The Latest on the Streets of Indy

[Tim Northcutt]

On TF, a guy named dog-ring (whom I believe has LOTS of inside contacts at IndyCar and IMS) started a thread called "I Heard..."

and his first post was:

"That Tony George will be back next year..."

In what capacity? He didn't say...

I've followed this guy's posts over there and here in this forum (he's not dog-ring here) over the years and when he states something like that, it usually happens.

Don't shoot the guy who delivered the message to you here...it is second-hand info from dog-ring's post...

Just thought you might want to be aware of what might happen in the coming months.

[mountainstar]

Well I think he's already back because they quietly let him back on the board at IMS. So it's inevitable he will assume total control again.

Eventually I expect him to declare that the sport has gotten out of control, too many foreign drivers, not enough ovals, that engine leases are bad and that he had a vision which told him to start something called the indy racing league.

He'll make this announcement in March 2014, 20 years after the original vision.

The irony right now is that CART had many more ovals than the irl has right now.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally Posted by mountainstar

Well I think he's already back because they quietly let him back on the board at IMS. So it's inevitable he will assume total control again.

Eventually I expect him to declare that the sport has gotten out of control, too many foreign drivers, not enough ovals, that engine leases are bad and that he had a vision which told him to start something called the indy racing league.

He'll make this announcement in March 2014, 20 years after the original vision.

The irony right now is that CART had many more ovals than the irl has right now.

He is on the board of Hulman and Co., not IMS, from what I understand, which is the board that oversees all of Hulman-George business operations such as Clabber Girl, Wabash Communications, etc....not the same thing. Therefore, he may have some input on IMS issues in a broad sense as a member of that board, but no direct influence on IMS specific matters that its board would ultimately decide upon.

FWIW

[JagtechOhio]

LMFAO @ M.S.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by JagtechOhio

LMFAO @ M.S.

Am I hilarious or what?

History has a strange way of repeating itself. It's ironic that his league ended up with more street races and road races than CART ever had and almost no ovals. Basically it ended up even worse than the original environment that he split from to begin with. I have to wonder what all of tony georges original indy based fist pumping supporters have to think of this irony now.

The problem now is that the irl is not a profitable, prosperous series like CART was and most of the fans are gone. Not a whole lot left to split from.

Also some might have missed the last Kirby column but it had some interesting snippets:

http://gordonkirby.com/categories/co..._is_no317.html

"It also occurred to me that in our discussions last week about the future of racing I did not write a word about IndyCar simply because it didn't come up. Such is the state of IndyCar that Indy car racing's future is entirely unpredictable and everyone wonders if it ever can regain the vitality and relevance it enjoyed for many decades."

"It's deeply ironic of course that Tony George's IRL revolution has resulted in the steep decline in the popularity of Indy car racing on ovals. Next year's IndyCar schedule will include the fewest oval races ever--only three or four--and no less than eight street or temporary circuits. Incredibly, IndyCar has become primarily a street racing series and is in danger of eventually winding up with only one oval race--the Indy 500."

"The DW12 is quicker than the old Crapwagon on road courses but the car is struggling for speed on ovals--at Indy in particular it appears--because of weight distribution and aero balance problems."

"The DW12 has been designed to a tight budget by a committee with no evident designer or lead engineer. It's as if it was designed by a Soviet era politburo rather than a bunch of lean, mean competitors led by a motivated boss and chief designer. That's the way racing has always operated but IndyCar has upended the historic model with its version of the spec car paradigm. "

[P38 in workshop]

I wonder what Gordon Kirby would have written if the Delta Wing had been selected instead of the DW12?For the series to have a long term future there needs to be an easing of the spec car situation so that cars can actually be developed rather than simply evolving to the best combination that can be assembled from the parts shelves.

[Mystery]

Profitable, prosperous series like CART? Some revisionist thinking at best there. CART had some good years for sure - any series attracting a world champion must be high quality.

But the momentum was lost. Wasted even and the series rested on it's laurels and was driven into the ground. Very similar to the IRL over-relying on the 500.

Same old failures repeated again.

Truth is American open wheel has little or no significance beyond the 500. As a largely oval only series it at least was a different discipline to F1 but as a street / road race series it's an also-ran in an overcrowded market, same as CART was. I can only see it heading the way of the original F2, A1GP, SuperLeague etc etc.

[mountainstar]

Originally Posted by Mystery

Profitable, prosperous series like CART? Some revisionist thinking at best there. CART had some good years for sure - any series attracting a world champion must be high quality.

But the momentum was lost. Wasted even and the series rested on it's laurels and was driven into the ground. Very similar to the IRL over-relying on the 500.

Same old failures repeated again.

Truth is American open wheel has little or no significance beyond the 500. As a largely oval only series it at least was a different discipline to F1 but as a street / road race series it's an also-ran in an overcrowded market, same as CART was. I can only see it heading the way of the original F2, A1GP, SuperLeague etc etc.

It was profitable and prosperous for 2 decades and was very successful. I have all the figures buried in my files and can't recall everything but I do remember that in 1994 for instance CART had a better TV deal than Nascar, which was scattered on 6 different TV networks. CART pulled around 3 million spectators and 2.0+ TV ratings, prize money was excellent, teams were profitable and the sport had blue chip sponsors.

CART was no "also ran".

It wasn't until the late 1990's when Nascar started expanding beyond it's regional status and became a more widely accepted sport nationally.

[Paradise City]

Flamethrower George wants back to torch the charred ruins he left over when he torched his own series?

CART had a great product. Whether by design or luck, they had a great product, great racing and good regs. The CART management should be attacked though for throwing it all away but there's only one real villain of the piece and that's Tony George. With his own ego series he used the Indy 500 as a way of draining the strength of CART and AOWS generally. He virtually killed a great sport which only 15 plus years ago sported the likes of Andretti, Fittipaldi Sullivan and so on.