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Okay, Always First, you took the bitter guy seriously, so I'll respond:
1. Pole Day crowds are never going to be to Robin's liking again. There aren't 150 or 200 mile-an-hour barriers to fall. There are many, many more choices that people make today on activities for a weekend. There has been the split. And you know, if there were a billion people there, Robin wouldn't be satisfied because he just doesn't like TG and was on CC's payroll until this year.
2. Purse money doesn't sustain anything as far as the teams go. It HELPS A GREAT DEAL that the "500" carries a $10 million purse and last-place last year paid something like $193,000. Sponsorship pays the freight, though. And I don't think they WANT a title sponsor for the "500." They'd like that name to stand on its own. Marlboro offered 'em $10 million for a title sponsorship back in the '80s and they turned it down.
3. Agreed.
4. Rookie orientation just got moved from April to start off the month of May. I can't even understand why that's such a big yank.
5. Some days ARE sponsored. Gate admission for practice days is something like $5 or $10. That's pretty rock bottom.
6. They changed the qualifying procedure two years ago to this. Weather didn't allow its impact to be felt until this year. The pole was decided by the final two runs of the day. People were bumped as second-day qualifiers. Different strategy. Different drama. The way the crowd was yelling where I was sitting, both days (Jaques Lazier was trying to bump his brother the second day at the gun), I'd say those who were there were pretty pleased.
7. The "clash" with NASCAR has been there for years. The later starting time for Indy now eliminates "double duty" drivers but that was changed to try to get better West Coast TV. Maybe you win on one side, you lose on the other. But Charlotte isn't going to give up their weekend and Indy isn't, either. Just not gonna happen.
But Robin's attacks on the IRL and the Speedway the past 12 years leave little room for credibility of any of his ideas, really, even if they might be good ones. When he suggested on his now-defunct radio show in Indy a few years ago that the split could be resolved by a "helicopter crash," referring to TG's helicopter, that was enough for most folks. Everyone knows he's just teeing it up again and finding fault and he's done it so many times where there IS none, it's just "Robin again" now.
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