[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by f1manoz

Based on what George originally wanted, it certainly hasn't been a success:

Apart from the Indy 500, car counts have rarely exceeded that put up by ChampCars. In fact, only since CART going bankrupt have IRL out-done the other series in terms of car count.

I'm not going to go researching for George's original IRL manifesto, as frankly I cannot be bothered. But from what I can remember:

Tony George's original idea of an oval based series (with perhaps a road course or two) was a lie. He's now got plenty of road races on the calendar - including street courses which frankly he despised.

In 2007, I count St Petersburg (street course), Watkins Glen (road course), Mid-Ohio (road course), Infineon Raceway (road course) and Belle Isle (street course).

Hang on a second, this is starting to look like the old CART series he despised. :noes:

Tony George's original idea of a grid full of Americans with only a handful of foreign drivers was a lie. Apart from Sam Hornish Jr (and maybe the latest Andretti), there have been few successful American drivers. Particularly those that were there in 1996. Where have most of them gone now? Oh, that's right, NASCAR. Or Grand-Am. Or the ALMS.

The IRL have Honda supporting them at the moment, but all they have to do is give notice that they will pull-out and suddenly the IRL isn't looking as strong as everyone wants to believe.

The claim ChampCar tried to 'blow them up' is ridiculous. Tony didn't want to play ball. The players in ChampCar followed suit.

We may be raking over old ground, but it was Tony who threw his toys out of the pram, whinged, moaned and said 'I'll just form my own series then'. Then he made his ridiculous rules for the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and the rest is history so to speak...

So ridicule the current ChampCar series all you want. Ridicule the current owners.

But it takes two to tango. And this current harping on about how the current ChampCar owners are contributing to the current crisis and harping on about how Tony George is offering a 'fair deal' is pure BS considering it was his decisions to split open-wheel racing at the end of 1995 that contributed to this whole mess.

Well said, well said.