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Autumnpuma

The Price Of Truth....

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from speedtv.com commentary by Robin Miller:

The title of this column could be "Career Suicide 101" because I've become somewhat of an authority on the subject.

For 32 of my first 50 years I had the good fortune to be a reporter/columnist at The Indianapolis Star, which was somewhat of a miracle since I'd flunked out of that academic pillar at Ball State.

I covered my first Indy 500 for The Star in 1969 and by 1975 I was racing midgets in USAC and writing a racing column 52 weeks a year (mostly on USAC). By 1977, I'd become the lead racing writer for the only newspaper in the country that truly cared about motorsports.

From '77 until 2000, my May ritual was to write the daily lead, a column every other day and contribute to our Pit Pass notebook. When you threw in the Bob & Tom radio show every morning (I worked with the irreverent Jay Baker on d#ck's Picks from Gasoline Alley) and the trackside TV show I did every night, it was a long but fun day that I loved. And it got even better the Thursday before the race when I emceed The Last Row Party (an event that roasted the 31st, 32nd and 33rd starters).

All this background is necessary to illustrate what happened in 1996.

When Tony George divided open wheel racing with the formation of the Indy Racing League, changed the qualifying procedure (you surely remember 25/8) at Indy and replaced Andretti, Fittipaldi, Rahal, Sullivan and Unser with Bronco Brad Murphey and Racin' Gardner, I went on the attack. In print, on local television and on my nightly radio show on WIBC, I railed against the IMS prez almost daily and he explored pulling my credential but was wisely talked out of it.

Now I still covered Indy like always, writing the news and accomplishments of the day along with feel-good columns on Tony Stewart and Mark Dismore, but continued to pound TGeorge. I treated the competitors like any other May because they put on the show and it wasn't their fault Indy had been forever damaged.

Of course the interesting thing was the rest of my local media brethren. They all knew this wasn't the real Indy 500 but nary a disparaging word came out of their mouths. Just all that happy talk and gushing about Joe Gosek and those big crowds watching qualifying. It was see-no-evil on TV and hear-no-evil on radio for a solid month and I was the ONLY voice speaking out on the obvious emasculation of May.

That summer I got gassed from my five-night-a-week radio gig at WIBC because management claimed the "ratings" were disappointing from 7-10 p.m. on AM radio. Yeah right. I was told that IMS officials told owner Jeff Smulyan that WIBC could become the official station of IMS but not until they got rid of me.

The Star had tried to become business partners with IMS since the mid-90s but a prominent member of the marketing staff was told "never" as long as that $#&*%@ Miller was still writing for the paper. In January of 2001, Gannett showed me the door because, drum roll please, I'd tainted the paper by helping Kenny Brack start his website, supposedly broke a racing story on CART's website, borrowed money from Tom Sneva (after he quit driving) and used vulgar language in some emails (really, me?).

A week after I was escorted out of the building, The Star and IMS became partners. What a coincidence.

Channel 13, the local NBC affiliate that I'd worked for since '95, kept me through 2001 before becoming "news gathering partners" with The Star, who according to management at that time, demanded I get the boot and, naturally, I did in 2002.

Oh yeah, I wasn't allowed on Bob & Tom anymore either because, I assume, I'd lambasted Tony once when those two radio jocks had suggested the "buzz" had returned to the Speedway.

But let's fast forward to 2007. The Indy media, inundated with what I would call suck-ups, who either want to keep their pace car, free Indy tickets or jobs with the IMS network so they've never uttered a discouraging word about May during all these years despite the fact they privately acknowledge it's lost its crowd, luster and pedigree.

And many of my old racing "friends" who turned on me and called me a Commie b#####d for criticizing Tony have since admitted the obvious, Indy has been reduced to a one-day event and is never coming back like it was in 1995.

Owners, mechanics and drivers who praised Tony and cursed me in the late '90s now take his name in vain because they've all been left behind as the IRL morphed into

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Excellent post Mike. Nothing to add, except that that sort of integrity is rare these days.

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God help me I do so love that man (with apologies to the movie Patton) Seeing him on Wind Tunnel is always a highlite of Sunday eve's.

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God help me I do so love that man (with apologies to the movie Patton) Seeing him on Wind Tunnel is always a highlite of Sunday eve's.

+1

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Nice Post Mike, liked the story, though could not relate the qualfying story or the others but i allways know the only truth in the media is the advertisments.

If you can see this bollywood movie(kabul express) abt reporters going to Kabul and metting a taliban guy and how when they interact with him find out he isn't all that bad but yet when they go back to report they will have to write how bad he was and how poorly afganistan is run(not implying afganistan is run well but....)

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