Horrendous Indy car crash in Vegas -- Update: RIP Dan Wheldon

Chicken and egg. Penske owned Nazareth, Michigan, and California before the split (the last of which was still being built at the time). Split happens, attendance plummets, Penske cedes tracks to Frances/ISC, who don't give a sh** about IndyCar.

It all goes back to the split. Thanks again, Tony.

 

Who could they turn to as a top racing exec? Wasn't there talk of Little Al as an option at one point, before his most recent arrest? What about Michael Andretti? A team owner, a former driver, has his baggage of course, but knows the business end of the sport. Or Barry Green?

Also, you mentioned wanting to read Tony Stewart's opinion on all of this. I'd love to hear from Hornish, too. Telling that one of the more successful IndyCar drivers of the past 20 years doesn't go back to the series even after losing his Cup ride.

 

IIRC, after the IRL fatality at Charlotte in the late 1990s, there was a freeze between SMI and IRL. That has changed in recent years, with SMI being a much better partner with IndyCar than ISC. Since Las Vegas is SMI, I wonder if the relationship changes for the worse again, which would limit track options unless independent tracks like Portland and Pocono were used.

 

I'll admit I spent much more time around the Indy side of things and hardly watched a CART/CCWS race until the last couple of years before reunification when CCWS had basically devolved into Tracy, Bourdais and a bunch of ride-buyers, but those from that side of the split (and Robin Miller) have nothing but great things to say about Tony Cotman and his race stewardship. Cotman has some job with IndyCar, but it's a fairly minor role compared to Brian Barnhart's.

Johnny Rutherford, both Al Unsers and Rick Mears work (or worked) for the IRL as driver coaches -- Rutherford drives the pace car during the races. Those guys know a couple of things about motorsports.

 

... there was a bit of one, but it was never a total zeroing out. IRL never stopped running at Texas (SMI track), which at the time billed itself as the "Second Home of the Indy Racing League" and ran two races a year there until NASCAR decided to take a second date ... and when the IRL decided to start running twisty courses, SMI-owned Infineon was one of the first 3 non-ovals added.

Charlotte never invited IndyCar back after the tire incident -- shame, too, because there seemed to be the genesis of a fan base there as it's probably the most racing-centric city in America not named Indianapolis -- and Atlanta and New Hampshire were dropped because, well, open-wheel cars have never drawn flies in Atlanta and New Hampshire was also drawing bad attendance (and had its spate of fatalities).

 

Cotman was the first name that came to my mind. He's in charge of the new car development, isn't he? Seems like he's also been in race control along with Unser Jr.
I'm a Mears fan, but is he too easy going to be race director?
You have guys like Mario, JR and Al Sr., but would they each be too old and/or not want to do it?
What about younger retired drivers like Bryan Herta, Adrian Fernandez or Jimmy Vasser?

 

In fairness the Bahres and not Bruton dropped open wheel at Loudon the first time. Also wonder why Richmond was dropped -- didn't they start drawing better after the first couple of races?

 

Paul Tracy was on The Fan 590 in Toronto last night talking about the wreck, the aftermath and his future as a racer. Worth a listen if you have the time.

http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.jsp?content=20111018_170423_9088

 

Not that it made a difference for Wheldon, but it's a tribute to how safe those cars are that 14 of the 15 drivers are still with us, only two went to the hospital, and none are there now. Townsend Bell practically was riding a flaming fireball as he slid toward pit row, and he got out of the car like it was no thing.

The mistake Randy Bernard -- and so many of us make -- is that we've seen so many drivers walk away from horrible, horrible crashes that we think drivers are practically impervious to harm, and we underestimate just how dangerous the sport really is.

 

Thank you for linking this.