Tony George: the "anti-CART"

[-pru-]

http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=09967716

[BrooksHall]

I am so conflicted. On one hand I hate TG for destroying open wheel racing in this country. He is nothing more than a spoiled child who when he didn't get his way took his ball and went home.

On the other hand he did help to bring F1 back to the states.

[size="1"][ March 06, 2003, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: BrooksHall ][/size]

[Brad Ellingson]

...and what is King George going to do with that nice road course he built when Bernie's boys don't return next year..or whenever that contract is up?

[BrooksHall]

IRL will be racing on road courses by 2005. There is no doubt that TG's agenda is to see the end of CART and the only way for him to completely bury them is to go road racing. This will only pile on the anomosity that I feel for likes of TG and AJ. They started this series with a lie, to go oval racing with American drivers and lower costs. So what did they find out? American drivers couldn't find the sponsor ship to run a season and in comes the south Americans with lot's o' cash. Who did good ole AJ hire to drive gosh darn Europeeeeaaan. Then in comes the big teams and manufactures from CART and now this series will be just as expensive as any other. The overall hipocricy of the leaders in the IRL is basis of my contempt. If all they wanted to do was have a nice little oval series I to help US drivers get to the professional ranks then so be it but TG's agenda from the start was to destroy CART at all costs.

[Peter Olivola]

Would it surprise to know that I agree with you on this? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Originally posted by BrooksHall:
IRL will be racing on road courses by 2005. There is no doubt that TG's agenda is to see the end of CART and the only way for him to completely bury them is to go road racing. This will only pile on the anomosity that I feel for likes of TG and AJ. They started this series with a lie, to go oval racing with American drivers and lower costs. So what did they find out? American drivers couldn't find the sponsor ship to run a season and in comes the south Americans with lot's o' cash. Who did good ole AJ hire to drive gosh darn Europeeeeaaan. Then in comes the big teams and manufactures from CART and now this series will be just as expensive as any other. The overall hipocricy of the leaders in the IRL is basis of my contempt. If all they wanted to do was have a nice little oval series I to help US drivers get to the professional ranks then so be it but TG's agenda from the start was to destroy CART at all costs.

[mark defer]

the fact remains that tony indeed accomplished what he set out to do. an all oval series, lower in cost, with predominately american drivers. the % of american born drivers has dropped recently, but that is not really in tony's control. however, fully half the grid is still home grown compared to 1 or 2 in cart. and as i've said before, for my money, the wheel to wheel racing in the irl is a much better show than a "follow the leader" cart street race.
as far as tg ruining open wheel racing, there are a lot of people myself included, who view the late 60s thru the late 70s as the golden age of champ car racing. remember, the world of champ cars didn't begin in 1979.


md


md

[BrooksHall]

Peter hell must be freezing over as we speak!

[BrooksHall]

Mark CART oval races are just as wheel to wheel as an IRL race and at much higher speeds. Just wait untill you IRL boys start road racing it'll be just like anyother road racing series.

[mark defer]

we'll discuss the road races IF and when they happen. for now it's all speculation. as for the ovals, if you really believe that, you haven't been watching both. the irl races are a much better show. call it contrived or whatever, the cart oval package just doesn't result in the lap after lap wheel to wheel racing as an irl race.

md

[Peter Olivola]

Please don't interpret this as denying you entitlement to your own opinion, Mark, but as someone who followed "Champ Cars" from the mid 60's on, there isn't much to recommend USAC's "stewardship" of the program following the death of Tony Hulman and the plane crash that killed their top staff in the late '70's. CART began as a much needed reform that could only be carried out outside USAC. The result, until 1996, was the best overall racing program in the world.

CART can certainly be criticized for some of their own "stewardship" problems including the Chevy "A" and overall attitude toward the rest of the "peons" in the sport, but they were already responding to some of the issues like the engine supply rules changes following the Simon letter.

There is a huge difference between Tony George/IRL and the France family/NASCAR that plays into the subsequent issues between CART and IMS. The Frances were (note past tense) smart enough to understand that as important as Daytona is to them personally, the growth of NASCAR needed to transcend a single venue. CART owners feared, rightly, that Tony George was going to return to the older USAC indycentric model at the expense of the rest of the series, which they had formed to improve their return on investment and which the depth of their corporate sponsorship indicated was a successful model.

I've never found it easy to "respect" someone born on third base who thinks they hit a triple. I suspect that the Type "A" personalities in CART found even less to respect in Tony George and were suspicious from the beginning of his motives. They handled the situation badly and probably could have dealt the IRL a death blow in its first year by taking an entirely different approach.

What we have now is a series of metaphorical concrete bunkers ostensibly protecting each side from the other but really only allowing the NASCAR tanks to roll over them with impunity since they've narrowed their gun slits to the point where they aren't shooting anything bigger than a .30 caliber carbine.

Open wheel racing is going to be a long time digging out of its hardened trenches on both sides.

Originally posted by mark defer:
the fact remains that tony indeed accomplished what he set out to do. an all oval series, lower in cost, with predominately american drivers. the % of american born drivers has dropped recently, but that is not really in tony's control. however, fully half the grid is still home grown compared to 1 or 2 in cart. and as i've said before, for my money, the wheel to wheel racing in the irl is a much better show than a "follow the leader" cart street race.
as far as tg ruining open wheel racing, there are a lot of people myself included, who view the late 60s thru the late 70s as the golden age of champ car racing. remember, the world of champ cars didn't begin in 1979.


md


md

[BrooksHall]

I'll admit that I only view oval races when I need a nap. I am not a fan of roundy round racing. I did go to my first super speedway race last season at Fontana and was very impressed by the speeds. I don't watch road racing to see pass after pass, I do it to see the drivers on the edge going flat out. Many view F1 as boring I find watching Shumi driving that car at it's limit facinating and when a pass is made it is even more sweet.

[DaveW]

Brakes? What are those used for?!?

Yeah! Flat-out oval racing (either IRL or Nascar) is boring and monotonous, even if it is very close. The only thing about it that gets me worked up is worrying about who is going to crash next due to the close-packed fields at 200 mph.

[Peter Olivola]

In 1976 and 1977 the American Formula Ford Association ran a support race for the late season NASCAR weekend at the "Monster Mile" at Dover DE. Everyone stuffed the tallest overdriver gear in the car and the only reason you lifted was to avoid hitting the car you were drafting but couldn't pass. In 1976 there were no injuries or damaged cars. In 1977 it turned into a crashfest and wasn't repeated. The IRL is one incident away from a similar outcome and has already been shown the door at several tracks for this reason.

Now, I'm not trying to compare 130MPH laps with 220MPH laps, but the situation is virtually the same. The cars are well within their cornering capabilies on the high banked tracks and artifically restricted to the point where it is no different than a NASCAR restrictor plate event. For that matter, so are the Hanford Device races. If that's your definition of "racing" we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Originally posted by mark defer:
we'll discuss the road races IF and when they happen. for now it's all speculation. as for the ovals, if you really believe that, you haven't been watching both. the irl races are a much better show. call it contrived or whatever, the cart oval package just doesn't result in the lap after lap wheel to wheel racing as an irl race.

md

[mark defer]

i just have a problem with people who blame the whole state of champ car racing on tg. there's enough blame on both sides to go around.
as to his motives, you have to realize his heritage growing up. he grew up on american oval racing controlled more by the track owners and promoters rather than the teams, which is what happened when cart took over. i'm not saying it's right or wrong, but i think you have to look at where he came from to understand his motives.

md

[Peter Olivola]

I think it's clear CART hasn't responded entirely appropriately but I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "poor little rich boy" who stamps his feet and takes his ball and bat and goes home.

Originally posted by mark defer:
i just have a problem with people who blame the whole state of champ car racing on tg. there's enough blame on both sides to go around.
as to his motives, you have to realize his heritage growing up. he grew up on american oval racing controlled more by the track owners and promoters rather than the teams, which is what happened when cart took over. i'm not saying it's right or wrong, but i think you have to look at where he came from to understand his motives.

md

[mark defer]

poor analogy peter. taking his ball and going home would be like shutting down ims. more like he took his ball and bat and found others who were willing to play his game. lets face it, he held the high cards and he played 'em. who wouldn't do the same?
say what you want about tony. he's taken the family business to new heights with the addition of nascar and f1 races. the physical plant at ims has been greatly improved over years under his stewardship. and he's done it all with no public assistance whatsoever. how many sports enterprises can you say that about these days.

md

[Peter Olivola]

Hooray for IMS.

Too bad for open wheel racing.

Exactly what CART was formed to overcome in 1979.

Originally posted by mark defer:
poor analogy peter. taking his ball and going home would be like shutting down ims. more like he took his ball and bat and found others who were willing to play his game. lets face it, he held the high cards and he played 'em. who wouldn't do the same?
say what you want about tony. he's taken the family business to new heights with the addition of nascar and f1 races. the physical plant at ims has been greatly improved over years under his stewardship. and he's done it all with no public assistance whatsoever. how many sports enterprises can you say that about these days.

md

[Thomas Copeland]

You Guys missed it...the story within the story on another page...

"IRL COULD HAVE THE SMALLEST-EVER INDY 500 ENTRIES LIST"

http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=07430957

Don't sound to me like IRL is taking over the world anytime soon...

[mark defer]

which in turn is why the irl was formed in the mid 90s.

md

[butchcfc01]

YEP!Round and round we go.I've never been able to watch IRL/F-1 without getting bored.Yep,good nap-time.I,Just like the starts and finish.
Now stepping on the pedal and goin left/right w/slow-high speeds and braking,accelerating----well,I could go on n on.
That CRAP about American Drivers not good enough!
Given the real opportunity they'd prevail....PERIOD.
Thank god this is a free country and I can say what I wan't.

[Peter Olivola]

It's a struggle between the Hulman-George family wanting to protect their investment in IMS and the owners wanting a viable series. I don't see Tony George, with conflicting interests, doing the IRL for the same reasons CART split from USAC. Just a continuation of the age old battle. The Hulman-George plantation may be good enough for Central Indiana but the rest of the world has a mind of its own.

Originally posted by mark defer:
which in turn is why the irl was formed in the mid 90s.

md

[Peter Olivola]

It's a sad day when open wheel racing in the U.S. is one recession away from oblivion.

Originally posted by Thomas Copeland:
You Guys missed it...the story within the story on another page...

"IRL COULD HAVE THE SMALLEST-EVER INDY 500 ENTRIES LIST"

http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content...._code=07430957

Don't sound to me like IRL is taking over the world anytime soon...

[GR]

And there's even talk about them loosing TV coverage to the first Pro Babe golfer to whack the balls in a tourny on the same day as the 500.

Golfing kicking the IRL too

[Rick Kirchner]

Hell is freezing over - I can agree with Peter's paragraphs 1,2,5, and 6 in his post #97 above. That plane crash wiped out the guys that could have brought everyone back to the table.

The sport of auto racing is missing balance and inspired leadership. Across the entire business area, there's one series with too much owner power, another with too much sponsor power, another with too much promoter power, and on and on.

We could try and draw analogies with other sports - when baseball was big, they had a strong commish, neutral owners, and properly compensated players. Now we have gazillionaire criminal crybabie players, a powerless commish, and owners that would like nothing better than to stab their peers in the back. No wonder it's constantly on the brink of disaster.

Hockey - deserted it's fan base and moved to the SOUTH chasing the almighty dollar.

Football - ??

The NBA has done OK, considering it's a boxing match with a ballgame somewhere in the middle.

Golf has been kicking open wheel racing's ass since the 1970's. Golf invented the tape delay for racing.

On the Oval vs. Road thing - didja ever notice, that in the post aero era (1972 to present), that regardless of series, oval racing is better when the cars are really stuck and a little down on horsepower (champ dirt excepted)? It gives confidence that you can run up on someone and not wash out into the wall, you can run wheel-to-wheel. The edge is maybe just a little wider.

Conversely, what makes great road course action, with passing, is just the opposite - lots of HP and less grip. Braking zones, different torque curves, stable vs unstable cars all create action in that type of venue.

Are these two forms of racing, given today's technology, mutually exclusive with esentially the same engine and chassis combination?

Remember that during that "golden age" we had the USAC championship trail. You had to be good on ovals, road courses, dirt, stock cars. The best drivers could handle anything. Everything today is so specialized (although one could argue with data acquisition, drivers should adapt faster then their 60's counterparts did).

This month's Racer had a great article about the Winston cup boys kickin' quite a bit of euro butt in the Canary Islands with rally cars.

What Tony needs to do to show he's more than a poseur is bring a responsible owners coalition with an appropriate level of influence back to the game, consider and actually help the promoters, and keep the factories under control. Road racing will return I believe, because running 16 ovals a year is real hard on the driver population.

I hope Homestead was not a leading indicator of the rest of this season - not that Dixon didn't deserve the win - an awesome drive at the end - but note that things just got real strung out and ho-hum.

[BrooksHall]

Rick good point on the leadership, and that goes for all forms of racing (NASCAR not included cause it ain't real racing ) If you think things are bad in open wheel racing check out the Sports Car ranks. I think there were 18 cars at the race in Homestead. It looked like a ITE regional class.

[montfort]

You guys make reading the "Atlanta Journal Constitution" seem about as boring as watching reruns of "Leave It To Beaver."

Keep up the good work!

[AerosportsRacing]

Hi All
I would just like to throw a little insider LITE
ON OPEN WHEEL RACING IN AMERICA TOPIC.
I 1977 Todd Gibsion a well know(in the midwest anyway) circle track racer asked for my help on his team(no pay and i did live in the same town).
Pre C.A.R.T. during U.S.A.C. times the teams if they Qualified and ran and came in last could not even pay there tire bill and to and from the track costs.The promoters got the big chunk of the pie and some races before and after Indy you did not even get enough cars to fill the fields.
I will admit that latly CART has looked like Monkies @#$%ing A football.As for IRL going roadracing.Who had 60,000.fans at a first time race on race day It was not the IRL and NASCAR did not have squat showup at the Rock.CART. has a following at road tracks that has never ever been seen before in this country.St.Pete. did not have HAVE Micheal Andretii ,Unser or Foyt just racers and a friend told me the crowed was having VERY GOOD TIME.I think CART has a good man in charge and I hope they can get things straitend out before the fans go.The IRL has had a lot of trouble putting fans in the stands !! Indy is the only reason that Penske and other teams have gone to the IRL.(MONEY ,AND THAT MEANS INDIANAPOLIS 500) NASCAR is starting to go the CART route and charge the promoters to much and that means the fans price to get in is going up to!!They are starting to stay away from races and watch it on TV free!!!!
We as road racers owe CART. a lot for grasping roadracing in North America back from deaths door.
Think what the track facilities would be like .I can remember there was not to many pro road races to go to in the late 70s.
I for one will not forget it and yes the IRL has become what they said they wanted to get away from.
NOW THAT I HAVE GOTTEN THAT OFF MY CHEST
LETS ALL DRINK MORE BEER RACE MORE CARS AND HAVE MORE FUN !!AND AFTER ALL FUN IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT !!! AT LEAST IT IS FOR ME!!