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

[JackS]

That schedule was another casualty of the sport's split. It caused a big competition for new ovals, mostly on the IRL side. And the traditional ovals where attendance had been fine started fading away. So now the tracks (other than Indy) where there could be good, safe oval racing can't draw flies. Forget blaming Randy Bernard. This is yet another time you can blame that airhead Tony George.

I don't blame Tony George as much as I blame the Frances and ISC, although George certainly had plenty of missteps along the way.

At an early point, ISC was more than willing to cooperate and open up its new tracks to IndyCars to start selling tickets -- and race dates. But ISC got very monopolistic very quickly when the Frances began to take control of the NASCAR TV rights and began a scorched-earth policy of non-promotion and being flat-out hostile to Indy races. ISC shut down Pike's Peak with the caveat that no form of racing that involves spectators could be held at the track -- despite the fact that there is no suitable racetrack for a 10 hours' drive. ISC shut down Nazareth and dismantled it for reasons I'm still trying to figure out. ISC basically kicked IndyCar out of California and Michigan and its lack of promotion led to Richmond and Watkins Glen being dropped, and then it reconfigured other tracks (Homestead being the most notable) for stock cars, making them awful tracks for open-wheel cars. That the Mattoli family began to show no more interest in holding races as Pocono is also a shame, letting the track decline.

There need to be some more suitable tracks, but the problem is, nearly all of them are owned by the France family. The ones that aren't are in bad open-wheel markets (NHIS) or suffering from lack of capital/promotion (Milwaukee). Iowa is about the only track left that is really suitable for an IndyCar that isn't ISC-owned.

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.

 

[playthrough]

Rereading your long post, crimsonace..."invite Marlo Klain's wedding party" was a great line.

 

[wicked]

Bernard is what the series needs, someone who listens fans and had a knack for promotion. He knew that this job would be a long-term fix, but I think he was making inroads this year. Problem is, he inherited a bad formula with these cars on those tracks, and that's not something a guy in his position can fix so fast. He had to ride it out, in a manner of speaking. And, darn it, relief was/is just around the corner with the new car in 2012.

What he needs is better right-hand men in the racing-knowledge area, and that's where Barnhart is such a massive failure. He needed to be fired long ago.

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.

 

[murphyc]

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.

 

[crimsonace]

What he needs is better right-hand men in the racing-knowledge area, and that's where Barnhart is such a massive failure. He needed to be fired long ago.

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?

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.

 

[crimsonace]

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.

... 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).

 

[murphyc]

What he needs is better right-hand men in the racing-knowledge area, and that's where Barnhart is such a massive failure. He needed to be fired long ago.

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?

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.

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?

 

[wicked]

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?

 

[Huggy]

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

 

[playthrough]

Good Lord. Tracy said when Pippa Mann went over him, it left a tire tread on his helmet and tore off part of his steering wheel. The more I hear/read, the more astounding it is that only Wheldon died.

 

[Bob Cook]

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.

 

[Machine Head]

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

Thank you for linking this.