Forsyth - BERNIE will decide in the next 30 days

[crazytrain]

Interesting story Forsyth says if a deal can be reached with the F1 supremo it will be within a months time!

http://www.planetf1.com/Home/story_10872.shtml

[Lee Janotta]

All those opposed, I suggest we tie up the lines on Wind Tunnel tommorrow night voicing our opposition and our support for CART as an independant entity (those of us in the US, at least).

C'mon people, we can make Bernie feel so unwelcome he won't bother!

[Liz]

Erm, why would we want to do that?

[BootsOntheSide]

Too right Lee, CART deserves more than just to be a F3000-for the rest of the world. Its a classic racing series with an independant heritage, great racetracks, great drivers and a dedicated fanbase. The racing is much better than F1, with variety, thrilling three-abreast racing and competitiveness. F1 would destroy everything we love about Our Favourite Series.

[¡As-de-mim!]

Forsythe admits Ecclestone share interest
F1 impresario considering CART options
Forsythe wants Ecclestone to come on board

Champ Car's most powerful team boss, multi-billionaire businessman Jerry Forsythe, has admitted that Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone could be on the verge of buying a majority stake in the US-based single-seater series, according to this week's AUTOSPORT magazine.

Ecclestone has been linked to making a bid for sanctioning body CART since the end of 2002, and Forsythe – himself a major shareholder in the company – has revealed the story contains substance.

"He [Ecclestone] has been looking at it for quite a few months," Forsythe told AUTOSPORT. "He's a very intelligent man and understands what the value of the company is and what the good points are for him in having a large share in the company."

Forsythe confirmed that he has sent his own personal appraisal of the series and its governing body to Ecclestone, and said: "If it happened it would be great for Champ Car. I don't see any downside."

Forsythe added that if a deal was to be struck then it would have to occur within in the next month.

From Autosport http://www.autosport.com/newsitem.asp?id=22052&s=7

Erm, I see it being great for Forsythe's portfolio. Maybe he thinks CART can't make a go of it without Bernie's Euros.

[Jordi]

Why is people scared of Bernie? You see, if he comes up, he won't do exactly the same as he did with F1, because there's F1 already existing... And he's said many times that he'd want slicks back in F1, for example, so he's not the only controller of F1. There's also Mosley and his rules there.

[veeten]

Hey, if you're gonna bring lunch, bring enough for everyone.

Certainly helps CART's coffers, with the influx of sponsors. This in turn will make it possible for more teams to enter the series, as well as wider exposure which is sorely needed. With stable rules, entry, and chassis/powertrain packages, CART's best days are ahead of it.

[¡As-de-mim!]

OK, I think quid(s) may be on the menu also.

[macdaddy]

I guess I'm scared of the "unknown", but something like this could ensure the long-term survival of the series. Problem is, it may well morph CART into something completely different than it is today, and that's what scares me the most.

[¡As-de-mim!]

I wonder if Bernie would show up for Town Meetings with the fans?

[veeten]

Well, seven years ago we didn't think that there'd be an IRL to deal with, not to mention the constant changes in CART's leadership along with an incredibly arrogant and self-serving group of owners misstepping all over the place. It's remarkable that, due to the resiliency of the series, that it didn't implode, with all of the attempts made upon it.

Change was going to be major factor to the future of the series, and that a lot of the things that held it back and weighed it down were gonna have to be let go, no matter how painful or sacrosanct they are.
Nothing good, or great, comes easy, but it does come. Fear of the unknown is healthy, but fear of change is avoidance of what's necessary.

[Joey Jo Jo]

Forsythe loves racing, thats why he is involved. as the article says multi-billonare. He is not in it to make money he already has tons of that. So if he thinks it is a good idea than it must be. We should praise him for being such a strong supporter of CART. After all who else bought any stock?

[¡As-de-mim!]

I did, and I hope Forsythe and Pook can work these issues out.

[macdaddy]

Pook is travelling to Europe this week to meet with Bernie. There's a good chance that they are only wanting to discuss Liz' birthday, but perhaps there's more..?

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by ¡As-de-mim!
I wonder if Bernie would show up for Town Meetings with the fans?

Bernie thinks the fans are absolutely beneath his contempt and couldn't care less what any of us think. He's turned F1 into the rubbish it is today.

Would you rather see wide, low-slung customer Champcars with turbos at Mid-Ohio, Brands, Milwaukee and Elkhart, or narrow, proprietary chassis with increasingly shrinking V10s and grooved tires in Zuhai, Moscow and Bahrain?

Would you prefer to mingle with racers like Paul Tracy and Roberto Moreno, or would you rather be coraled behind fences hoping to catch glimpses of a bunch of spoiled Euro-snobs? *

Would you rather see teams run by people like Carl Haas, Emmerson Fittipaldi, and Paul Gentilozzi, who truly love racing, or teams run by accountants in Paris, Detroit, Tokyo and Munich who care about _nothing_ but profit?

One is the future of an independant CART, the other is one as Bernie's new pet project.


*While I've got nothing against Europeans (okay, except the French), motorsport grew up differently on each side of the atlantic. F1 was born in Europe, Champcars were born here. They're superficially similar, but the audiences and the character just aren't compatible. So I get mad when Bernie destroys Europe's premiere series, then tries to do the same to ours. Men have been drawn and quartered for far less.

[macdaddy]

Good post.

[DNQ]

This could either be the best thing for Champ Car racing, or the very very worst. Only time will tell.

[The Snout]

Bernie can aid in taking Champcar to the next level (or back to the glory days), he can help get big companies involved and raise the profile 5 fold. Everyone says Bernie did this to F1 or that, well, currently F1 want to make racing cheaper and put the racing back into it, and who are currently standing in the way of that ? Bernie ? No, the teams, Williams and McLaren. Seems whenever F1 has an issue everyone just blames Bernie and how he's "wrecked" F1. That's bullsh1t. Reason F1 has it's profile and everyone takes it for granted (and we do) is largely due to Bernie's hard work. Give the guy his due, he's made F1 big, Champcar needs to be big, we want it to be big. I frankly don't care if Bernie gets ****loads of money in helping Champcar, as long as Champcar gets a lot out of it and becomes high profile and there's great racing. Cart doesn't need Bernie, it will survive without him. However, having the boss of the biggest racing show on earth wanting to grow Cart, we'll if it was my business I wouldn't be saying no.

[Lee Janotta]

Nope, screw big. We don't NEED big! Look at F1, they're TOO big, it's become nothing but a massive marketing machine, the sport element is gone, it's become motorBUSINESS!

It's quality over quantity, Snout. And I'd rather keep the quality.

The teams are standing in the way of change _now_, but Bernie and Max are the ones who brought in the technical regs, who emasculated all the circuits.

F1 has been the World Championship 1950, Bernie's only been running it since the early '80s. The most he's done for F1 is the TV package, all the rest way already there!

He's not trying to put the racing back into F1 anyway, he's just trying to save his investment and stop the audience from shrinking.

The Champcar World Series is and has always been, if nothing else:

1. For privateers.
2. For drivers.
3. Based around the variety of circuits on the schedule.
4. Accessible and fan-friendly. It's humble. Drivers in the series need to know that they're around to entertain and excite.
5. Based in the US and Canada, in the schedule, management, and in the pool of drivers.

[The Snout]

We don't need to make a choice about quality or quantity, you can have both, no one said a choice needed to be made.

The 5 points you raise, I like Champcar for all of them but point 5. Who's saying any of them are going to be compromised ? Again it's the Bernie factor weighing in with people not even willing to listen to what's being proposed. So far nothing's been said about how in practice Cart would look if Bernie was involved but it doesn't matter, people just hear the word Bernie and run scared. Pooks on record for saying numerous times that accessability to the drivers is paramount, in the North American market they are aware that this has to happen else the fans get p1ssed. So they don't change that.

I just fail to see why does Bernie's involvement automatically mean Champcar becomes a F1 clone. It's a different product, Bernie Inc. already have a F1 product, this is meant to be different.

I don't follow the Bernie not doing much for F1, you want to give him no credit for helping build F1 but blame him for the majority of the problems. How can he be to blame if he hasn't had his hand in it to do anything other than TV.
It's not just my opinion that Bernie has work hard to build up the F1 product, a lot of commentators agree.

In F1 big isn't the problem it's the racing product. Put Champcars out there instead of F1 and imagine the World Championship. You'd have passing, and cars other than red can win races. Only 3 things need to change in F1, cheaper budgets, a lot more driver/fan accessability, and more parity with the cars. The rest of the show can stay.

Bottom line is that beating on Bernie is a given, just like complaining about airline food. Whether the complaining represents the facts doesn't matter.

[Jordi]

If it serves to get CART to what it was before, then Bernie will be very welcome. I don't think he would do the same with F1. Why? There's F1 already.

[Lee Janotta]

Sorry if you don't like point 5, but it's true. The fields used to be dominated by guys with names like Mears, Unser, Foyt, and Andretti. And they're all in IRL now (except good 'ol Mario).

Bernie is about to _lose_ his F1 product, that's why he wants to get his greedy hands on CART! The Concord Agreement probably won't last the year, because when Jordan or Minardi fold, the agreement's toast.

I said he hasn't had his hand in anything _positive_ for F1 expect the TV deal.

The commentators, I'm sorry, are syncophants who defer to whoever's in charge, because they won't have a job for long if they're saying things management and sponsors don't want to hear.

Saying that Bernie could do great things for champcars is simply being ignorant of his track record. He's a politician, and you should _never_ trust a politician.

And if you won't believe me, will you believe Martin Brundle?

Martin: "Somebody's cuddling me here, I don't know who it is - it's The Bolt! Bernie, a quick word: who's gonna win the race?"
Bernie: "This one here" (pointing at Hakkinen).
Martin: "Yeah, you're just saying that cos he's standing there! I never thought of you as..."
Bernie: "What d'you expect, I'm a politician! I tell you what, d'you wanna have some money on him?"
Martin: "I'm not having any money with you on anything!"
Bernie: "I'll put money on him, then."
Martin: "No, but you can have the computers changed to make sure he wins or something!"
Bernie: (turning to Mika) "Yeah, we need to talk about that."

[The Snout]

Champcar needs more American drivers, no two ways about it. I just hope that the result of imported drivers is realised over in the U.S. as being a result of young talent being supported in other countries. If it's just seen totally as rich boys then the lesson is lost.

America and American drivers need to be backed, I believe Cart is putting something together that Pook said at Florida would see some light in 3 months or so.

I just don't see any substance in not wanting Bernie involved at this stage. He's a successful businessman who can bring a lot of clout to Cart and Champcars. And that's what I see in having Bernie involved, not controlling, we have a CEO already, but having a business partner who can help bring in sponsors, manufacturers, locations and get Cart back into good TV deals. If Bernie's involvement means budgets skyrocket then it isn't good, but our CEO and Cart's prime objective was to remove barriers into the sport, I don't see him leading us back up that ally or getting us involved in anyone who doesn't have that interest in mind.

[veeten]

The other sad fact about point 5 was that, outside of Mario, these were basically oval racers, be it stock cars or open wheels. It wasn't until the road racers came in from F5000 and Can-Am that really started to embarrass these gentelmen on the road courses.

Even by that time it was too late for them, as they dreamed of Indy at the expense of the overall championship. George was the same, as he wanted the the PPG World Series to revolve around the month in May, so Messrs. Unser, Foyt, Mears, Rutheford, et al chose to join with him in creating the IRL, while CART was more of a multi-versed series. Sure, this saw talent from around the world enter, but the series became more richer for the experience, in more ways than one.

It was only due to a number of chief execs that were nothing more than a mouthpiece for certain elements within the ruling committee, acting in their own interests, that brought out the inane rules and regs that caused manufacturers and other teams to abandon CART altogether. They didn't need a Bernie to do that, they were doing quite well in destroying a quality series all by themselves.

As for new talent, the ladder series hasn't had a good going over for quite some time, and it shows. Sebring & Laguna testing was a good example of F3000 drivers being closer to Champ Cars than Atlantics drivers. But then again, at 460hp driving 1452lbs. cars vs 265hp driving 1265lbs. chassis', there is a bit of familiarity for F3000 guys. The track times bore out the story, and even Pook knew that this can't go on, if you expect to see NA faces on the grid in the future. You can't do this, and other things, without money and support. All the rest will still be there, but there are some things that you can't fix in-house.

[Liz]

Veeten, I agree with what you say above. I am absolutely tired, tired, tired of hearing the incessant bleating, 'AMERICANS! AMERICANS! AMERICANS!' every time the subject of drivers comes up. Go over to AR1 and look at their Jaywalking survey, which is where they asked 70 people at random to name one of the American drivers in the series. You will notice that the vast majority didn't even know the name of ANY driver, and those who named a driver almost never named an actual American driver. The casual fan has no clue in the world where the drivers come from. If you keep on insisting that the drivers we have are no good because their parents and grandparents don't hold American birth certificates, you are not doing anything to win new fans or promote the series. You are making yourself a part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

Formula One was a great series back in the days when there was only Mario to represent America (and his parents and grandparents were not born in America and neither was he!) and had a good sized American audience to watch it. The important thing is that we have good racing -- not that we employ drivers solely according to race, gender, nationality, previous condition of servitude or attitude toward foreigners.

If the only CWS can survive is by turning into a politically correct Victim Series, then I would just as soon it sank.

However, assuming that Bernie -- having seen what a failure the current Formula One series is -- would instantly duplicate it in another place, is assuming the one thing that we can't assume and not be laughed off the planet: that Bernie is an idiot and Jerry Forsythe is his myrmidion.

Can the and drop the flag.

Thank you.