Hey I was THERE!!! - Indy Personal experiences

[Tony Clifton]

Just got back from the USGP, thought I would add a couple of comments and observations.

I took a plane from Los Angeles to Indy , got there Thursday night, was a the track Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I along with 99.9% of the other race fans at the track had absolutely no idea what was going on prior to the race.

I did not buy a local newspaper and Indy TV coverage made no mention of any Michelin tire problems. Therefore, before the start the only difference I noticed was that the cars appeared to be gridding very late. The track announcers made no mention of any tire problems.
Cars did their parade lap and then the 14 left the field for the garage. From looking at the big screen TV's I thought at first that the cars were going to change tires and start from the pit lane. When they started backing into the garage(s) I along with everybody else was completely confused.

The 6 cars got to their start position and very quickly off they went. At first the crowd did not know what to think and then word spread very quickly about the situation. Then the big booing and thumbs down started. Soon after water bottles started to get thrown on the track but for all the booing, thumbs down and bird flipping the crowd was surprisingly calm.
After about 6 laps or so a number of people started to leave the track. For out of towners such as myself, I stayed and watched.

Why?

Where else was I going to go?

Most of the crowd that stayed was in the same boat, if they left there was nothing else to do.

My feelings? First off, I feel REAL BAD for those fans that traveled internationally to get to the race. There were many people who planned their whole vacations around the US and Canadian GP's. Fans spent their entire vacation budgets to come to this race and got nothing to show for the money spent.

There HAD to be some kind of compromise when there is a serious safety such as this issue to allow the race to go on with a full field. F1 seems to forget that they are in the entertainment business and they just DESTROYED any good will that they built up in the USA.
Gee, didn't the FIA and F1 learn ANYTHING from the 1994 San Marino GP. I seem to recall that several track had temporary chicanes placed to cut speeds and increase safety after the Senna/Ratzenberger deaths. Canada had the tire chicane on the main straight and the Spanish GP had a tire chicane also. If somebody showed leadership a full race could have run, albiet with some rules compromise.

F1 has effectively KILLED the USGP.
They may run one more year, but it is done after this. There was talk about a couple of Las Vegas casino owners wanting to get a GP run in Vegas. I would bet all the interest is now gone.

The crowd was not really mad at the teams running, they were mad at the situation and the FIA. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was not even taking any fan blame at least in the section I was sitting in. Yes there were people talking about getting their money back from the speedway.

This "race" was a joke and the safety issue could have been addressed in a way that allowed a full grid to run. Instead the FIA and F1 decided to hide behind their rigid rules and destroy what could have been a great race.

Oh yeah, I didn't meet anybody who said they were coming back next year for the race.

All in all a big disappointment for all the time and money I spent on plane fare, rental car, hotel, food etc.

[mabs_nsx]

Are you going to get your money back?

[Kicking-back]

Sorry to hear you were disappointed, Tony, but that's racing.

[Dixie Flatline]

FWIW, what I saw on Monday morning my time wasn't racing in the least. It was a Grand Prix but not a race.

My wife and I had had a look at the tour packages for this year's Canadian and US Grands Prix last year, but we decided against spending the $10K on doing it. Fortunately, a good decision, I think, and we now need the money for other, more important things than Formula One.

[Gt_R]

Indeed! Like changing your motor's Michelin to Bridgestone perhaps?

[djb]

Originally Posted by Tony Clifton

There HAD to be some kind of compromise when there is a serious safety such as this issue to allow the race to go on with a full field. F1 seems to forget that they are in the entertainment business and they just DESTROYED any good will that they built up in the USA.
Gee, didn't the FIA and F1 learn ANYTHING from the 1994 San Marino GP. I seem to recall that several track had temporary chicanes placed to cut speeds and increase safety after the Senna/Ratzenberger deaths. Canada had the tire chicane on the main straight and the Spanish GP had a tire chicane also. If somebody showed leadership a full race could have run, albiet with some rules compromise.

this is a key point that I too feel is the key issue (the 1994 measures taken for "safety")
While I understand both sides of the whole thing,ie that you cannot expect the FIA/Bridgestone to not be cutthroat vis-a-vis a Michelin problem
AND at the same time I see that the Michelin teams really didn't have achoice not to run their cars

for the big picture aspect of the whole thing, it was not a last minute problem that popped up right before the start, and given as you mentioned the 1994 sticking of chicanes on circuits "in the name of safety", one would think that some sort of compromise could really have been made (especially one involving Michelin teams not getting points etc) that would have avoided yhou and thousands of others feeling very let down.

[Gt_R]

Bernie was telling people, if we were back in the past, he'd have gone to each team and force each driver to take to the grid.

[Asa]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

Sorry to hear you were disappointed, Tony, but that's racing.

That's surely not racing.

[Kicking-back]

Yes, it is racing.

Michelin had a tyre which wasn't good enough and they retired from the race, Bridgeston had one which worked and finished 1-6.

Perfectly fair.

[Gt_R]

well lookleft, obviously you don't understand the

People take what happened yesterday too seriously. It's over, learn from mistake, move on and look towards the next race.

If i'm trying to be optimistic, F1 has surpassed all level of racing to be the ultimate reality entertainment. Where else can we find such "drama"?

If people were smart and to the point, we won't be spending millions of bucks and gallons of petrol to see cars run in circles.

Sometimes, look at things the right way.

[Kicking-back]

Gt_R - your comments on this matter in the past day or so have been absolutely accurate.

[Gt_R]

How often do we agree?

[Menelaos]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

Sorry to hear you were disappointed, Tony, but that's racing.

Sorry man but I can't understand you. AT ALL. It's not like someone is a fan of, say, McLaren and the McLarens have a problem. There was no race at all! People paid thousands of $ to travel to Indy and watch a gp that never happened. If you can just tell them "sorry, that's racing", I don't know. Some student might be saving money all year to attend this thing, and you just say "sorry but that's racing"? No, that's not racing! It's not that it was not a GOOD race. It was not A RACE AT ALL. The FIA had to do something!

[Asa]

Originally Posted by Gt_R

People take what happened yesterday too seriously. It's over, learn from mistake, move on and look towards the next race.

You mean look forward to another farce?

Surely this thing between FIA, Michelin and all the Michelin-shod teams are not yet over.

And of course, there is absolutely nothing to worry about in terms of ticket sales. Everybody in this dumb world will keep sucking up F1 tickets and expects all 20 cars to show up and race as normal.

I for one will not buy an F1 ticket even if it was offered to me at 1/10 price. Who knows what they have got for their next trick.

[frostblade]

Is it fair that only the Bridgestone runners ran? Yes.

Should it have happened? No.

What consistently happened last weekend was that the entire sport failed to see the big picture - that the people who travelled thousands of miles to watch, they didn't know about the tyre issue, and frankly they didn't care. They went to be entertained, and no one was willing to look past their own interests to provide that entertainment. The FIA should have put the chicane in, Ferrari should have lumped it, and Michelin runners should have been barred from scoring points.

What if a Michelin runner had crashed into a Bridgestone runner? Well, I'm sure the costs of that would have been far less than the costs this mess will costs the entire sport. That is the problem.

What really upsets me right now is the blame culture we've got going on now, with the FIA, Ferrari and the Group of Nine all saying it wasn't their fault. Big deal guys, shut the hell up and get on with it.

[Menelaos]

Originally Posted by frostblade

Is it fair that only the Bridgestone runners ran? Yes.
Should it have happened? No.

What consistently happened last weekend was that the entire sport failed to see the big picture

Exactly. The exact problem is that supposedly mature grown up people were unable to find a solution to a problem. And that problem wasn't even THAT complicated!

[Just Do It!]

If it wasn't for Jordan electing to run, then Minardi wouldn't have either. Then we would still have had a Ferreri 1-2.

Speaking to someone today who was coming back to NZ (yes, its a long way to travel to watch a 6-car GP), he was pretty disappointed, but not surprised by the dumb politics played out by a pack of rich kids who all want the biggest piece of pie.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by Menelaos

Sorry man but I can't understand you. AT ALL. It's not like someone is a fan of, say, McLaren and the McLarens have a problem. There was no race at all! People paid thousands of $ to travel to Indy and watch a gp that never happened. If you can just tell them "sorry, that's racing", I don't know. Some student might be saving money all year to attend this thing, and you just say "sorry but that's racing"? No, that's not racing! It's not that it was not a GOOD race. It was not A RACE AT ALL. The FIA had to do something!

Right on Menelaos!

Geez KB, your attitude on this farce is even more arrogant, flippant, and pompous than Bernies himself!. Even Bernie knows they screwed the pooch on this one! What we witnessed here, was one of the biggest, if not the biggest sports scandal in this countries history. We saw the death of a sport, and the rip-off of a 120,000 fans that came out to see race drivers race there cars. Thats hardly to much to ask for from the "pinnacle of motorsports"! Never have I witnessed such a debacle in sports!

Maybe if you were there wasting your time, and your hard earned money, your attitude would be different. I won't give Bernie and his band of thieves another chance at getting my money, and neither will the rest of the former faithful here...

[CamF1]

People are taking this too personally, it wasn't an attack on fans and it's certainly not the 'death' of the sport (nor was it 'F1's' fault as a whole). I'd be disapointed if I travelled to see the 'race' but **** happens. This was simply an unfortunate situation.

[MacMan]

Sorry to see you and many others didn't have the race that was expected.

My thoughts are that the teams themselves were not at fault, from what I have read so far no one is saying this. I know these same teams do the tyre testing for this Michelin but they do not make the tyres. Michelin have said they provided the wrong tyre and that they could not say their tyres were safe. Having just read through the FIA F1 2005 Sporting Regulations surely the teams could have called a force majeure as it clearly was not their doing? I agree the Bridgestone runners should not be punnished by having a chicane in the track like in 1994, this was a completely different circumstance as it effected ALL cars and not just 14. Surely the FIA could have used some common sense in allowing the teams to race with a new tyre yet imposing a large fine on Michelin. My understaning is there was 48 hours before the race for tyres to get there for teams to do required testing and set up work with these new tyres. However this is not then fair to the Bridgestone runners so I would hope that a suitable compromise in this diretion could easily have taken place.
Would this have ever have happened if it were Ferrari and other Bridgestone runners? My thoughts are does/should it honestly matter which team is affected?

In all honesty I am divided on this matter as it would have been great to see a race with all 20 cars but as has been said on this forum that is racing so move on to the next one and make it better.
A Control Tyre is in my opinion moving in the wrong direction. Formula 1 should be open to any manufacture that wishes to participate at this level of motorsport but be prepared to take a huge hit when they have messed up.

If it seems I am everywhere with my words I apologise now.

Thanks
MM

[Mekola]

Originally Posted by Menelaos

Sorry man but I can't understand you. AT ALL. It's not like someone is a fan of, say, McLaren and the McLarens have a problem. There was no race at all! People paid thousands of $ to travel to Indy and watch a gp that never happened. If you can just tell them "sorry, that's racing", I don't know. Some student might be saving money all year to attend this thing, and you just say "sorry but that's racing"? No, that's not racing! It's not that it was not a GOOD race. It was not A RACE AT ALL. The FIA had to do something!

Menelaos, don't waste your time. K-B and the other loyalists are so stick to the rules to understand your point. This of last Sunday has the same reason than why in 1990 we had 34 cars and now 20. Or why the McLaren team spended U$S 6.000.000 in the whole 1985 season and now needs about U$S 200.000.000. Or why F1 tries to enter in exotic countries in order to retain tobacco sponsorship. Yes, that's racing, but what so awful racing!
If that F1 race happened in Argentina the fans would have invaded the track and I don't know what would happen after that. And I wonder how were the impressions of Oscar AventÃ*n, the "Ecclestone" of my local motorsport, because he's making totally the opposite that F1 does: AventÃ*n made the Turismo Carretera a series that promote spectacle over all means, has tons of entries (more than 60 cars each race), uses regs revised each year to avoid advantage from any make (there are protests about it every year, but somehow manages to do it), and the cars could be anachronic but still promises and gives great race battles and that's why Turismo Carretera is still the most followed series of my country. Really I want to propose AventÃ*n for FIA presidency, perhaps world motorsport needs men like he.

[Kidzer]

well, there was a race...


..albeit wwith a decimated grid, but a race nonetheless.

[jj2728]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

Sorry to hear you were disappointed, Tony, but that's racing.

Yes that's racing, but yours is a rather blase' and superior attitude i'd say. Obviously you didnt spend any hard earned cash to attend the race. I just wonder if you'd have the same outlook if YOU spent your money to fly across the pond to witness 6 cars taking the grid.

[maximus]

Originally Posted by Asa

You mean look forward to another farce?

Surely this thing between FIA, Michelin and all the Michelin-shod teams are not yet over.

And of course, there is absolutely nothing to worry about in terms of ticket sales. Everybody in this dumb world will keep sucking up F1 tickets and expects all 20 cars to show up and race as normal.

I for one will not buy an F1 ticket even if it was offered to me at 1/10 price. Who knows what they have got for their next trick.

This is the first (and most definatly last) time this has ever occured in modern F1. I can guarantee that the next race will have all 20 cars, and the racing will be normal.

I for one will continue to purchase tickets for future F1 races and I think many people will agree.

[ralf fan]

Too bad Tony... most of us were gutted at we saw on TV i cant imagine paying hard earned money to view the farce! (not to mention thousands spent on traveling and hotels)
i hope Michelin are ordered to return the ticket money because they screwed up big time and loyal the race fans deserve it!