Andretti/Green make it official - Mike, Dario & Tony K gone one

[paul-collins]

"My preferences are well-documented. Leaving the politics out of it, it is the road racing that has always been huge to me. To me, the ability to drive road courses demonstrates the skills of the drivers and creates the most skilled champions in the sport. But Michael is the author of his own life."

-the Man.

[macdaddy]

Gotta love Mario. Absolutely.

[Liz]

Just what I said about Dario: He's essentially a prostitute, willing to sell himself to the highest bidder.

I hope he has the grace to be ashamed in front of the CART fans in the last "lame duck" races he runs. And I think the idea of leaving all your merchandise at their trailer or in their paddock is a good one.

[Barbarosa]

The word from an Ultra Reliable Source up north this weekend was that Newman Haas did make a very generous offer to Dario, Liz. About what he was making with TKG, perhaps a little more, but certainly something competitive. And the word was that Dario almost took it. With Cristiano most likely going to F1 next year, Dario would have had a prime seat on a top rated team and positioned to grab the championship next season.

Then Honda stepped in and not only topped NHR's offer, but buried it under piles of money. They love the Scot and need a top rated driver to compete against arch rival Toyota next year. And Dario looked at it and said "your place or mine, big boy?" Calling him a prostitute is too nice a word for it. Calling him a Judas is too nice a word. He sold his soul, plain and simple. The term "Prison B***h" comes to mind for some reason.

Barbarosa

[Jay]

Wow...and to think he used to be one of my favorite drivers. Sad, but the truth hurts.

As for Mario, I think he summed it up well...

"Are these happy times? No. But at least CART still has a car designed for both oval and road courses and it still has a vision. It´s treading water right now, because it has no choice. But there are some interesting things going on behind the scenes, and I think it will take off from here."

[Barbarosa]

There is one other thing to keep in mind, regarding Mikey's defection: Little Mikey has always resented Mario's tinkering with his race set up. Pretty much he figures that he knows more as the driver than his father for all his experience. Stop laughing and close your mouths. Never mind that when Mario tinkered and took control of things from the pit he did well.

So, Honda and TG whispering into his ear that they can help him prove that he is every bit as good a driver as his father hit just the right nerve. "Your father is preventing you from being great... you could have been an F1 champion too (yeah, right! With Senna as his team mate? Hah!)... we'll help you buy your own team and you can run it YOUR way... oh, did we mention that you go to IRL as part of the deal... here, take this pile of money... you don't need CART to be great... they are just holding you back..."

Just think back to every interview that Mikey gave after losing a race and you will hear him blame it on the car set up, the track condition, the tires, his pit crew, everything but his own mistakes. Mikey was a good driver. But, never a great one. With a father as experienced and as talented as Mario you'd think he would have paid a little more attention to the lessons he was trying to teach him.

Then again, Mario casts a pretty big shadow. And like the man said, "Pride was always my favorite sin..."

Barbarosa

[Jay]

Any guesses as to just how much Dario is getting from Honda? It must be F1 type money....

[Barbarosa]

My source said that it was enough to make one very vocal die-hard CART driver actually wince. Still, THAT driver at least - after he got over the shock of how much - was still able to say that he made the right choice.

Also, Dario would still love to be an F1 driver. And if JV is out of BAR Honda at the end of next season, their just might be a Honda sponsored seat open in F1. I don't see Honda spending the money that JV would want to stay.

Barbarosa

[FastCar5]

Barbarosa..please tell.. does the "vocal die-hard CART" driver dye his hair and ride mountain bikes? fess up!!

[Barbarosa]

Can't say. The information was given to me on a "No Names if you ever want to hear another word from us" basis. But, you can draw your own conclusions. Let's just say that the Die Hard is in a position to know.

Barbarosa

[Jay]

I wonder if the F1 might figure into this whole arrangement somehow. I have to think that Honda must have guaranteed him an F1 test or something in addition to all the cashola.

[Barbarosa]

There are a lot of drivers out there who would sell their souls for an F1 ride. And Honda really loves Dario. I'd bet that there were at least hints that they would get him a ride with BAR Honda for 2004.

Barbarosa

[Russfeld]

Originally posted by Liz
Just what I said about Dario: He's essentially a prostitute, willing to sell himself to the highest bidder.

I hope he has the grace to be ashamed in front of the CART fans in the last "lame duck" races he runs. And I think the idea of leaving all your merchandise at their trailer or in their paddock is a good one.

Welcome to the adult world Liz. Everyone works for money. From the driver who tries to get a higher salary to the team owner who spouts about how his new driver is a championship contender inspite of a shoelace-and-gum effort and unaccomplished pilot.

[macdaddy]

For many years I've remained loyal to my employer. Through the thick and thin. I've been offered higher-paying positions in other cities, but I stay with Joe. If I'm short a couple bucks on the hydro bill, he'll lend me the money. If I need a few days off for personal reasons, they're mine. If I need advice, he's there. I'm not making any innuendoes about Tony Kanaan here. His situation is different.

He doesn't work for Joe. He works for Mo.

Who is probably just as nice of a guy.

[Russfeld]

But if Joe were going out of business, would you never work again as a sign of loyalty?

[macdaddy]

If Joe went out of business, I'd always be able to rely on my credentials to find good work elsewhere. I see what you're saying, Russfeld, but even when we've gone through the "thin" of things, I've never feared for that. Just as I don't fear a similar fate for CART or Morris Nunn.

[Jay]

Cart hasn't gone out of business, and they won't be giving Mr. Andretti a good reference. Mikey took the money over his racing, it's that simple.

[Liz]

Russ, I just don't think that everyone in the world is governed only by how much somebody will pay them. I'm in a similar position to macdaddy; I have a boss who will do anything to assist me including giving me plenty of time off to go racing and lending me his tent! My loyalty to him is commensurate; I will do what I can for him, although if I wanted to I could make significantly more money working in a sweatshop defence firm that would give me a big fat paycheque, a lot of stress, no time off and a bad attitude.

I have worked in the past for both kinds of people -- the kind that consider that becuse they pay the big bucks, they have bought your soul and the right to intrude on every facet of your life, and the kind that would not cheat the employees out of their Christmas bonuses even when business was terrible, but would take pay cuts themselves to make up the difference.

I've worked for a boss who left me to do a major Supreme Court filing alone while he went to a party, although he knew I had a severe case of the flu and didn't know what I was doing; and I've worked for a boss who gave me $100 to take a taxi to the airport for a trip because he thought I had too much luggage to take the subway.

And I can say with perfect truthfulness that in the 42 years I have been working for my living, I have never once deserted a fine upstanding boss for a moron who offered me more money. In my world, that's the norm.

I don't know what kind of "adult world" you live in, Russ. But I'm glad I don't live there with you.

[Russfeld]

I live in the real world. I live in a world where we do business on the basis of business, not some hokey little dream world of hyperbole and narrow minded politics.

Thats the same world Michael Andretti and the rest of the racing world live in. This is a business whether you like it or not. It takes huge sums of money not just to race but to survive. As it stands right now the IRL looks just a bit more stable than CART so I dont begrudge anyone going for a safer business foundation. If CART cant provide teams, drivers, and sponsors what they need for their business needs the onus of blame falls on CART not the entrants. Its this 'not me' lack of responsiblity at the upper levels of management that got us into this position.

[Barbarosa]

The Reason that IRL looks more stable, and it is a very deceptive image, is because some big names are taking big bribes to make it unstable. No if's, and's or but's. I've always said that there is a price out there that could make a saint sell his own children. Well, we found out that Mikey and gang have that price and are going to get it. But at what cost?

Frankly, the fans know that Mikey and company took the payoff, just as they know that Ganassi took it to put his dagger in. Whether or not it is good business is irrelavent. By the way, it's bad business, as represented by B&W getting sick of Mikey's antics and packing it in. Without a willingness to build and protect the better product, you end up with junk that people have to have because everything else has been driven out of the market.

This is how the Mob works. They pay you off till all the competition is gone and you are hooked, then they turn around and slide the blade up to your throat and ask you what you are going to do about it while making you sign your life's work over to them. A lot of folks, myself included, joke about the "Florida Mafia" being the real power behind all this. But the moniker is well deserved. They'll help Tony "Fredo" George wipe out his competition no matter how much they have to throw at the problem, then they will calmly turn around and tell him it's time for him to pay up. And that will be the end of Open Wheel racing in America as we knew it.

They don't have to build a better product, which they haven't. All they have to do is the same thing that Microsoft has done for years. "We have the most popular product that everyone else is using." That's what they are saying to the fans and to the sponsors. Who cares if Indy gets lower ratings than your average NASCAR race. It's still Indy and we own it. Nothing else in Open Wheel Racing in the US compares to it. And if you want a piece of Indy, you gotta play by our rules. So here, take this knife and stick it in the back of CART and your fans. If you don't, then you don't get to do Indy.

Anyone who tells you this is just business is deluding themselves. It's personal to Tony George, it's personal to ICS, the France Family, and Roger Penske, and it's personal to CART. You don't spend half a billion dollars of your own money to prop up a company unless it is personal. Cause spending that kind of money is just bad business.

Now to be fair, yes, CART management was to blame for the mess they got into. The old CEO wanted to keep Toyota happy no matter what, instead of saying, "Dude, there's the door." There are rumors that there was more, but pretty much it comes down to keeping a player willing to spend as much as it takes to win and figuring that no matter what, you got to keep them happy. And they did, and Toyota happily smiled, kicked Cart in the sweet spot, and walked over to IRL which they intended to all along, while smiling over at the Florida Mafia WHERE THEY WANT TO BE, and holding out wads of cash to anyone in CART that could be bought.

Penske wins, cause he'll get engines from Toyota, a competitor to ICS (CART) starts to go down, and his partnership in ICS makes money. Ganassi, who would sell his own children for a buck, wins, cause he gets engines and cash. Andretti wins, cause he gets his own racing team, two name drivers, and Honda engines (Since Honda wants nothing more than to see Toyota get beat by them). Franchitti wins, cause he gets a huge payday and most likely a chance at a ride on a Honda F1 in two years. Tony wins, cause he gets a butt load of money and possibily the same ride - who knows what they were promised. And the TG wins, cause he hurts CART, looks like a big shot, and can claim victory. And the France family wins cause they are one step closer to total victory and total control over American racing.

But, those are short term victories, except for possibly Penske and the France family. And you have to figure a bunch of sharks like the France family will turn on Penske the moment he's inconvenient to their dominion. So yes, it was CART's fault that things went sour on them so fast. Just as Pook is going to get the credit for turning things around. Pook, Rahal, Mario, Haas, and the rest of the faithful are teh first ones to admit that.

But, that still does not excuse those who took the bribes, and make no mistake, that is what it was, a big fat bribe. Cause as long as the entrants were willing to say, as Rahal, Mario, NHR, and the rest of the faithful have, I'm not for sale, they have the right to claim to be ethical businessmen. Once you take the money, you are nothing more than a cheap hooker that anyone can buy on a Saturday night.

Barbarosa

[Russfeld]

'ethical business' is not breaking the law, in spite of the libelous analogies to Enron and Worldcom

[macdaddy]

Barbarosa's mention of Joe H. got me to thinking... What's going on regarding the lawsuit/countersuit between himself and CART? Haven't heard anything in months.

[Liz]

I did not say that Mikey was doing anything illegal, I meermly said that the people at Enron and WorldCom are his idols. That is immoral but not libelous. Grab The Cashola and Damn the Rest of Them is what gets you into those problems.

There is a reason that the Bible says "The love of money (not the money itself) is the root of all evil."

And for anyone who wants a good reference, Luke 9:25 is as good as any: "For what does a man gain if he has all the world and loses his soul (what makes him 'himself')?"

[Barbarosa]

Indeed, Liz. The simple fact is that in business if you develop a reputation as a snake and backstabber, you might enjoy short term success for a while, but only a sucker do business with you after you leave a couple of bodies on the floor.

Right now Toyota has the money to play this kind of game, Honda is getting sucked into it, and the only reason the France Family is not worried about playing with a scorpion is because A)Toyota wants to badly get into NASCAR, B)they have crippled, are crippling, or will cripple their competition by seducing them with their piles of cash, and C)the France family is a hundred times more treacherous and certainly not fools.

But, once Toyota and Honda pull their money to carry their war on to a new fresh series, leaving IRL's devoured hulk behind them, that means the Three Amigos are going to be left without cash, in a league that has been bankrupted, or so crippled financially that TG will have no choice but make ICS his partners, and will have burned all their bridges behind them (unless Tony and Dario have F1 contracts in hand).

Good Business or Bad Business?

I've been in business long enough that companies and executives who dwell only on the short view inevitably cripple the company. I watched one senior marketing executive dump a long time client so we could get a much bigger client with a big payday. But, the contract, while lucrative, was just project based. And when it was over, the big client went on to another agency, telling us as they walked out the door hw much they loved our work, wished they could stay, but it was their distributors who made those decisions and not them, and one of our competitors was in a much larger network... tootles.

The end result, Big new client, paid a lot for a short term project. As much in fact as that long term client paided in a year. Short term client walked when project was over to see new flavor of the month. Long term client got ticked off, would not take calls, and doubled their budget which had been steadily growing, and moved to another competitor. And our company was left holding the bag. The long term client, by the way, was reported as spending something like four times their original budget with us now.

Our company loses out because some hot shot moron saw all that gold for our betraying an old and established client and doing a one of project for them with hints of other projects or a long term contract. And in the end, we got neither. No loyalty, no long term view, no money.

This sound familair to anyone?

Good business, or bad business?

In all the years I've done consulting, in addition to by day job, my willingness to be loyal to my customers has kept me employed, feed, and housed comfortably regardless of how the economy turns. They need someone on short notice for a project, I either handle it myself or recommend someone better. Their systems are respected, their security respected, I don't talk about them to their competitors, and I don't resale systems I build for them to others (though like any good code jockey I recycle code for various "Tricks" where I can).

Just because someone dangles a bigger pay check in front of me to handle their emergency, I don't dump the job I'm on. Granted, I'm polite about it and usually recommend someone at least as good. But, just to pick up that bigger check, I don't dump the smaller client. You know what, those big clients still come around because they know, if I take a job with them I won't dump them if an even bigger fish comes around and dangles and even bigger check.

That's loyalty. And that is good business. Cause once you start to prostitute yourself, your pimp is going to give you a smaller, and smaller cut of the take, and no one respectable will want to be seen with you because of how it will make them look.

Good Business or Bad Business?

It is said that image is everything, and indeed, that's a good chunk of IRL's campaign, the image or appearance of victory. Alright, since those are the terms, is taking a wad of cash, not making up your mind who gave it to you, acting like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar while your own father is obviously uncomfortable talking about you, does that make you want to hire them knowing that they'll turn on you if your competitor offers more money, and even slam you on the way out?

Does that make you look like a savy business man looking out for the welfare of your employees, or a cheap hooker anyone can buy for ten bucks?

Barbarosa

[Barbarosa]

...note to self: Don't reply to boards until AFTER you've had your coffee... Sorry, Liz. Guess I got carried away.

B