....

[TLK]

and the latest rumor....

Penske/Andretti Lead Unificati... 06-01
Remember, just gossip we are hearing but interesting at the very least:

Silent talk had Mario Andretti and Roger Penske sitting down in the Penske Motorhome during the rain delay with both very disappointed in what the Indy 500 has become (lack of fan and media interest).


Some type of agreement between the two has Penske and Andretti sitting down for some serious discussions between them and coming up with a plan to unify the two series in the next few months. Penske will use his muscle on George, and Mario the respect he has around the Champcar series. Word is that they both agree that in order for the series to unify, George has to give up the helm and just own the series but appoint someone else to run the series, the schedule will have to be a compromise of oval/street and road races etc.


They plan on coming up with a potential leader, set of guidelines, schedule, engine, chassis etc . and present it to the two groups in private and then make it known public. Goal is to have a unified Indy 500 in 2005 (coming up with a set of rules so that both series can use their equipment) and be unified in 2006, but they hope that both sides realize that it really all should be done for 2005

.
.
.
.
.
.
This will never happen.... it makes too much sense.....

[clintl]

Well, I think Penske and Andretti would be the best hopes for making something happen.

[TLK]

If George will give up control, I'm all up for anything they can come up with..... but as long as he's involved in a leadership role..... I'm out.... I don't care if Paul Tracy/Paul Newman & Co. come out and piss on CART/ChampCar's grave..... they won't have me (and many others) as fans....





btw..... I heard the 500 broadcast had an open plea to Tracy to come back to Indy as soon as possible..... pretty funny considering how they screwed him.....

[TLK]

From TSN.ca/auto_racing.com: Under what scenario would you support an IRL - Champ Car reunification Tony George running the entire show Champ Car running the entire show Tony George as owner but not president Tony George out of the picture completely View Results --------------------------------------------------------- Here are the current results:

Under what scenario would you support an IRL - Champ Car reunification Tony George running the entire show - 4% Champ Car running the entire show - 9% Tony George as owner but not president - 10% Tony George out of the picture completely - 77% -------------------------------------------------------------- I Like the results......

[Dutch]

Public opinion matters not in the world of private property. Either Tony George wins or nobody does. It's that simple.

[JonInMiddleGA]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?...v=ap&type=lgns

NEW YORK (AP) -- The rating for the rain-shortened Indianapolis 500 was down 11 percent from last year, and was lower than the weekend's NASCAR race for the third straight year.

The race on ABC on Sunday, which was delayed at the start for two hours because of rain and stopped for an hour and 47 minutes after 27 laps, got a 4.1 rating, down from 4.6 last year.

Not surprisingly, Fox's coverage of the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race performed better, with a 5.0 rating. The 22 percent disparity was the largest since the NASCAR races overtook the Indy 500 in the ratings three years ago.

[TLK]

beat me to it Jon...... I was going to post that right now...... Not really a surprise, and I don't believe that those numbers are final yet, so they'll probably finish even lower....

[Dutch]

What was the ratings on the CART race?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Dutch

What was the ratings on the CART race?

Which CART race? The May 23rd from Mexico?

I'm not even sure who televised it (HDnet? SpikeTV on delay?)

[Dutch]

Hell, I don't know, which ever one most currently ran.

[TLK]

I thought I should repost this from the other thread..... Television ratings pattern of the 500 (and the Super Bowl in orange)....Updated to include 2004....

[TLK]

What is Penske's Real Agenda?

Written by: Robin Miller

Indianapolis, IN – 6/5/2004


Roger Penske vows he's going to spend the next few months trying to repair the split in open wheel racing. In addition, no doubt, to helping O.J. look for Nicole's killer and getting gas prices under control.

Penske's recent editorial in the New York Times that he's decided to roll up his sleeves and save open wheel racing would almost be humorous if it wasn't so self-serving and hypocritical.

First off, it was The Captain's jumping ship to the Indy Racing League in 2002 that accelerated the unraveling of Championship Auto Racing Teams (the series he co-founded in 1979). It was a meeting in Houston in 2001 that Penske threatened to go to Tony George's all-oval series if his fellow owners didn't adopt the the IRL's engine rules (which they did despite not having any manufacturers on board).

Of course Penske already knew he and Toyota were both IRL bound, he just didn't share that with his CART brethren.

And this was after years of privately bad-mouthing George for screwing Indy-car racing.

It was only last year that Penske predicted there would only be one open wheel series still standing by 2004 and, obviously, that didn't happen since Open Wheel Racing Series rescued the remains of CART.

So, after getting smoked at Indy by Buddy Rice and Honda, what better time to do a little self-promoting, state that open wheel racing in this country ain't what it use to be and it's time somebody needs to run to a phone booth, change clothes and be a hero.

Except what Penske said was hardly a revelation. Open wheel needs to be united? Really?

"What took him so long?," chuckled Derrick Walker, who worked for Penske for 20 years before starting his own team. "I mean if anybody in this sport can help put this thing back together it's always been Penske. He's the guy who made CART and he's the guy who broke CART.

"I'm anxious to see where this goes. I hope this means he's going to follow through."

Jimmy Vasser, the 1996 CART champion, would like some clarification.

"I want to know his (Penske) interpretation of unification," said Vasser, now a part owner of PKV Racing. "Does it mean he thinks we're going to roll over or does it mean each series is going keep their best races?

"Obviously, I would love to see one great series like we use to have and all the moons are aligned for that to happen in 2006 because everybody's rules packages expire at the end of 2005."

Naturally, the entire Champ Car paddock was suspicious about the timing of Penske's pronouncement.

"There's always something behind everything with Roger but you never know what it is," said Gerald Forsythe, one of the OWRS owners who is fielding three cars this season. "I don't disagree with our sponsors and fans that one series would be stronger -- that's just a good business plan -- and it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

"Economically it would be better for everyone and there would have to be a meeting of the minds. But when one guy (Tony George) keeps saying their business model is so much different than ours I have to wonder.

"I look at the IRL business model as one that's waving in the wind. It started out as all Americans and all ovals and now they're talking road races and street courses so how does our business model differ from theirs?"

Added Neil Mickelwright, team manager for Forsythe Racing: "Why does Roger suddenly feel the need to reunite when he's been telling us the IRL is the greatest thing since sliced bread? I'd like to know what prompted it. Maybe there's a little trouble in paradise."

Paul Gentilozzi, who met with George last year before OWRS bought CART's assets and talked about the future of open wheel racing with the IRL founder, claims there can't be intervention without good intention.

"There was a time last year when I thought I could play a pivotal part in putting things back together but I don't think that can happen," said Gentilozzi, an OWRS principal who fields a two-car team in Champ Car. "There have been agendas drafted by major manufacturers and it's still not together so what is the obstruction? Why aren't we together?

"Is it about preserving the throne of the royal familyof American motorsports or is it about preserving a motorsports discipline?"

Bobby Rahal, Barry Green and Walker spent the summer of 1998 meeting with George and thought they had worked out a compromise only to have him walk away. Ford Motor Company drafted a peace plan that never was acted upon. Forsythe said he'd be willing to sit down and talk with Penske or George but.......

"Look, I enjoy Champ Car racing and I enjoyed competing at the Indy 500 and the split never did make any sense," said Forsythe, who won the last united Indy 500 in 1995 with Jacques Villeneuve. "It was all about one person wanting control and now he's devastated the Indy 500.

"I would listen if he or Roger wanted to sit down but we're not going to lay down and let the competition make the rules and dictate the tracks. Especially when we have the best series and more fans."

As for Penske's stance, some Champ Car owners believe Toyota and Honda are going to bail unless IRL and Champ Car are united so The Captain is getting involved. There's also a theory that the IRL has a major sponsor on the hook but it's predicated on having one major open wheel series in this country and Penske has been asked to be the front man in negotiations. Others say it's only a PR stunt.

Paul Tracy, who scored 11 of his 27 wins driving for Penske, knows his former employer plays both sides of the street and is always five steps ahead of the posse.

"I'm not sure why he (Penske) suddenly feels like becoming a peacemaker," said the 2003 CART champion. "But I do know that he's one captain who won't be going down with the ship."

[Dutch]

Okay, so I don't get it. An IRL guy is suggesting unification (that's kind of different that usual) and the CART guys are bashing his head into mush over it? Do I have that right?

Honestly, they are all just a bunch of spoiled, rotten, little children. Chances of unification for 2006? 1%.

Thanks for the link. You are our open-wheel racing single-source of information....even if it is biased. And yes, biased for the good, but too me, that is neither here nor there all these years later.

[TLK]

In my honest opinion, I think 2006 will be too late anyways, but we'll see what happens....

ChampCar ran Milwaukee tonight and it was a solid race..... I won't put up any spoilers, (The race can be seen tomorrow at 4pm on SpikeTV --all time zones--) but it was well attended and a good show.



and for the reason why I don't post pro-IRL articles...... because most of them read like a three year-old wrote them....

ex.--- http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Ottaw.../01/480840.html

Tue, June 1, 2004


CART fans need to keep an open mind

By DEAN McNULTY, Ottawa Sun


There are few involved in open-wheel racing who don't lament the events of March 1995 that led to the formation of the Indy Racing League to compete against the established Championship Auto Racing Teams. But more than nine years later, it's time for even the most partisan of supporters of the former CART series to stop playing the blame game.

History will show that it was Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George who was the instigator of the split that put open-wheel racing in North America on the slippery slope to second-tier sports status. But his isn't the only name that belongs on a racing wall of shame.

Former CART CEO Chris Pook, who frittered away $180 million US in a foolish attempt to prop up the series, is at least equally to blame for open-wheel racing's downfall.

There are others who also must share responsibility for the state of disrepair open-wheel racing now finds itself.

Step up Gerry Forysthe. Step up Roger Penske. Step up Chip Ganassi.

All have their tire marks someplace along this inglorious road to ruin.

Yet it is those in the open-wheel racing business who have made genuine efforts to heal the wounds who are now bearing the brunt of abuse from so-called race fans.

FEELING THE WRATH

Adrian Fernandez -- who almost single-handedly was responsible for the former CART series' popularity in Mexico -- is the latest racer to feel the wrath of irrational fans of that series.

Fernandez had the temerity to say that CART was done. Well folks, last time anybody checked CART died in a courtroom in Indianapolis this past January. And Fernandez was there to see it first hand.

When he moved to the IRL this season, it was strictly business.

He invested millions of his own money to keep his team afloat.

Moving to the IRL was a business decision by a man dedicated to racing.

For those who feel that they must castigate Fernandez as a traitor, get a grip. The old CART is dead. Get over it.

What was reborn in bankruptcy court out of its ashes -- the Open Wheel Racing Series -- is not CART.

Forsythe and partners Paul Gentilozzi and Kevin Kalkhoven worked diligently to give birth to their new version of Champ Car racing. But the war to control open-wheel racing was over the moment the judge's gavel came down to seal the deal that sold CART's assets to OWRS.

The sooner everyone accepts this the sooner open-wheel racing can get back to fighting for the stature it has lost during the past nine years. If some still feel that Fernandez is the villain in this piece, they are sadly misinformed.

CASCAR may be sold: Rumours are rampant that the CASCAR Super Series -- Canada's top stock car racing sanctioning body -- is in negotiations with NASCAR to sell its events, including races at the Toronto and Vancouver Molson Indys. Reports of the sale were being spread this past weekend in Charlotte, N.C., home of NASCAR Nextel Cup's Coca-Cola 600. If the sale were to be completed, it is expected that NASCAR would rename the series NASCAR North and lump it in with its two other regional racing series -- Busch North and Grand National West. CASCAR spokesman Richard Coughlin said there have been talks, but denied that a sale is imminent.

[TLK]

and here's an IRL fan trying to spin the ratings for the 500 vs. The 600..... pretty good stuff.... taken from a pro-IRL board that can be found at http://www.trackforum.com/ . Fair warning though.... If you think I'm a shill for ChampCar, you havn't seen anything yet....

Defender Media Insider Registered: Nov 2000 Location: The fields I used to roam Posts: 7306

Hey, that's great! The IRL did better than anticipated (despite the drop in overnights) and, unfortunately, NASCAR did worse than anticipated. Statistically, the margin between 5.0 and 4.1 is not that great. We know NASCAR did better in men, and it will be interesting to evaluate the other demographic breakouts in addition to the demographics quoted by Joe Bob. In the final analysis, here is THE most important factor: Given numbers that are much lower than projected, how can Fox charge high enough rates for the broadcasts to even think about making a profit? Meantime, ABC has extended the IRL deal and is happy with the profit they are making. It would be super if sports marketers in all sports could figure out how to bump up the numbers in a general sense. Heck, most everyone is suffering these declines. I haven't even mentioned the heat A.C. Neilsen is taking over their methodology lately. Based on my attendance at my 40th Indy 500, the grandeur of the event is everything it has been and shows no signs of slowing down. I remain optimistic that Tony and crew will realize the value of promotion and marketing, and that ABC will do the same. The product is well worth the effort. I can't wait until Texas!

[Dutch]

Trust me, I am no IRL fan, but I am basically not a fan of CART anymore either. In war, there are casualties. I am one of them.

[TLK]

CHAMP CAR NOTEBOOK
Series co-owner would welcome talks with IRL
Gentilozzi says philosophical differences stand in the way of 1 series.

Paul Gentilozzi, co-owner of the Champ Car World Series, says the open-wheel split can be fixed if series work together. -- File photo Related content • Hunter-Reay never trails at Milwaukee • Notebook: Series co-owner would welcome talks with IRL • Champ Car Time Warner Cable Road Runner 250 results Next race • What: Grand Prix of Portland • When: 3 p.m. June 20 • TV: Spike

By Steve Ballard
[email protected]
June 6, 2004



WEST ALLIS, Wis. -- If open-wheel racing is to return to being one series, Paul Gentilozzi vows it won't be because the Champ Car World Series quietly goes away.

Three races into his first season as co-owner of the former CART series with partners Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe, Gentilozzi reiterated this weekend that he would welcome discussions with Indy Racing League president Tony George but is heartened by the long-term prospects for Champ Car.

After first saying he has to be "careful about what I say because some people are actually listening now," Gentilozzi made clear who he believes is responsible for the problems in open-wheel racing.

"Why aren't we together? What is the obstruction?" he said. "Is it about preserving the throne of the royal family of motor sports, or is it about preserving a motor sports discipline?"

He said there are no differences that can't be overcome if officials of both series commit to finding a solution.

"The mechanics of it is not the issue. It's the philosophical issues that have to be resolved," he said. "It's not about rules and (engine) liters. All of that can be fixed."

Gentilozzi was peeved by a first-person story by Roger Penske published last week in The New York Times, in which the CART co-founder and current IRL team owner wrote he is going to work "the next couple of months to come up with a way to repair the split."

Penske intimated that George is close to landing a title sponsor for the IRL and that will lead to more Champ Car teams jumping series.

"Open-wheel racing has been telling the world what it ought to think for the last decade," Gentilozzi said. "I don't think that's working very well."

[SunDancer]

Anyone care to post the a review of their thoughs on the first three weekends and their overall thoughs of the ChampCar series? How are tv ratings and attendence?

[TLK]

in quick form....

Long Beach- Bad race (but a Tracy win).... bad tv ratings..... excellent attendance

Monterrey- Good race.... improving tv ratings... excellent attendance

Milwaukee- So-so race (good race beyond first place, which was dominated by American, Ryan Hunter-Reay).... decent attendance for an oval

[TLK]

quick note-

ChampCar Pole speed at Milwaukee- 181.150

Top IRL speed during test at Milwaukee - 164.868



I really can't wait to see what an IRL car can put out on a road course. I have a feeling the ChampCar feeder series (Toyota Atlantic) will be faster than them.....

[TLK]

TWO MORE YEARS FOR INDY Last Updated: Monday, 21, June, 2004, 01:07

Indianapolis will continue to host the US Grand Prix for at least two more years. The original race contract, signed by Bernie Ecclestone and Indy circuit boss Tony George in 1998, was due to expire after this year’s event. But George said at the weekend that he had agreed to take up an option to host the race for two more years. A delighted Ecclestone said: “We are going to make it work. I am committed. He (George) is happy with it and we should continue with it. “I have a big respect for Tony. What he did here for us, I don’t forget. It was a big thing to do. A massive thing.” However, rumours in the US suggest that George is under pressure from his sisters (and fellow Indianapolis Motor Speedway directors) Kathi, Josie and Nancy not to continue with the F1 deal because it is costing the company too much money. There has even been talk of legal action if George insists on going ahead. Ecclestone said he had given George the option to back out of the deal. He said: “I said to Tony: ‘I’m happy if you’re happy. If you don’t want me to pick up the option, I won’t. And if you want to extend the contract beyond two years, I will.’ George appears committed to making Formula 1 big in the United States and knows that in order to achieve that goal it is necessary to play a longer game and allow interest to build. That process will be greatly shortened if the US can produce a driver who is competitive in Formula 1, giving American race fans someone to support. Meanwhile, Ecclestone is also doing his bit to increase the sport’s popularity in the country. One option he is considering is to hold a second race in the US. The F1 supremo has spoken to New York officials about the possibility of holding a race in Manhattan. He has also held talks with a view to reviving the Long Beach Grand Prix. There have been rumours in recent days that Ecclestone is doing a new TV deal which will result in most of the F1 races being shown on Spike TV with five big events being aired by CBS. Ecclestone may even be willing to bundle up the deal with the rights to exploit the F1 trademark in the United States. "I'm talking to everyone," Ecclestone said on Sunday, "but at the moment there is no deal agreed."

[TLK]

and here's a big thumbs down to ChampCar/OWRS.........

**File this in the Department of They Don't Get It. Paul Tracy could have been making his Nextel Cup debut this weekend at Sonoma, Calif. but was denied permission by his Champ Car owner Gerald Forsythe. "Richard Childress offered me a ride last month but Gerry and Kevin (Kalkhoven, OWRS ower) thought it would confuse people and they would think I was going to NASCAR," said the 2003 CART champion. "I think it would have been good for Champ Car." Forsythe and Kalkhoven may understand business but they need a PR class because they blew an excellent opportunity to get some free exposure to a group of race fans that don't know Champ Car exists.

[SunDancer]

Would F1 run a street circuit at Long Beach, and would CART fight tooth and nail to keep it? While I enjoy the F1 and racing, I hate the "team spirit" of it. Its ten times worst then the US-based series.

[TLK]

If F-1 wants Long Beach, they can have it..... I really think the future of ChampCar will be non-North American races.... In all honesty, Long Beach could run 20 FOFC members on scooters, and the fans would still show....

[Dutch]

I like the idea of the Long Beach Grand Prix, I love the location, I hate the actual circuit. I have been many times, but I preferred going on Saturdays and checking out all the Expo's and then watching the race on Sundays.

Monaco is the best and will always be the best street course without any sort of competition at all. And the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix was a fun race to watch.

[SunDancer]

Originally Posted by Dutch

I like the idea of the Long Beach Grand Prix, I love the location, I hate the actual circuit. I have been many times, but I preferred going on Saturdays and checking out all the Expo's and then watching the race on Sundays.

Monaco is the best and will always be the best street course without any sort of competition at all. And the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix was a fun race to watch.

I love the Long Beach circuit. Monaco is an awesome circuit in what it offers (location, fans, ect.), but its terrible in allowing for passing.

[Dutch]

True, Monaco is probably the most passer *un*friendly circuit ever raced on.

[TLK]

16:01 June 23, 2004)
Unification? Indications are a single open-wheel American race series may be at hand
Behind-the-scene efforts to unify the Indy Racing League with Champ Car are heating up




By AUTOWEEK

The next 100 hours could be crucial for the survival of American open-wheel racing.

That's when Roger Penske, the most successful team owner in the sport, reportedly will present to Tony George, scion of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a plan to reunify the two warring parties.

It will not be a one-sided proposal to benefit either group. It will require contrition and give-and-take from both parties. It will not be a buy-out, a fold up, or surrender from either side. If successful, this partnership is one from which all members—Tony George, the IRL, Champ Car, the teams and drivers of each series, the engine manufacturers, and the sponsors—will benefit.

Most important, the fans will win.

This denouement began with an editorial in The New York Times penned by Penske and appearing on the eve of last month's Indy 500 calling for a truce. It continued this week, AutoWeek has learned, with a meeting between the Champ Car triumvirate—Kevin Kalkoven, Paul Gentilozzi and Jerry Forsythe—and Penske in a Pontiac, Michigan airport hangar.

At that meeting, options on how to go about reunifying the two series' were discussed including outright ownership of Champ Car by the IRL, something that's as likely to happen as it is that NASCAR will wither up and blow away. Still, Penske left the airport with a framework for reunification that includes the formation of a new series and the organizational structure to run it.

For this new series (might we suggest naming it Formula Indy?) to work each side must hold equal ownership of the new company.

Both sides must get equal representation on a board that allows the current sanctioning bodies three members each plus one appointed member, for a total of eight. Both Champ Car and the IRL will provide an equal contribution of assets.

Both companies will bring to the combined schedule the strongest races in the best markets each has to offer. An appropriate television package would follow.

Who could best run this series? How about Brian Barnhart of the IRL who has repeatedly proven his organizational capabilities. What to call members of the new company? Make everyone a czar or a king or whatever… that's just haggling over titles.

This plan seems so simple that it's almost too good to be true. Everyone wins and no individual loses.

How could fans not embrace or support a remarriage? While this fight was about what all fights come down to—winning and losing, determining who's better, about power and sharing, and about egos—the schism's economics look as though it has finally slapped sense into the parties.

In the near decade since the split, neither series has profited. Each has lost traction with fans, has stumbled with television audiences, has turned off Madison Avenue and has collectively handed the spotlight to an omnipresent, all-profitable, left-turning NASCAR.

Open-wheel racing in America has come down to basic survival, and it's being proven time and again. Last year, after burning through a $150 million war chest, Championship Auto Racing Teams went tango-uniform; an owner group salvaged the sport and re-christened it Champ Car on a shoestring budget. Even the venerable Indianapolis Motor Speedway did not go unscathed. The impact to Indy's economics was never more prevalent than when this Spring word came that the Greatest Spectacle In Racing didn't really need a full field of top cars and expert drivers-something the organizers were worried about achieving (and not for the first time). Perhaps August will clarify things for open-wheel racing if more people flock to the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race than come for the Indy 500.

Angry words, jealousy and greed precipitated the split. But that is history. What the sport needs now is contrition from all sides-and recognition that if either hopes to succeed this fight cannot continue. If ever the 2005 season can benefit, now is the time to expedite the healing process.

What must be said about Penske is that he's a smart businessman who recognizes profit when he sees it. As fans, let us all hope that as ambassador of open-wheel racing Good Will, Penske can convince Tony George to listen and work toward a common goal.

[TLK]

from CART.com

Champ Car World Series and Indy Racing League Conclude Discussions

INDIANAPOLIS, July 16, 2004 - Following on the initiative of Roger Penske to explore a unification of open wheel racing, ownership representatives of Champ Car World Series and the Indy Racing League have met with Mr. Penske to consider the issues.

While ownership representatives from both series agree that one open wheel series is the optimal situation, it is the belief of all involved that the time is not right for further discussion of unification. Both parties appreciate the efforts of Mr. Penske, and both parties believe that each has a better understanding of where common ground exists. No more meetings are planned and both series are moving forward with their future plans.

I'm left scratching my head after that one.....

[Dutch]

Pride goes before the fall? Being split makes ZERO sense, financially or otherwise. At this point in time it's the "principle of the matter". One, that I no longer care enough about to agree or disagree with.

[TLK]

forgot to post this..... (happend while I was in Vegas)...

Champ Car World Series announces addition of Las Vegas Motor Speedway to 2004 schedule



by Eric Mauk

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- When the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford decided to add another night race to the 2004 schedule, it was only fitting that the series visit a city where nightfall merely signals the start of the show.

The Champ Car World Series announced Wednesday that it would add a visit to the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway September 24-25 for a two-day event. The open-wheel machines will share the weekend with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series on the superspeedway oval with both series racing on Saturday night. The Champ Cars will close the show Saturday night with a start time tentatively scheduled for 9 p.m. Pacific Time.

“The addition of a Champ Car World Series event is great news not only for Las Vegas Motor Speedway but also for Las Vegas as a whole,” said LVMS general manager Chris Powell. “The Champ Car World Series offers some of the fastest and most technologically advanced race cars in the world and the fans attending the Las Vegas 350 NASCAR Craftsman Truck race now will be treated to an additional adrenaline rush. We're excited to offer such a great night of racing to the fans of Las Vegas as well as to those who are drawn from outside the community.”

The LVMS superspeedway will be the first for Champ Car since last season’s visit to EuroSpeedway Lausitz where Sebastien Bourdais (#2 McDonald’s Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) nipped Mario Dominguez (#55 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) and Michel Jourdain Jr. (#9 Gigante Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone). Bourdais escaped a brief ride on the infield grass and found a way to win a race that saw the top-three drivers covered by a scant .245 seconds.

“We have been interested in holding a Champ Car race in Las Vegas and the opportunity to partner with Speedway Motorsports Inc. made it attractive to us,” said Champ Car President Dick Eidswick. “Television ratings in Las Vegas have consistently been strong for Champ Car races in the last few years and we have a strong fan base in that region.”

The Champ Cars ran under the lights at the Milwaukee Mile in June in a race that saw Ryan Hunter-Reay (#4 Herdez Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone) lead from wire-to-wire taking his first win of the season. This will be the fourth night race in the last two years for the Champ Cars, having run in Milwaukee and Cleveland in 2003 and conducting a night race in Milwaukee this year.

“I am really excited about the addition of Las Vegas Motor Speedway to our 2004 schedule,” Hunter-Reay said. “Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a state-of-the-art racing facility, and I am very happy to race on another oval this year as Herdez Competition had a record-setting weekend when I won in Milwaukee. The diversity that Champ Car offers by racing on ovals, road and street courses makes it the most unique and challenging series anywhere. I can't think of a better place to display our product than Las Vegas.”

Four Champ Car drivers call Las Vegas home. Defending series champion Paul Tracy (#1 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgstone) is one along with Alex Tagliani (#8 Johnson Controls Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), Jimmy Vasser (#12 Gulfstream Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone), and Patrick Carpentier (#7 Indeck Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone).

“I can’t tell you how excited I am about racing here,” Tracy said. “All of the local guys have been out to the track and it’s a first-class facility. It’s the right type of venue for our cars. The fact that this is right in our backyard will open up a lot of opportunities for us to be able to test and really make this a big event.”

Fans can purchase a special Champ Car ticket package through the Las Vegas Motor Speedway box office. The Champ Car ticket package sells for $61.50 and includes a Saturday reserved grandstand seat in the Earnhardt Terrace as well as a Champ Car paddock pass. Admission on Friday will be free. The Champ Car ticket package must be requested directly from the LVMS box office at 1-702-644-4444 (in Nevada) or 1-800-644-4444 to receive the offer.

[Ryan S]

If CART and IRL unite and Tony George is somehow involved, I will walk away from US open wheel racing.

[TLK]

unification crap put aside..... here's a good article, on a great guy...



Finding Memo

Written by: David Phillips

Pittsburgh, Pa. – 7/16/2004

Gidley soon reminded team owners who he is in Toronto (LAT photo).




There are worse things in the life of a race mechanic than repairing crash damage. One that comes to mind is working on a race car that is seldom driven hard enough to be crashed. True, the crews on such cars are usually among the first in the paddock to head for the hotel at the end of the day . . . but they also spend countless hours toiling away on routine preparation for little or no emotional reward.

One of my most vivid memories from the mid ’90s was walking from the paddock to pit lane in Vancouver as the Simon Racing pit cart rolled past with Hiro Matsushita’s car in tow. As ever, the Panasonic Ford-Lola was immaculately turned out. But instead of seeing pride in the mechanics’ eyes, one sensed a cheerless resignation born of the knowledge that their car was never going to qualify or run in the top 10 or even be driven at 10/10ths, let alone contend for a victory.

Right behind came Walker Racing’s Ford-Reynard, driven by Robby Gordon. The Valvoline entry had been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated more times than I could count, sometimes in pursuit of victory, others in quest of a sixth, eighth or twelfth place and, more than once, in a mano y mano confrontation with some other driver Gordon felt had done him wrong on the track.

Gordon’s mechanics had spent more nights putting their car back together than they probably cared to remember. But in contrast to the grim countenances of Matsushita’s crew, Gordon’s mechanics were animated, upbeat, looking forward to the coming day; a day they knew their man would wring the neck of the car they had prepared and repaired. And if he took off a corner or pranged the tub and they were forced to spend another all-nighter putting the car back together again, well, that was a price they would gladly pay.

So, why the five and dime store lesson in psychology?

Fast forward to the Toronto Molson Indy pits last weekend, Saturday and Sunday to be exact. There, Memo Gidley took over the LeasePlan Ford-Lola from young Nelson Philippe, who had parted company with the Rocketsports Racing team after what was ambiguously described as a “contractual dispute.”

Who knows or cares about the details of the dispute. The fact of the matter is the 17-year-old Philippe, a thoroughly likable young man who is not without talent as a race driver, was in over his head. Having done a credible – if unremarkable – job in his first season of auto racing in the 2003 Barber Dodge Pro Series, the former karter made the big leap to Champ Cars this year. And while he did nothing to embarrass himself, and in fact scored a couple of top 10 finishes, Philippe would clearly have been better served running a year or two of Toyota Atlantic where, even as I write, another 17-year-old by the name of Andrew Ranger is stamping himself as a Coming Man a la A.J. Allmendinger.

Gidley knows a thing or two about Toyota Atlantic, having finished second and third, respectively, in the ’97 and ’98 championships. He also knows a thing or two about Champ Cars, having made 36 starts from ‘99 through ’01 for a cavalcade of teams including Target/Chip Ganassi, Player’s/Forsythe, Walker, Coyne and Della Penna Racing, mostly as a substitute for injured colleagues.

He also knows a thing or two about prowling the pit lane in search of work, unaccountably having failed to secure a full-time ride despite coming within a heartbeat of besting no-less than Dario Franchitti for the win at Cleveland in ’01, leading 68 laps in the ’01 Michigan 500 and earning the admiration of virtually every mechanic and engineer he worked with in the process.

Thus it was no surprise to see a little extra bounce in the steps of the LeasePlan crew in Toronto, guys like crew chief Rob Hill who worked with drivers like Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser and Juan Pablo Montoya at Target/Ganassi; team manager Phil Howard, who’s worked with Gordon and Oriol Servia in his day, not to mention Rocketsports’ Alex Tagliani, a driver seldom criticized for lack of effort.

Sure, they’d stayed up until the wee hours of Saturday morning fitting Gidley to the car (he’d been at Infineon Raceway preparing to do some work as Jim Russell Driving School instructor on Friday when Rocketsports’ owner Paul Gentilozzi rang him up and offered him the ride in Toronto). And sure, Gidley qualified 18th out of 18 cars.

But they’d seen him run 16th out 18 cars in practice Saturday – the first time he’d ever sat in the car, not to mention the first time he’d driven a Champ Car since the end of ’01. And they’d listened to his feedback, feedback that confirmed what most in pit lane suspected: there were no fundamental problems with the car, just some tweaks to fine-tune the car to the liking of Gidley – or any other driver not learning the Champ Car ropes via on-the-job training.

And they heard him speak confidently of having a very driveable race car, one with which he was sure he could make quick progress in the race.

Sure enough, Gidley moved up through the field by dint of several passes and mistakes by other drivers to run 11th before a tangle with Allmendinger dropped him down the order and he ultimately parked the Rocketsports car in the
wall at Turn Eight.

Gidley refused to make excuses for the crash. “It had nothing to do with the fact I hadn’t been in a Champ Car for a while,” he said. “I just made a mistake, that’s all.”
Memo Gidley (LAT photo)




Nor did he leave Toronto second-guessing himself.

“The whole experience was nothing but positive,” said Gidley. “The car was a blast to drive, the team is totally professional and they couldn’t do enough for me.”

Now comes the hard part . . .

Gentilozzi made it perfectly clear that Gidley was the perfect driver to replace Philippe on such short notice in Toronto. He also made it perfectly clear that last weekend’s deal with Gidley was for Toronto only; that a whole range of factors – inevitably involving sponsorship money and other commercial considerations – would weigh on the decision of who to put in the Rocketsports entry for the remainder of the season.

Michael Valiante’s name is being widely circulated as a candidate for the ride, the young Canadian being an ideal choice in light of the fact that the upcoming Vancouver Molson Indy is in his hometown and that Champ Car (in which Gentilozzi is a partner) is negotiating with Molson Sports and Entertainment to establish long-term contracts with the three events in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

Valiante is no Philippe. He’s 24 years old, has two and a half seasons and a handful of Toyota Atlantic wins under his belt and has tested a Champ Car for Walker Racing on a couple of occasions.

On the other hand, Valiante is no Gidley.

Make no mistake, Gidley would love to get the call. It’s just that he’s been through this sort of thing often enough before that he’s realistic about the situation.

“I realized a long time ago not to take things personally,” says the San Rafael, Calif. resident. “There’s a whole lot of factors that go into a decision like this. I know I can drive a race car, Paul and the team know I can drive a race car, but I also know it costs money to run a race car.

“I’d love to get the chance to drive for Rocketsports full-time. But it’s not like I’m on pins and needles waiting for the phone call. I’m racing a Ford Focus sponsored by the Air Force Reserve in the SPEED World Challenge. It’s a pretty cool car and there’s a race at Infineon Raceway this weekend, so I’ll get to sleep in my own bed!

“Like I said, the whole Toronto thing was a positive. I hadn’t driven a Champ Car since the end of ’01 and, even though I hadn’t forgotten how to drive a car, a lot of people in the Champ Car paddock had maybe forgotten about me a little. This was a chance to reset the clock in their minds. They saw me get in the car for the first time Saturday and do a pretty good job, so now I’m current again.”

The coming days will tell the tale. But, I would hazard to guess if the decision were left to the mechanics and engineers at Rocketsports, Gidley would be looking forward to a lot of nights away from his own bed. And the mechanics might be looking forward to some nights fixing crash damage. Gladly.