Tony George is Out

It would be fun to walk in the museum there and 'cherry pick' a few cars...
CH

 

Tony George is the to open wheel racing what Jeff Zucker is to Late Night Television.

Both took something at their zenith and ran them into the ground.

 

dear God, the Frances buying IMS would royally suck. However, I doubt they will sell the speedway anytime soon as the article mentioned.

TG certainly made a lot of bad decisions but I agree in principle with what he was trying to do. However, it looks like instead of the team owners killing open wheel it was a family squabble that did the same.

Next question, what happens to the league's plan to launch the new cars, originally slated for 2011? I think the league is in limbo until that decision is made, at least from a car owner involvement standpoint.

 

+1. I wish the brains of the operation stepped up when he first mentioned hatching the IRL. Now it doesn't matter.

 

When Tony George decided to do what he did, it was universally panned as a bad idea, and all the predictions that were made then came true. It was a HORRIBLE idea - he was never in control like the France family is with NASCAR...he owned a track and the cornerstone race.

As a result of his actions, the once great CART is gone. The Indy 500 is meaningless. The drivers are no-names. The cars are a joke.

This buffoon got what he deserved.

 

To bad his ego and checkbook had to kill American open wheel racing.

The Earl was the answer to a question no one asked. It's hideous cars, crappy engines and crappy racing suck.

TG belongs in the grave so I can pee on it.

 

He an *******. I hope his balls explode for destroying American open wheel racing. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

So with TG out, does that raise hopes for a US GP returning to the Brickyard? It might not be the best circuit in the world, but it is GP ready and that's more than anywhere else can claim...

 

Tony was willing to take a loss on the USGP. Sounds like the rest of the family isn't.

 

It's going to take years for open wheel racing to recover, if ever. The Frances own NASCAR, and I think at least 4 other major tracks, with long term agreements with another 5 major tracks. Their only competition is Burton Smith, and his company is on the ropes, at least until car sales pick up.

Tony George didn't have a clue, and look where he ended up. The tragedy of this problem is that he took hundreds of decent hard working people with him.

Art

 

I agree that TG made a lot of ignorant/arrogant decisions, but I genuinely don't think open wheel would be much better off without the creation of the IRL. demographics have changed, NASCAR has become a phenomenal marketing machine, and F1 (Bernie) would have launched a war with CART had TG not beaten him to it.

 

One could get the impression from the article that the
USGP deal at Indy may have been the last straw. The
outlay spent to construct the F-1 course and revised pits
combined with the Bernie's outrageous sanctioning fees
certainly made the entire ordeal a money-losing proposition.

Unlikely F-1 will be back at Indy now that calmer heads
are at the controls.

RM

 

IMO, and from a fan's perspective, it was great the he brought F1 back to the US at Indy. But the crap he did with IRL/CART, set US open wheel series back at least 10 years. ( I stopped following either since the split, what's the new official name for the new series ?)
I hope to see F1 back in US again if possible and a return of US open wheel series back to its glory days.

 

It's about time.

I used to follow CART as close as I follow F1 back in the day. But then Tony decided he wanted to have a pissing contest by creating IRL. No more real racing. Nothing but a bunch if straight lines and left turns. That killed it.

He got what was coming to him.

 

What an idiot, its about time. Maybe the stuck up fools that run F1 on the other side of the big pond can buy IRL and merge it into F1. We would have open wheel NASCAR, circle tracks and all. Sponsors would run up. Tide Mclarens and Viagra Ferrari's.

 

As bad as IRL is, the demise of CART began with its owners when they hired that tool (can't recall his name) to be CEO and went public. Not a single successful sports sanctioning body has ever been anything but closely held....MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, PGA, pro tennis...none of them. But the owners were greedy and cashed out, essentially dumping the series on hapless investors.

CART, in its hayday, was truly great racing..but much of that was due to the drivers, the likes of which we will probably never see again....Andretti, Mears, the Unsers, Fittipaldi, Foyt, Sullivan, etc.

Jack

 

At the time, I blamed CART for deciding Tony George to start his own series.

 

I think that the root cause for the demise of open-wheel racing in the US started with CART.

Having created a successful series, team owners became greedy and sold their series.
The decline soon started and IRL was just an alternative series to go back to basics.

In the CHAMPCAR v. IRL war, Tony George finally won but alienated the US fan base which went straight to watch NASCAR instead.

 

Andrew Craig...

For sure, Craig made some wide-ranging fatal moves but
he could only do so under the direction of the CART board
of directors (Penske, Ganassi, Patrick, Bettenhausen, etc.).

It was really when CART started playing with pop-off valve
and other rules applied arbitrarilly to different manufactures
that the competition aspect came apart.

Then Craig started following in the Bernie mold, getting
tracks (notably new European venues) into sanctioning fee
bidding wars. The whole thing became distasteful.

George wasn't much better and apparently had a blank check
to use as he pleased. A lot of what was in that account came
from CART sponsors in the form of leases for the Turn Two
suites at IMS.

George got CART teams and sponsors to pony up for long
term leases for the luxury suites, ranging from several hundred
thousand dollars from the smaller sponsors to millions from
larger sponsors such as Phillip Morris all paid in advance.

This was a major bone of contention when George started the
IRL as George declared the suite lease contracts null and
void and the money laid out non-refundable.

So, basically, George used extorted funds from CART sponsors
to start up the IRL and one of the main reasons why CART
ran the US 500 at Michigan on Memorial Day weekend.

Hindsight being a wonderful thing, some of the CART teams
should have taken up George's invitation to hold open several
spots in the Indy 500 field as they would have cleaned up in
the final results and the IRL experiment would have gone away.
These teams and sponsors were so seething mad at George that it was never really considered

 

Bingo!!

You hit the nail on the head. To a point. I can't agree with most of the opinions here, my personal opinion of Tony George is irrelevant compared to what he tried to do for American racing fans. He did bring us the USGP, and now Motocross. CART was becoming a dead end at the hands of Penske and Ganassi. No successful racing series is controlled by the teams. If F1 goes that route with FOTA, it will be a matter of time when once again egos overlook reality. They will destroy that series just as happened to CART.

I really doubt that people abandoned USAC/CART/IRL for NASCAR. NASCAR just put on a much better show at the time, and brought in fans that were not into racing before. They also had an incredible marketing machine. They put their drivers where they belonged, close to the paying spectator. Unlike F1 which runs on arrogance. In the last few years, the IRL has put on some spectacular finishes, but it was too little too late. Now the economy has affected everyone, even NASCAR.

IRL was a good idea, maybe not handled as it should. George felt as his Godfather AJ does that American open wheeled racing belonged on ovals. That is where it got started, that is where it should have stayed. CART tried to become another F1 which was not going to happen.

The IRL will survive, it will become strong in 5 years, as long as it stays where it belongs, in the USA.