indyracefan - an apology and an explaination.

[mapguy]

First I want to apologise about coming across too harshly. Secondly I want to explain why I feel the way I do about Tony George and the irl500.
Basically he kicked CART out of the track because he could not control open wheel racing in North America. He had delusions of grandeiur (sp?) that he was going to be the Bill France of open wheel racing. And it blew up in his face.

Back in 1994 He attended a CART board meeting in Houston with a proposal that would see himself and his USAC cronies effectively take control of CART. Accoring to the press reports at the time (and I can provide links if you would like) the propsal was very amateurish and was rejected. This was the start of what myself and other CARTisans like to call "The Tantrum". In 1995 TG formed the irl. He assumed that since he had the biggest race all of the sponsors would either demand that their teams show up or they would pull from CART and go to the irl. As we all know that blew up in his face. Then he implimented the 25/8 rule to ensure that if a CART team wanted to have a good shot at qualifying for the irl500 they would have to race at Disney. That one REALLY blew up in his face. I will skip over the debacle of 1997 and fast forward to 1999. There was a high ranking meeting between a group of CART team owners hand picked by TG (Barry Green, Bobby Rahal and Derrick Walker). Leo Mehl and a few others were in attendance. According to Leo Mehl that there was an agreement on the table and TG balked at it. Then there was a meeting in Detroit where Andrew Craig, Bill France and high ranking GM executives attended along with the above mentioned team owners and TG blew it off. Even Bill France was ****ed and he commented that TG was a fool to continue with the irl.

He ruined the race formerly known as the Indy 500. All because he wanted power.

That is why I feel the way I do about Tony George, The Speedway and pretty much everyone involved in the irl.


[This message has been edited by mapguy (edited 27 April 2000).]