The 2024 running motorsports thread

I have been on a surf board exactly once in my life for fewer seconds than it took me to type this. Even I laugh at our four-foot swells in Surf City.

 

Cool. Cool. I'm for it as long as they add NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL to the blanket investigation.

Senators call for probe on failed Andretti F1 bid

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Tuesday called on the Joe Biden administration to investigate F1's decision to reject Andretti's attempt to join the grid, suggesting the decision might violate American antitrust laws.
Earlier this year, Formula One rejected a bid from American team Andretti-Cadillac to join the grid in 2025 or 2026, although it left the door open for the team to take part in the 2028 season if certain criteria are met.

 

I'm really growing to just loathe the Andrettis. Their approach to this has been terrible.

 

Gosh, how much ass would you like them to kiss?

 

The Andrettis are not the problems.

Mario Andretti and Greg Maffei, the CEO of Formula 1's owner, Liberty Media, clashed at a private reception during the recent Miami Grand Prix weekend over Andretti Global's bid to enter the sport, according to sources with knowledge of the incident.​

Andretti, a former F1 world champion and the patriarch of the Andretti racing family, described the incident for the first time in an interview with NBC News.​

He said it occurred Saturday at the Palm Club at an invitation-only breakfast reception. Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali asked Andretti about his recent visit to Washington, and Andretti told him he had been invited by lawmakers to speak outside the Capitol as they called on the sport to accept Andretti'sapplication to become F1's 11th team.​

“I was asked to go there. And just as I was trying to explain that to Stefano, Greg Maffei, Mr. Maffei, broke in the conversation and he said: 'Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1,'” Andretti said.​

It was a reference to Michael Andretti, Mario's son, who is the chairman and CEO of Andretti Global and is leading its bid to enter F1. The tense words between the two powerful men came just days after Andretti joined lawmakers on Capitol Hill for a news conference, where the members of Congress accused F1 of engaging in anti-competitive practices by denying Andretti’s application.​

Maffei walked away after that remark and hasn’t contacted him since, Andretti said.​

Mario Andretti says Formula 1 executive personally vowed to block his team entering the sport

 

Their chief problem is an almost pathological inability to shut the hell up.

From the start they were trying to force their way in through public opinion, using the media to apply pressure. Now they're threatening to sue and using buddies in Congress to go after Liberty.

The bottom line is that their entry proposal was not a great one and everyone involved in F1 thinks they are assholes. Their grand plan was to used hand-me-down parts and technology from Alpine -- arguably the worst team in F1 right now -- with the thought that maybe someday they'll have real backing from GM.

Andretti doesn't build their own cars. Their plan would create a car that would assuredly be dead-ass last. There is no reason to think they would even be competitive within the midfield.

F1 looked at that and said "Get back to us when GM makes a real commitment." It's a perfectly reasonable response. The Andretti proposal is shit unless GM is going to build an engine, and that's not the immediate plan.

Andretti's answer was to go cry to Congress that Liberty is being mean and won't let them play.

Andretti can get bent. And I say that as someone who would love to see a couple more teams on the grid.

 

FWIW, I've loathed the Andrettis for more than five decades.

 

My dislike of the Andrettis (excepting John and his kid) only goes back about 35 years. But I still think F1 looks like the bigger assholes in this mess.

 

I am informed that the trademarks on the design of the old Dale Earnhardt Inc. 8 that Dale Earnhardt Jr. once drove to great success will be transferred from DEI, AKA Teresa Earnhardt AKA the Wicked Witch of the Southeast, to DEJ Holdings LLC. You may be more familiar with DEJ Holdings through its subsidiary JR Motorsports, which will now have the opportunity to create souvenirs looking a lot like a former beer car. No word on if he's got anything going with Budweiser.



She maintains her firm grip on the design of the 1 that was used on Steve Park's Pennzoil car. I figure Ty Norris must've pissed her off even more than I thought he had.

 

Did she actually transfer it, or did she just let the rights to it lapse?

 

The rights to the 1 will lapse in a few weeks. The rights to the 8 were set to lapse at the same time, and Dale Jr. had to go ahead and file to extend them.

 

Junior has mentioned that he still has some sort of personal services agreement with A-B. I thought I’d read he had some sort of lifetime deal with them.