Long Beach Town Meeting

[macdaddy]

Pook:

"It (CART) certainly makes for the best teams and best drivers in sport. It creates an unbelievable training ground for not only team owners and teams themselves, but also for drivers."

Scares me when he says stuff like that.

"I'm working really on 2005 right now, engine manufacturers, tire manufacturers, gasoline companies, all the bits and pieces that we need to take the series right up to the very top of the ladder again. We will always be No. 2 to Formula 1. That's where we want it. That's where we'll always be. We'll certainly be the top open-wheel series in this country once again... I just want to get the bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and turn it over to someone who is slightly more energetic than I am."

"As far as scheduling is concerned, we're both in the open-wheel business together. They're obviously in a league far, far higher than ours. It wouldn't make sense to go head-to-head on the same weekend with each other. You try and make sure that one weekend will be Formula 1 someplace in the world, and we'd be someplace either in the NAFTA countries or occasionally we'd go to Europe or the Pacific Basin. That would be the ideal situation. We'll see what happens as we continue down this road."

"I was on the phone today with a young African American who can drive a car fairly well called George Mack. He basically called and said, "Is there an opportunity for me in your series?" The answer is, "Absolutely."

"But today we have to recognize, with all due respect for Toyota and the Atlantic Series, the race car is way too easy to drive. It is over-tired, there is too much downforce on it. We need to make these cars difficult to drive. It is very high on our priority list."

"You'll see Houston back up on the schedule in 2005."

About Road America: "We are in a business, and when I do a business deal with somebody, I expect the other party to keep their side of the bargain. If they don't keep their side of the bargain, I'm not prepared to go down the road again. Catch me once, if you can. Catch me twice, no ma'am. Till we fix that little issue there, I doubt we'll be going back to Road America."

About CART video games: "A deal has been cut in that area and you will see games coming out with a very, very sophisticated software program whose name you mentioned just recently. You'll see that shortly."

"At Brands, there are some huge safety issues with the long circuit. If the safety issue gets fixed, we'd be delighted to go there and run on the track."

I suppose it didn't really tell us too much we didn't already know, but it was a good read nonetheless.

http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=5716

[macdaddy]

Oh, and by-the-way...

to the vid games!

[macdaddy]

In another interview, Pook says...

- Overseas races will not be cancelled.

- Business model is twenty races. 10-US, 3-Canada, 3-Europe, 2-Mexico, and 2-Pacific Basin. (Notably absent is Brazil. Emmo ain't smiling).

- "I think you're going to see maybe one more team come along during the year..."

- He discounts the theory that he will be leaving CART before the end of his contract (Dec.2004).


Another good read.

http://www.crash.net/news_detail.asp...&language_id=1

[Liz]

"I was on the phone today with a young African American who can drive a car fairly well called George Mack. He basically called and said, "Is there an opportunity for me in your series?" The answer is, "Absolutely."

Does he want the job because he's "African American" or because he can drive a racing car? I am not encouraged to believe the latter by the phrase can drive a racing car FAIRLY WELL. In fact, M*** G*****y can drive a racing car "fairly well" -- although he is not "African American" -- and he has no drive nor any Pook chasing after him with the CWS chequebook.

If we're going to buy drivers, shouldn't we be going after people who can drive a racing car VERY WELL, regardless of what race they may be?

[Jay]

Pardon my ignorance, but who's Goerge Mack and what open-wheel experience does George Mack have?

[macdaddy]

Former IRL driver.

[Snrub]

I'd love to see a hardcore racing sim come out for the PC. Since Grand Prix Legends, Papyrus has just been screwing around on Nascar games. It would be nice to see them come back and create the definative game featuring CART.

[macdaddy]

Sure would! But I'd need to buy a faster computer. I've got GPL but can't play it. CPR runs fine, though. I just reread the article, and when Pook says, "software program whose name you mentioned just recently," the only manufacturer mentioned in the question was Microsoft.

[evo]

X-box?

[Snrub]

You must have a very old PC if you can't run GPL. You need some sort of 3D card, which pretty means you PC needs to be 1998 or newer. About a year after the release, there was a DirectX patch put out so that all cards can run GPL.

For Indycar II, Rendition made a special version with nicer graphics, but you'll need one of their cards. I wouldn't waste my time playing Indycar II or CART Precision Racing.

I hope a company through MS is developing the game. Odds are it's going to be dumbed down and of little interest.

[Lee Janotta]

I still just don't like Papyrus sims... There's so little sensation of speed, it's really hard to gauge braking... And the brakes are all mushy anyway...

[macdaddy]

Problem is that gameplay is very slow and choppy, even with most of the graphics turned off. I've got a PentII 233 and a RageII graphics card.

I just hope any new game is for the PC, and not for a specific gaming system like the Xbox.

[The Snout]

Grand Prix Legends is my staple diet these days for racing still. Great that MS might be tooling up a new one.

I liked a lot of what I heard from Pook. He layed the business model out and number of races we want so there can't be anymore debate over that sort of thing (moving to Europe blah blah). Also felt reassured that he is now pretty much working mainly on 2005 and putting together deals etc, there's no doubt that David Clare seems to be the man being groomed as Cart's next CEO which is fine by me.

[Snrub]

Grand Prix Legends made me a better driver in real life. How many games can you say taught you valuable skills?

My concern with a sim from MS is that CART Precision Racing was more like CART Inprecision Racing. MS has a highly variable record on the games they have small firms make. Some are great, some are decent, some suck.

Mac: Don't know if you care, but you could probably pick up some POS used video card for like $20.

Lee: What sims do you like better than Papyrus'? If there's a sim that can shake a stick at GPL, I'd love to play it.

[The Snout]

Best part i liked about Cart Impossible Racing was you would answer a few questions to your engineer and they'd make the car setup changes. I liked that a lot. Pity the rest sucked.

[rookie]

id like to see a PS2 game with all the new tracks and grivers

[rookie]

drivers

[Omega99]

I've got CART Racing by Sierra Sports and Papyrus (Same thing as IndyCar Racing II) and I love it! I was playing it earlier today as a matter of fact. You can update paint schemes (with a little effort) and driver names and information. It may be a little outdated, and the graphics are not the greatest, but their excellent for a game made back in 1995!

As for CART Precision Racing from MS, I downloaded the demo not to long ago, and thought it was the worst racing sim I've ever played. It might be a toned down demo version though, cause the grpahics weren't anywhere near as good as the screenshots.... I'd rather see EA, Papyrus, MicroProse, or someone like that put out a CART sim.

[macdaddy]

Thanx, Snrub.

[norman-normal]

PC componets are dirt cheap now, and they are not that difficult to build. The first PC I ever used is one I built with AMD athlon and nvidia mx2. It still (2yrs latter) handles most stuff well.

AMD has been easy to upgrade.

[Liz]

Are they ever going to have one of these meetings in Canada? Did anybody ask?

[KC]

On George Mack, this from an online source...

After successful years of driving karts, George Mack makes his debut in the Indy Racing League this season driving the No. 31 car for 310 Racing, a new IRL team.

Mack, who is the second African-American to compete in the IRL, passed the rookie test in January 2002 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Mack was the 1994 International Karting Federation Grand National Champion and from 1986 to 1998 he collected more than 200 victories at the Willow Springs and Santa Maria tracks in California. He has also been a test driver for U.S. F2000, Star Mazda and NASCAR.

Mack, 30, lives in Inglewood, Calif.

I think he one of many who deserve a test drive.

[brightline]

CART World Series for Playstation was a very good game at the time, now the graphics kind of suck, but at the time they were great. The game had all real tracks (no crappy fantasy tracks!).

I personally think if Microsoft is creating a game it will be for Windows PC AND Xbox since Microsoft owns both. I researched the Xbox a lot before I purchased mine and it has a faster video processor than any computer can for at least the next couple of years because the video card is integrated into the motherboard, plays in dolby surround sound, s-video & component video, a 2gig hard drive blah blah blah. Fact is my PC could never touch the video on Xbox. Oh yeah, it's a DVD player too. If anyone has an Xbox I personally recommend RalliSport Challenge especailly if you are into WRC.

[Jordi]

About CART games... IndyCar II was very good for its time, CART Precision Racing was impossible to drive for me, but the interface and the telemetry and the stuff with Nigel Bennett, designer of the Penskes was great. Oh and the racing school with Bobby Rahal! But the racing was a shame...

[Snrub]

It was like when Microsoft bought Mac and PC game maker Bungi and put out Halo but for the Xbox only. Wait and see on MS, but my guess is that it'll be a dumbed down game and/or for Xbox only.

Those Nforce and Nforce2 MBs must be way faster than any standalone video card. The Xbox HAD a faster graphics chip than was available on PCs, but 8 months after the release, PCs were ahead again. The difference is that games for the PC are always dumbed down a bit, while consoles tend use full capacity when it's available.