Call An Exterminator

The Indy Car group is off to Toronto for a street parade. As street parades go that is not the worst and the people of Toronto are great. I am hoping they do not have the sentiments of the cart apologists who thumb their noses at the IRL like many other less fortunate. I wish I could go.

Now for the real story line. I have been thinking about the laundry leak in the Hulman-George family that caused Tony to resign from all meaningful positions. I have decided to offer my advice to the family. You need to find the rat and get rid of it/her. The more unceremoniously the better. It can be quiet, as is your style. Call an executive session, put some cash together, then get her out of there. That is what you must do to a rat.

Loose lips sink ships. I do not want the one you are on to sink. Isolate the rat, then say goodbye. That is something you must do. Family is family but business is business. That type of sleazeball betrayal is not acceptable. Ever.

End of suggestion. Let’s all enjoy the racing this weekend!

The $600,000,000 Million Dollar Men

Haggard Old Crazy Man from Texas

The funniest obsession among the ‘I-hate-Indy-Cars-but-spend-most-of-my-waking-hours-discussing-them-anyway’ crowd of sleazeball hypocrites is the notion that over $600,000,000 of IMS money has been poured into the Indy Racing League since the cart boycott began. They are absolutely convinced.

Are there really people who are that gullible or stupid? Do these folks not know how to rub two synapses together and fire up a little logical reasoning? Does anyone understand how much money $600,000,000 actually is?

What is even funnier is their seeming assumption that the $600,000,000 represents the amount of loss in real dollars. They discount revenue that is generated or assume that it is a miniscule amount. Even people considered smart; e.g., columnists from reputable publications, seem stuck on the $600,000,000 number. Why?

Not one person anywhere has laid out anything even close to a compelling breakout of the expenses. No one has made a case for numbers that represent income. All we get are ‘estimates.’ Usually those are actually ‘wild arse guesses’ based on prejudice or simply ignorance.

Just once I wish one of those touting $600,000,000 as gospel would make a convincing case. No one has. No one can.

We could, however, take a look at actual reality. The IRL-hating stalkers would have you believe the league is on its last legs. Here we are, however, fifteen years later and going strong. The current leadership (those actually responsible for performance who work with actual numbers) indicate the series is healthy given the state of the economy and sports in general. The critics howl at this, calling IRL officials liars and worse.

Will they still be howling in another five or ten years as Indy Cars continue to race? If they are it will constitute assurance we will have a source for laughter.

Hold Your Noses

The Indy Car brass is at it again, evidently pursuing yet another God forsaken, idiotic street parade. This time the victim city is Baltimore, and the heaping helping of fresh, smelly bull manure is as generous as ever. The hot air is swirling amid predictions of over $100 million in revenue and 150,000 fans.

We have all heard this nonsense before in any number of ‘temporary street circuit’ events. Why can we not leave this crap at just Long Beach? There is a perfectly good REAL track nearby at Dover. If Baltimore is hungry for racing, why not build a proper course? It doesn’t matter if it’s twisty. There are plenty of decrepit areas of town hungry for gentrification, and what better project than racing? Look what George Barber did with a strip mine just outside Birmingham. Build a permanent track.

This kind of pointless dollar chasing far away from the actual core of the sport will kill off the IRL just as certainly as it killed off cart. The people trying to make these decisions are generally no smarter than those who killed cart. In most cases they are the same people.

Why does Indy Car make it so difficult to become, then remain a fan of the series? Street races are a perverted abomination of the spirit of the sport. One a year is enough. When will Indy Car learn its lesson or even from mistakes of the past? It is as if they are expecting a different result.

It is high time to begin focusing on REAL RACE TRACKS. Not closed off streets. Baltimore is not Monte Carlo, nor will it ever be. This is not a slam against the city; on the contrary. Baltimore is a great place to do things, and a large part of it is being continuously revitalized. A baseball game at Camden Yards is a great experience, and we enjoy the harbor, the aquarium and lots of other convenient attractions. The people there deserve better than the empty hype that is street ‘racing.’ Please, for the love of God, grow some sense.

A Tale of Two Tonys

Lost in the delinquency and obsession over the resignation of Tony George from IMS was a really cool last lap move by Tony Stewart at Daytona. He is about the most enjoyable driver to watch in the sport at the moment.

Almost as interesting is watching the continuing obsession with all things Indy by the Tony George stalkers. It seems ironic the critics would get all worked up for years over a flippant comment made a really long time ago about bringing a hammer to work every day but not say a word about the comments of the undisputed king of the arrogant twisty course brigade. Old Bernie Eccelstone uttered some priceless commentary over the weekend, slamming democracy, indicating Saddam Hussein was the right man to run Iraq, and praising Adolf Hitler’s ability to ‘get things done.’ How quaint.

I would like to offer a few words about tradition to Jeff Belksus, who many of us are hoping he is to Tony George what Joe Cloutier was to Tony Hulman. Bean counters in leadership roles generally becomes a scary proposition, particularly when tradition is involved and where there may be greedy family members lurking with their mitts out.

1. Whore the track out to NASCAR and MotoGP and F-1 if it ever comes back. Put banners on the walls. Have advertising on grandstands and in the grass or wherever you can sell it. Have a field day. Go crazy.
2. When it’s May, leave the walls alone. White only with IMS logos in the turns. Do not violate the sanctity of the place by turning May into a giant bunch of tacky commercialism. Do not whore out the track for Indy. There are several creative ways for placing messaging and raking in sponsorship funding other than on the walls. Avoid that completely. The Centennial Era and history make it worthwhile.

Prediction: Mary Hulman George is getting up there in years. Retirement cannot be far away. I would imagine Tony George will become Chairman of the Board. Hopefully the sisters and the current crew will not screw it up too badly in the interim.

Things are Changing Right and Left

First and foremost: Hats are off to Dale Coyne and his team. He has been the model of perseverance and today, after decades, it paid off. It is outstanding when someone like that wins. Justin Wilson and the Coyne team made it happen, and I don’t know of anyone who is not happy about what happened at Watkins Glen 4th of July weekend. Just fantastic.

A team that is considered small without Penske/Ganassi-type resources beat the big boys pretty convincingly, and that is a story. I think Justin Wilson is the last non-Penske or Ganassi driver to win, and the last driver to do that was…Justin Wilson in the Newman Haas ride last season. If we could get Panther or Dryer & Reinbold or one of those teams back in the win column we would have a much more compelling series. But congratulations again this week to Dale’s team.

Now, on to the ugly. Hypocrites are beneath contempt. Bitter hypocrites are even worse. The resignation of Tony George has confirmed what we have all known for over a dozen years about many who speak and act in two faced ways every day. The most egregious form of such hypocrisy occurs when such mental giants trip over themselves to let everyone else know how they never watch and how bad they believe things are. Then when anything happens, they continuously offer commentary. The Tony deal is the mother lode for these imbeciles. Now that he is officially not running the show will his most vociferous critics get on board or will they find something else about which to whine?

Fans come in all flavors, and I wish the Indy Car Series did not have so many classless, lowest common denominator types, or as many arrogant twisty course aficionados stuck in 1995. We must, however, take what we can get. The fact that both groups obsess about Tony George and the Indy Car Series more than any other is one assurance of the continuing viability, health of, and interest in the league going forward.

Now that Tony is out, many of the idiots mentioned above are not prepared to just evolve; they want to find a grave on which to pee. Is that any kind of sportsmanship befitting the greatest sport on earth? One thing will become apparent to the critical Einsteins cackling out there, and that is Tony ran very little of the day to day anyway. The people who have been running the show are still running it.

If someone came to me and said ‘Defender, YOU be the CEO’ here are a few things I would do:

1. Kick ABC/ESPN out. They do not deserve any part of the Centennial era. What they were early in the partnership is long gone. NBC/Universal would do a much better job and would treat the Centennial Era with the dignity and respect it deserves. ABC and ESPN is an abomination, and the international deals are a sham. Versus is the lone bright spot but the primary sponsors should be forced to change their copy every few weeks. The Macy’s metrosexual spot is more annoying than any Billy Mays spot in history.
2. Open the rule book to meaningful innovation. Tight restrictions and making the playing field legal has not dented the one sidedness of the rate at which Ganassi and Penske win.
3. Multiple manufacturers for motors and chassis. NOW.
4. Open up alternatives to internal combustion.
5. Try at all costs to avoid temporary courses. They are not viable long term. The only possible exception is Cleveland.
6. Have someone in Canada build a real race course. I love Toronto, but they have a street race. They all suck.
7. Never EVER dip below 50% oval. Get some of the good ones back in such as New Hampshire and Michigan.
8. Market the series with intelligence. We are still futzing around with relatively amateurish efforts, although this year has shown great improvement.
9. There are about 150 other items on my list, and bandwidth here is limited. That said, I am as big a fan today as I was in any other decade since the 1950s.

Most important, given all the changes at the top, we need to determine whether anyone on the board other than Tony or Mari has the passion required to successfully operate IMS. Making money is important, but at that place you need the kind of passion Tony Hulman brought to the place after the war. If they remain concerned just about money, we will get a Rickenbacker-style speedway that is rarely improved (like most ISC tracks), and that would be utterly tragic. I remain unconvinced the sisters want anything other than a free, no-strings ATM. Passion is way more important than bean counting.

Pick a Soap Opera

And now back to real life in Indy Car. The topic before we were interrupted by ‘the resignation’ was going to be the perfect lineup for AGR for next year. Let us assume Danica makes the most ill advised long term career move in history and jumps to NASCAR, where she will quickly become a novelty in the back of the fields. NASCAR has few women and few people of color. That is the way it is. It would, however, be big news. If Danica leaves AGR, there is another line of thought that has her staying in Indy Car (presumably to realize her childhood dream of winning the Indianapolis 500) with Target Chip Ganassi. Target is said to see the potential, and it involves more than signing the breasts of bare chested males.

AGR is a potentially great team. It has been in the past and could be in the future. Their year-to-year chemistry issues make cohesiveness difficult. The collective narcissism of the Andretti family ensures that. I am all for keeping Tony Kanaan (although it is safe to wonder whether his prior disposition toward hanging it out 100% of the time is tempered with the arrival of his son) as the elder statesman and young Marco as the next star of the legendary family. So what about the other two?

The first should be Anthony Joseph Foyt IV if he can think with the top of his body and not the bottom. In the one opportunity he had with AGR, he acquitted himself well. In the Indy Car circuit he has driven for his Grandfather’s low budget operation and Tony George’s completely unsuccessful bottom of the food chain car. What would happen with quality engineering, modern equipment and a successful team? He even got better on the twisty courses. That would be open wheel’s two most legendary names together. Think of the marketing potential.

The perfect choice for the fourth driver (assuming it stays that big) is Tomas Scheckter. He has always been talented and fearless, but now he has seasoning. Ryan Briscoe went from dangerous to great and so can Tomas. With him on the team, conflict might be ensured. It seems to be a marriage made in heaven.

Time will tell. Meantime, back in the real world, here is one of my long weekend projects. I am going to mine commentary from some of the more idiotic cart-centric children who have taken the time to drop feces wherever they can regarding the Tony George situation with which they are so obsessed. After compiling a medley of the most entertaining, I will laugh openly at the abject stupidity, hypocrisy, immaturity and poor sportsmanship at which they excel. It should be good, so watch the blog for what promises to be quality entertainment.

Evolution Amplified

The originally planned blog was laying out the perfect lineup for AGR next season. That got trumped by the developments at IMS today. Mari, the sisters and the lawyers made it official. Anton is out. The sterile tone of the press release made the entire affair sound sordid.

Predictable cackling has resulted ever since, particularly from the incredibly childish Tony George haters, most of whom have never understood Indy Car or IMS.  Besides, after fifteen years of the some of the most vile poor sportsmanship in history, should the sub-humans not have their little moment?

What we really want to know is who is Jeffrey G. Belskus? What do we know about the incoming CEO? Does he have a passion for the sport and the dedication to maintain and improve the Speedway in the Hulman tradition, or is he a bean counter intended to allow the funneling of cash cow proceeds into the purses of the sisters? His background suggests company bean counter. Is that bad? Time will tell. The other guy is a lawyer. Both are company lifers and the company does not share its financial data.

Contrary to what various idiots may assume, Tony George leaving is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is change in general. I just do not want the greatest race course on earth turned into an ISC-like generic entity used only to milk cash for greedy spenders without much consistent synaptic activity. I also never want fenders on Indy Cars.

The other story will be what happens to the Indy Car Series. The future leadership of that entity seems up in the air. Maintaining a healthy Indy Car Series is vital. Most important, however, is IMS. Tony was a remarkable caretaker and took it to spectacular heights. The IRL? Not up to its potential. The one thing recent history has taught is that it is all  about Indy, and Indy fans are hoping for the best in this transition.

More OVALtine Please…

During yesterday’s discussion of the 9^th Indy Car race at Richmond, I completely forgot one of the points that should be made. The shortest track on the circuit can provide a great deal of excitement when the rules are not so micromanaged that it snuffs the life out of the competition. It is the hope of many people the IRL gets that worked out.

In the meantime, the Silver Crown cars do not cut it entirely as the opening act. It seems to me the Indy Lights cars are very well suited for that little track. I have heard the arguments against such an adventure and they do not really make much sense other that most of the people making them must be pansies. Run the Silver Crown cars after Indy qualifying on Friday night, then run the lights as the pre-race. 100 laps of fun.

There is supposed to be a meeting on Tuesday between the Indy Car leadership and Richmond. It is my hope they will not find a way to screw up a long marriage that has turned out great in years past. The proprietors of RIR are evidently upset with the parade the Indy Cars put out there.

There is a cynical side that screams losing oval venues is something we should probably get used to. The current leadership is great at letting them slip away. Michigan, PPIR, Loudon, etc., have all been cast aside. The oval that seems next most likely to bite the dust (provide they IRL does not get tossed out on their arses by Richmond) is Milwaukee. That great flat one miler rivals Indy in terms of ancient history and it is a real shame that it is being mismanaged so completely. Most of us grew up with Milwaukee right after Indy.

Oval ranting aside, Watkins Glen is one the greatest road courses anywhere. The Indy Cars do the place proud. So now it’s on to the Finger Lakes region.

Richmond: Great Time; Blown Opportunity

Ahhh…Richmond. Next to Indianapolis, that has become my favorite oval. It is hard to figure why the meddlesome, tinkering brass of the Indy Car Series have micromanaged the technology to the point where they attempt to pass off a 155mph parade as racing, and with supposedly superior drivers from the IRL heyday in the late 1990’s and early this decade.

Criticism about the quality of racing is fully justified. I saw people asleep in the stands Saturday night. Normally I chide those who watch on television for not having a right to criticize something they do not attend because usually it is a lot more exciting in person, and the television cameras never catch that. This is especially true when the production entity does not use enough cameras. An inordinately high amount of breaks that feature the exact same spots over and over (especially that God forsaken, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard IZOD ad-are the ad agency folks too stupid or too lazy to change the copy?) will drive people away just as certainly as bad racing, even with a professionally presented broadcast at which the Versus folks have excelled.

Even the lying hypocrites who either run to or plop down their pompous loud mouths in various IRL hate sites who trip over themselves telling everyone they did not watch but criticize anyway even though every single one of them watched every single millisecond may actually have a rare valid point.

Still, my party had a really great time at the track. A lot of friends were there, the camaraderie was superb and we got a slice of Americana rarely seen anywhere but the south. The weather conditions were 100% perfect. My favorite moments occurred during driver introductions. Seated in front of my party were some really intoxicated, confederate flag wearing, what can be best described as loud (and foul) mouthed xenophobes. Every time a driver of non-American ancestry was introduced, the one finger salutes would begin and they would shout something vaguely resembling some twisted patriotism in that special southern way. My absolute favorite moment occurred during Hideki Mutoh’s (Honda’s paid Japanese driver) introduction, after which they suggested, loudly, that he ‘get on back to Mexico you f$#@ing wetback!’ I did not believe that type of ignorance was possible until I heard it with my own ears. But they stayed and watched and mostly enjoyed the parade.

I miss the every lap all-over-the-track pucker moments that used to be the hallmark of the IRL. I do not know who is responsible for the destruction of the quality of events we once enjoyed at tracks like Richmond, but perhaps it is time for those responsible to find another line of work.  What is really ironic is that the continuing homogenization of the product is designed to level the playing field, but Ganassi or Penske win every week anyway. If Penske or Ganassi is destined to continue winning every week, why not at least try to make the show in general more compelling? Even members of the winning team apologized.

The IRL can do better for fans who have come to expect a great product.

What a Weird Week Outside Racing

RIP Farah. That poster helped me figure out my special purpose as a youth. RIP Hoosier Michael Jackson. Eccentric dude, but most creative people are.  RIP Ed. The Tonight Show moved to heaven. Those folks enriched life, and life goes on.

This particular weekend life is going on in Richmond. I like that little track a lot. Versus gets the coverage back so it will be watchable if you can’t attend. But if you are anywhere near the track, go. You will not be sorry.

Hopefully it is fast and safe! Whatever racing you enjoy be sure to enjoy it this weekend!