Worst Wishes, Tony George

[Cinco 30]

Tony George is gone. He has "resigned" (more like has been ousted by his own family but they're going to be all polite about it) from CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy Racing League. The man who killed North American open wheel racing is gone!

Enjoy not watching the IRL as long as you can because the league has been dying a slow death all year. No more than 17 cars full-time next year, if there's even a series!

I'd rather see North American open wheel wiped out than see it like this. Ideally, his successors will be inbred idiots like him and run the series into the ground even faster than he was and we can start from scratch and go Champ Car racing again.

Hey, TG, I drove 10 mph in an empty parking lot today! Have I qualified for my offical IRL license yet? I can't wait to start seriously injuring my back in those Dallaras!

Bye bye TG! You won't be missed, not even by your own family! Ahahahahaha.

On a side note, I would like to apologize for ever defending Tony George in my younger years on this forum and others. How silly I was.

[pumpdoc 2]

Tony George is gone. He has "resigned" (more like has been ousted by his own family but they're going to be all polite about it) from CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy Racing League. The man who killed North American open wheel racing is gone!

Enjoy not watching the IRL as long as you can because the league has been dying a slow death all year. No more than 17 cars full-time next year, if there's even a series!

I'd rather see North American open wheel wiped out than see it like this. Ideally, his successors will be inbred idiots like him and run the series into the ground even faster than he was and we can start from scratch and go Champ Car racing again.

Hey, TG, I drove 10 mph in an empty parking lot today! Have I qualified for my offical IRL license yet? I can't wait to start seriously injuring my back in those Dallaras!

Bye bye TG! You won't be missed, not even by your own family! Ahahahahaha.

On a side note, I would like to apologize for ever defending Tony George in my younger years on this forum and others. How silly I was.

Now if we can just kill your school boy crush on the 2 Bobbys.

[Cinco 30]

Never. Just be glad Labonte's nine years past his prime and Santos is stuck in a series with no TV coverage so you don't have to listen to how he's going to win eleventy-seven world championships for Force India .

[Cinco 30]

Although I'm talking to myself, it is worth noting that the latest rumor has Roger Penske, Chip Ganassi, Michael Andretti, Kim Green, Carl Haas, and Mike Lanigan banding together to take over the series. I'd prefer if it was Kevin Kalkhoven, Gerry Forsythe, and Paul Gentilozzi but I'll take what I can get it, if I can in fact get that (which I doubt). Someone other than IMS has got to run this thing.

[Persevere 0]

The true health of open wheel racing in the U.S., in this economy, will now be put to the test. Tony George was always a smug egotist and his departure is welcome, but getting some coherent series formed for the 2010 season will be a difficult task, regardless of who is running the show.

[Cinco 30]

Yeah, 2010 is going to be same as it ever was, even with new leaders, and I can deal. I'd rather they take their time and create a good series with a good leader rather than some hasty "let's just get something out there." I don't think one more year of this can diminish the sport any more, since it's fairly close to rock bottom.

But as much as I want to see a real open wheel series in North America, I'm not sure it will ever work again. Yeah, people were interested in it, but that was when NASCAR was a little redneck sport few knew about. They all left for it not because of the split, but just because the product was, for whatever reason, more entertaining for the average US American television viewer. And that's what's startling. You need to turn a profit...CART was great but it didn't, and I don't think that now you could just go back to what CART did when it made a profit (if it ever did, I'm assuming pre-split it did) because people are so engrossed in NASCAR now. It's become a niche sport and you can't change that until NASCAR has issues (and for all the bitching and moaning and dull racing and this and that, it'll be a long time before that happens, if ever. I think it's telling that I complain about NASCAR 24/7 and never watch on TV and hate Brian France and all this and then every August they still get my money when I go to Pocono for the race). It might not even make sense to try; you have two options: a good series, that the more hardcore fans want to see (something closer to CART...a mix of tracks that challenge drivers in different ways with a bit more contact and overtaking than F1 and a lot more affordable), or a profitable series, which is essentially all-American front-engined cars racing in cornfields. And I don't want to see that latter, but how many beyond the 300,000 current viewers want to see the former? Add the total number of members at a certain Champ Car forum and you still have 302,888 viewers.

I want them to try it, anyone serious enough about racing to post on a forum will probably want them to try it, but...does anyone else? I think the answer is no. I'd rather see it euthanized than become NASCAR without fenders like Humpy Wheeler or Bruton Smith would make it.

Which leads to another option: Indy only. If you put the TEAM money into the 500 purse and distributed it evenly, you'd add $727,000 and change to each position. Is that worth it to design a car? Nope. But I bet there's a lot of other money going into the money-sucking hole of the IRL that could be added to the purse, though I still doubt it'd make it worth it.