County Commissioners Laugh at USGP Attorney

Ouch! Unfrozen caveman lawyer gets his ass handed on a silver platter. Tared and feathered.

That does not sound promising. The non believers always talked about the smoking gun. Well, here it is in plain and painful sight.

Hopefully somebody from Austin/TX will now reply here that this is nothing to worry about and that the good ol' boyz will take care of biz.

 

Got a thread going on this in the Texas section as well.

Its my opinion that Bernie purposely handed the job to a group he knew couldn't get it done in the time allowed.
This way he can say " Hey , I tried but THEY dropped the ball "
Results in no USGP for another few years.

What I want to know is why he has such a bug up his posterior over the US having a GP.

 

Unfair. Don't talk amongst yourselves.

Not sure he does:

- the US obviously are no "3rd world country" (no offense to Asian countries, I mean that more general) where one single person dictates whether the country should have a race or not and with whom he can make the deal
- he probably has less of an interest to get this done than elsewhere: he knows he needs to do something to please the teams, but he also knows that the US is a lost cause because the sport is not popular here

So I don't think he is actively trying to see it fail, but he probably gives it less of his time/priority. Because quite frankly, even if he did, would that make a difference?

Ultimately his goal in life is to maximize $. So any loon that comes with a plan to set up a GP will be welcome by Bernie as long as the guy signs a contract in which he accepts to pay a huge penalty fee if he fails. Heck, I take that deal if I were Bernie. Meanwhile shopping with real prospects of 3rd world countries.

 

Damn... that's impressive.

You can barely recognize Peter Windsor under all that Hollywood make-up. And he did a great job masking his Aussie accent...

Unfortunately he's reading from the same script...

 

LOL

I didn't have the patience to watch the whole video (what's with the guy and his Ron Paul sign in a court room? hello!) but picked clips and it was almost like a SNL spoof how they were making fun of the caveman lawyer.

 

I blame it on local/national general public interest in USA, which I believe from experience is not great. I have been in the US on a couple of US GP weekends over the years. Never been able to watch the US GP in my Hotel in US. Best example was a few years ago on a holiday weekend. Probably 02,03 or 04. I arrived in a big Boston hotel and tried to find the F1 GP (in Indianapolis I believe) on any of the channels in my room. Not a chance. Slipped down to the bar and asked the bartender to try the channels in the bar. Not one channel carried the GP. Found a big NASCAR event on one channel, National Anthem, large crouds and all, but no US F1 GP!

The USA is blessed with hundreds of TV channels and the fact that I have never been able to find the US GP, taking place in USA, on a TV in a US hotel does say lots. It says to me that no-one is interested enough to deserve USA getting a US GP.

I hope things will change but so far, this is my view.

PAUL

 

When we had the USGP in Indy you would have seen the exact same thing on the Indianapolis newspapers (that town ain't that big and important NOT to put the USGP on its front page) and Indy local TV news. They did report about the race, on page 20 and 15 minutes after covering such global events as a break in at the local liquor store.

This was something that Bernie actually (and rightfully) commented on: The US really does not care and not even the local news cover the event, which quite franklyis odd and an insult. I get it that Football/Baseball/NASCAR is much bigger news in the US, but that the local BS is more important than when the race is in town? Come 'on!

Which is about 180 degrees the opposite of Montreal where every channel and every newspaper focuses completely on the race. From Thursday till the next Monday.

 

A few years back the owner of our local NFL franchise wanted to move the team into Boston. His thinking was that Football was such a popular sport that the move would be a snap.
Didn't work out. Seems that local politics is a more popular sport around here than Football is and he didn't know how THAT game was played.
A heavy handed approach with the locals assured that EVERYONE lost.

 

This is embarrassing:

Commissioner: "Has there been any objective research with regards to this facility... {snip} ...in terms of economic impact?"

Attorney: "No formal research, but our research by experience tells us since this track was announced - a funny story - this track got announced before we were ready to announce it... {snip} ...so our uh what would be our intuitive research tells us... {snip}"​

Research by experience? Intuitive research? What a load of BS!! They are completely unprepared. Not only do they not have any data whatsoever to share, they seemingly didn't prepare to explain that to the Commission - he's just making it all up as he goes along.

There are several times where he pauses and then just seems to pluck random estimates out of thin air - totally wild guesses. He would be far better off just telling them that he doesn't know, as that meeting looked to me to be a complete waste of time.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Exactly.

Gotta disagree with you there. A lot was learned at that meeting...

 

Right. And where have we seen this before?

Ah yes:

I'm starting to believe the sceptics.

 

I am totally bummed. I was hopeful these guys had their act together but this clearly demonstrates they did not. IF the GP happens, add at least two years.

 

Will they be offering toasters at the US GP launch party?

All the best,
Andrew.

 

If it were any other project I'd say it was on life support but in that its F1 and that its in Texas anything is possible.

 

+1

Not making any travel plans for Austin anytime soon.

Looks to me that the Rome GP stands a better chance at this time than the Austin GP.

 

Agree... Remember this quote from Bernie...

Hey Bernie,... I don't need a stop watch to know you can't run the 100 metres in seven seconds.

Bernie has made a bet that the Austin GP will fail. But in typical Bernie fashion,... he makes millions, win or lose...

 

http://monticellomotorclub.com/

 

The interesting thing is not that Dear Bernard keeps making such wagers but that he continues to find takers.
The allure of F1 has turned many men (and a few governments) into fools.
As W.C. Fields once said "Never give a sucker an even break or wisen up a chump".

Having said that I'm still hoping that the guys in Texas pull this off.

 

It is not Bernies fault that the USGP folks came totally unprepared to this meeting

 

How could these "promoters" have gone into a contract with Bernie without having municipal support first? And I mean at minimum verbal.

When Ralph Sanchez went to Naew Orleans, he got the city and Louisian on board first with a big chunk of land along I-10. Then he went to CART, got their tentative OK, and of course, in typical CART fashion, they pulled the rug out from under Ralph. Could have had a major road course near New Orleans that today might have attracted F1.

The point being, this group from Austin just can not be serious. Any decent real estate attorney would have told them to line up their land approvals first.

I can not see Austin happening. Even if it got past the Commission, these promoters will find another way to ruin it through their ignorance.

I also do not see NYC happening. Which means no USGP for the next 5-8 years. Sad.

 

+1

They look like total bafoons.

As somebody pointed out: USF1 Part deux.

 

Ron, very well stated, the attorney in the video must have worked previously for Ken Anderson.

 

I'm not so sure about that.
While none of the USGP trial balloons have been viable it is possible that they have increased interest in the IDEA of a USGP enough that a return to Indy may be seen now as practical.
A USGP could be staged there as early as next season if the will is there.