Tony George to be a guest on Wind Tunnel

[Down F0rce]

indyracing.com is reporting that Mr Goerge himself will be on Wind Tunnel, on February 23. Since I like in the UK, I won't get to see this, as will a few other memebers, but hopefully our friends at the other side of the globe will keep us informed Should be a very interesting show.

[GP Racer]

Thanks for the heads up DF.

I will definetely be watching, and I'll let you know what he has to say.

[climb]

Thanks GP Racer,
it's our only chance to have it through a 3rd party coice.
Infact i suppose that ther IRL website will report i ttoo, but..

[GP Racer]

Well, I watched the interview with TG last night and I must say, I found it quite interesting. The host Dave DeSpane, asked some very good, and hard hitting questions in the 45 minute interview.

TG started off by saying why he created the IRL in the first place and gave most of the reasons we already know, but he did say something that sort of surprised me. He said he created the series to give more opportunity to teams, drivers, and sponsors. He felt at that time there were enough to go around to support 2 series, and that new opportunities were needed that CART wasn't supplying. He said that he appreciates all that CART had done in its 25 year existence, and was aware of there history. He talked about the IRL mgmt., with one man rule, being better than CART's rule by majority. It's the way all of the successful series are run.

About the buyout, he insisted he was trying to unify the series, not put CART out of business. He admitted that he had no use for the CART engines, but said it had to be part of the deal, for Ford's sake. In other words it was a deal breaker. He seemed to be caught rather flat footed in court though, and his team seemed not to understand what it was going to take to win. Reconcilliation now looks next to impossible.(personally, I think thats a good thing at this point)He's looking to a future for the IRL, and thats it.

On his vision, he said that road racing was always part of the long term plan, and he says that now the time is right to do it, with 2 to 4 road races in N America only. He also claims he never said that the series would be all-American, that all drivers were always welcome. When asked how come all the USAC drivers are going to NASCAR and becoming stars there, instead of the IRL, he seemed to make it sound as if there is some friction between his series and USAC, and that he doesn't seem to care if they go to NASCAR. I thought his attitude on this issue was rather strange, when you consider how many USAC guys are the top guys in NASCAR.

On costs of the IRL, he claims some of the bigger teams are spending more than they really have to, on R&D, enineers, etc., etc. which makes it look like costs have risen. He said you can still compete in the IRL pretty cheaply.

On F1, he hopes to keep the USGP at Indy beyond 2005. He said the new date will help, and Bernie likes it too.

All-in-all, a good interview. I have to say though, that he appears to be tired of being the "evil one" in all of this. I think the name calling and evil spiritness of the Tali-CART "fans" is getting to him, and he is ready to go his own way, and for that I'm glad. The 2 series are now going in opposite directions, and there could be room for 2 seperate and distinct series. He said he's in this for the long term, and he won't give up on the IRL. It will be around for along time.

Thats good news for the IRL fans!

[Tim Northcutt]

Some historical notes for this forum, from a guy who has followed open-wheeled racing for about 35 years...

The way CART was set up and operated by the time the early 1990s rolled around, it was essentially a "Franchise" operation...you could not compete without being a "francise-ee," so to speak....which DID in fact limit the participation opportunities for people who wanted to race...in a way, it was a "semi-closed shop"....and a prospective owner would have to be "accepted" or "admitted" as a franchise by the other "owners" or franchise holders already in CART...

Although the Series was not intended as an "All-American" Series, for "All-American Drivers," the "semi-closed shop" at CART was driven by drivers who could bring money or sponsors to the table as well as talent....

Guys like Jeff Gordon had no hope of running in CART, and Tony Stewart would have never gotten his shot in Indy Cars with the way that CART was set up....Jeff went to NASCAR out of Necessity...Tony went to NASCAR for the MONEY...John Menard should have paid him what he was worth....Tony G even said last night that "i'm not responsible for paying the salaries of drivers to keep them in the series...I can only do so much...that burden has to fall on the team owner..."

But to me, the BIG news last night came at the very end...

The engine makers CAN lease the engines to teams, and DO IT NOW...but according to Tony, he can't understand why teams aren't BUYING them and maintaining them on their own, and he said that under the current structure for engines, buying them IS an option, but teams aren't taking advantage of it...

Dave asked him hypothetically about a team going to Toyota to buy one, and Tony responded that Yes....under the provisions of the IRL, if a team wants to buy an engine, the manufacturer would have to consider the sale, and possibly provide it within a given or set time limit to that team, should they choose to make them a customer...

Implied but not stated....If an existing "Lease" customer with Toyota wnet to them and sais, "Now I want to Buy," Toyota would have to sell those engines to them...

That's the way I understood it...

If anyone else watched and had a different take on that last 5 minutes of the inteview when Tony talked about this, please enlighten me...but that's the way I understood it...

[GP Racer]

Originally posted by Tim Northcutt



But to me, the BIG news last night came at the very end...

The engine makers CAN lease the engines to teams, and DO IT NOW...but according to Tony, he can't understand why teams aren't BUYING them and maintaining them on their own, and he said that under the current structure for engines, buying them IS an option, but teams aren't taking advantage of it...

Dave asked him hypothetically about a team going to Toyota to buy one, and Tony responded that Yes....under the provisions of the IRL, if a team wants to buy an engine, the manufacturer would have to consider the sale, and possibly provide it within a given or set time limit to that team, should they choose to make them a customer...

Implied but not stated....If an existing "Lease" customer with Toyota wnet to them and sais, "Now I want to Buy," Toyota would have to sell those engines to them...

That's the way I understood it...

If anyone else watched and had a different take on that last 5 minutes of the inteview when Tony talked about this, please enlighten me...but that's the way I understood it...

Tim, I indeed heard Tony say that, but I'm unsure of why thats big news. I don't really understand which is better, and why, engine owning, leasing, or manufacturer maintenance? In other words, I'm confused about the whole engine issue, and thats why I didn't talk about it. :confused:

Is it a cost saving measure, and if it is, why aren't the teams taking advantage of it?

[Down F0rce]

Thanks for the info guys

[Tim Northcutt]

It's a definite cost saving measure to buy and do your own rebuilds...it is cheaper....because you're paying people already on your payroll to do the re-builds....with a lease, the overall costs of maintenance, rebuilds, etc., can be built into the lease and you pay either a flat fee for the season or a per race fee as part of your contract....but more important, you don't mess with the internals on the engine...you throw a rod, you send it to the TRD people...they give you a new engine and they do the rebuild...

Before 2003, it was always that you "bought" the engine, and no leases existed... you could even take them to your own performance tuner, like Brayton Engines, Comptech, Roush, Speedway Engines, Tom Walkinshaw, or whoever...that was a way that the League held costs down for teams...and it allowed teams to tweak them to suit their needs based on the builder or tuner that they chose to work with...

But Toyota and Honda were not necessarily interested in letting people see what is inside of their engines....

Everyone has told me for the last 15 months that since last season that all engines were on "Leases" now...period...and that you could not buy an engine....

The overall costs involved ofver the course of a season could be quite significant when looking at leasing vs. owning and dealing with the rebuilds yourself or through a tuner via a service contract...

[Tim Northcutt]

BTW....that's also why Dave asked the question about Toyota as the follow-up....

Everyone who follows the IRL noted that the new "lease" action on the engines, beginning with 2003, was a significant change in the way the League and the manufacturers did business in the engine department...

[Testure]

I assume, then, that there's some reason why teams haven't taken the manufacturers up on this "offer". Perhaps they've made it prohibitively expensive to buy and engine outright? Or perhaps the level of technology in IndyCar is now such that the only people able to poke around in those engines are the engine manufacturers themselves? Remember how much Toyota (and Honda, to a lesser degree) raised the game for an IndyCar engine last year? As an analogy - can you imagine bringing the latest BMW V10 F1 engine to anyone other than BMW for servicing?

[Tim Northcutt]

Guess it depends on how you look at it....

Brian Barnhart said on "Windtunnel" last summer that when the IRL first started with their new engines and formula, the engines could be bought new for about $85,000....and the rpice for any of the engines in the series last year was supposedly $110,000 each...that was the price he quoted on the air...

If Penske and Ganassi didn't buy theirs, then they must have worked a development deal with TRD, because they were doing adjustments and such on their dynos last April on what TRD had created as a "Qualifying" engine that ended up being so reliable that it became the Toyota "Race" engine....at that point was when Toyota really stepped out ahead of the competition last year....

Also, Speedway Engine Development did "Performance Tuning" for Panther Racing's "Chevy" engines following Indy, the Menard-Cheever partnership was trying to do their own set of Chevy upgrades, and Speedway Engines also did all of the conversion of Panther's car and the spec work on the "Chevy-Worth" or "Gen IV" plus the prep for the additional engines that were ultimaely distributed to other Chevy Teams last August....

That tells me that if Barnhart's quoted price was to "Buy" it, that isn't very expensive....

It also tells me that good engine men were opening up Toyota, Chevy and Cosworth engines last season....probably with special permissions from the manufacturers...

It raises questions in my mind on this issue.....last night was the first I had heard of the "Buy" option being available to teams with the three engine manufacturers that were in the mix in 2003....everything else I had read or heard spelled "Lease Only" starting in 2003....

[GP Racer]

For anyone who saw the TG interview, I'd like to ask, how do you think he presented himself and the IRL?

Personally, I don't believe he did a very good job on presentation. He was pretty low key, and he didn't make me very excited for his series. In other words, he didn't sell me on it, and if he were looking to pitch the League to sponsors, teams , and drivers, he probably wouldn't have been able to sell them either.

Was this just a bad interview, or is that his style? I don't hear him enough to make a judgement. He appeared tired and fatigued from answering the same questions about the IRL, and constantly having to defend it from the detractors, and for that, who can blame him.

He's certainly smart about the relevant issues, but maybe Fred Nation should be the spokesman, and do the interviews. Any thoughts?

[Tim Northcutt]

Tony is always kinda low-key like that, but I didn't think he did a very good job, either...

before he joined the IRL, Fred Mation was the Press Rep. for then Gov. and now U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana...

Fred is quite eloquent, as is Brian Barnhart...

So is Tony...but his style is not as expressive as the other two....

But that is a talent....and it's hard to change a key personality trait to make that change as a spokesperson...

[Testure]

I didn't see the interview in question, but the couple of times I've seen him speak publicly I thought he seemed (unexpectedly) subdued. I think it's just his style. You're right, a PR guy would be better as a "cheerleader", but the interview was with the top dog in the IRL, which is George. It would have been infinitely more tedious to listen to somebody mouthing sound-bytes from a press-release, no?

[macdaddy]

My impression of the interview was one of "damage control".

[GP Racer]

Originally posted by macdaddy
My impression of the interview was one of "damage control".

I didn't really get that impression.

Whatever damage was done by TG's role(I think thats what you are talking about)in the OWRS buyout, seemed pretty minimal. Admittedly, it seemed pretty bad at the time, because many were hoping for one series to come out of that mess, but there doesn't seem to be any long lasting fallout from it.

If anything, that whole episode, seemed to have clarified things for those of us in the middle. We now have two series with little in common, and going in totally opposite directions. There is no longer any chance of reconcilliation, and they will no longer really be competing with one another. Teams, drivers, sponsors, and fans, will now have 2 distinctly different series to choose from. It may just work.

So I don't think TG is the one who has to be on TV doing interviews, as his series is already set and its future plans laid out. Due to the state that Champ Cars finds itself in today, maybe its the OWRS that needs to do some damage control...

Cheers Mac

[macdaddy]

I just felt that he spent well over half his time trying to back himself out of a corner. Some, if not all, of the questions were pretty tough (Despain pulls no punches). And it seemed like he had to spend more time defending himself than he did promoting his series. I got the impression that he'd already consulted a spin doctor, perhaps one of Clinton's, because some of his replies were quite vague.

Again... Just my take on it, without bias.