Tracy Column - Dec 4

[TedN]

Link

Ted

[StickShift]

Only real news of note is Tracy's engineer going to RuSport, and Forsythe talking to Cicale.

[macdaddy]

Sounds like he got the drive in Daytona, not that I'm surprised.

CBS will be showing half the 14 races next year, with the remainder once again on Spike.

[Snrub]

It's nice that they'll be 7 races on CBS, but Spike, I don't get it, why would they go with them again? We all know that it was horrible coverage and essentially there were near-non existant ratings. Spike probably gets similar ratings with their paid informercials for video games, etc.

It's most definately interesting that PT's engineer left. Recall that at the start of the 2003 season, that was why they ended up getting Cicale. Does anyone remember which team PT's engineer went to @ the start of 2003? I get the impression that Forsythe and/or PT are difficult to work with. On the other hand PT's writing doesn't sound particularly hopefull.

I find it amusing how each of his articles have a at least one glaring mistake. For instance PT says Valiante finished 7th @ Surfers.

[evo]

It's too bad Pat bailed on Champ

I think it was the other way around.

[Dov]

Originally Posted by evo

I think it was the other way around.

Evo, I used to blame Champ Car as well for Pat bolting to the IRL, but not anymore.....take a look at this. From the indyracingleauge.com:

Q. Patrick, congratulations on the move. It seems to me, we're not going to look back, in the statements we've had from Forsythe that you may have jumped the gun here and made a decision too quickly, that there was a possibility of you staying there. I know before you made this decision, that probably wasn't forthcoming to you, and this may be some backtracking on their part. What is your comment on that?

PATRICK CARPENTIER: Honestly, I'm not going to really comment on it. For me, I remember sitting last year, last winter, before the season started, and I was talking to Al. We were talking about it. I said, ‘You know, I would like to go race some ovals. I would like to do the Indy 500. I think next year I'm going -- I'm most likely going to be looking towards the IRL.’ It started fairly early. I was not allowed to negotiate until later in the year this year. Gerry (Forsythe) knew about it. Everybody knew about it. Had a talk with Gerry. I know they were looking for something. They wanted me back. But for me, it's a personal choice. I've always wanted to do the Indy 500. I've always wanted to race ovals. You know how much I love oval racing. So for me it's a personal decision and a choice that I've studied and looked at very carefully.

Q. Patrick, after eight years with CART/Champ Car, the solid season this year with the victory, can you sum up for me your past eight years and what it's been like for you, how long you've had your eye on moving to the IRL?

PATRICK CARPENTIER: Actually, it started a few years back. But the last winter is the time when I really started looking into it. I looked at pretty much all of the races this season before I made the final decision.

________________________________________________________________

All along we've been blaming Gerry Forsythe/OWRS, however, after reading the 'teleconference transcript' there's no doubt in my mind that PC was the one who was causing all of the problems right from the start!

[indycool]

Robin Miller reported on Speed, later rumored by Mark C., that it would be four on CBS, two on NBC and the rest on CNBC. Who knows?

[jjspierx]

Originally Posted by Snrub

.

I find it amusing how each of his articles have a at least one glaring mistake. For instance PT says Valiante finished 7th @ Surfers.

I saw that too Snrub...odd to say the least.

[Kicking-back]

On the Carpentier point, to be fair to him, it's hardly likely he would say publicly: "I've signed for Cheever because no-one in ChampCar offered me a decent deal".

[Snrub]

Exactly what I was thinking KB. I think Pat was probably more enthusiastic than some others have been or might be in the future to going to the IRL, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have prefered to stay in CC. Remember all those other quotes where Pat said things like "I always felt secure until spring '04" and "no one in CC wants me." Perhaps the other issue for Pat was that he wasn't particularly fond of Forsythe and now that Forsythe co-owns the series Pat didn't feel particularly confident in the future direction of the series.

[Dov]

What's the deal, K-b? Can't you accept the fact that Pat is a grown man and he decided what was best for him is the IRL. Instead of him coming out publicly at the beginning of the '04 season (spring training) and stating that he'd been interested in going to the IRL for sometime, he let everyone assume that Gerry Forsythe was 'Mr. Scrooge' and he didn't want to pony up for Patreeks ride.