Strange Tracy quote...

[datachicane]

Just got back from Portland. During post-race interviews (on track PA, anyway), Paul congratulated Adrian on his win before saying essentially that he hoped getting some success would help convince Adrian to stay in CART. Adrian was standing next to him at the time. WTF? Has PT heard something we haven't? I thought we were through with that crap...

[RaceChic]

After reading the thread "A great article for Champ Car Fans" and then this, it is really hard to know where it is at sometimes, isn't it? I'm staying positive! :D

[KobySon]

hmmmm... during the broadcast they were talking about Fernandez being 38. Maybe he is contemplating retirement?

k

[JoeBob]

Adrian had made a comment about pressure from his sponsors to perform, and that it was important for his team to get their first win.

I wonder if Tecate is looking at the performance of some of the other Mexican drivers, and wondering if their money would be better spent there. After his performance this season, Jourdain will be a strong contender for the big pesos, which I don't think Gigante is.

[Cmndr Keen]

I think it was in reference to retirement. They were saying earlier after his nasty retirement, he was contemplating retirement. Maybe age and the lack of wins caused the idea to surface again.

[JLMannin]

Adrian has indyitis. There is no cure. PT is immune.

[ncmlj]

Adrian has indyitis

If that was true he would have raced it this year. So IMHO I don't think it bothers him one way or another.

[Kate]

He said he was 40 in the interview after the race. When I spoke to him last year in Montreal he talked of retiring to be an owner and run the team; it may be that he's thinking of doing that instead of racing.

[Dr. Corkski]

CART.com lists his birthday as April 20th, 1965, which would make him 38 years old as of the time of this post. Guess they didn't check with Andy Hall on that. :laugh:

[Ziggy]

Adrian was just on the radio, and he is 40 years old. He also said that he would be running himself in the Indy 500 next season, and gave reasons why he did not run this year. Team was too young.

Ziggy

[Lizzerd]

And added something like "if you have no chance to win, why run?"

[Railbird]

"The Truth"

Good show tonight

Adrian is an owner with sponsors who want to be in the big show.


BTW

Tracy is immune only because his owner is. As big a fan of PT as I am I'm not delusional enough to think that he would turn down a fat IRL contract if Jerry hadn't offered him a good deal in CART. There's probably another driver or two who would have shown the same "loyalty" if they would have had that chance.

If you want loyalty

buy a dog

[JLMannin]

Originally posted by ncmlj
If that was true he would have raced it this year. So IMHO I don't think it bothers him one way or another.

Being a team owner and all, if he did not have indyitis, then why run an IRL team at all? He did run the Super Aguri Fernandez team this year in the IRL. And from the information in Ziggy's message below, he does in fact have incurable indyitis.

I'm glad he won at Portland, and he is a positive factor for CART at the immediate moment. I wish he would show a little more loyalty and gratitude to the series that made him a cultural icon in Mexico, that's all.

JL

[RaceGrrl]

Originally posted by JLMannin
I wish he would show a little more loyalty and gratitude to the series that made him a cultural icon in Mexico, that's all.


I agree, Adrian's win is good for CART. I want to see him stay too, but as we saw from Mikey, Dario, Tony and their ilk, loyalty is cheap. It's easy to rationalize your actions when you're sitting on a pile of money.

[ncmlj]

Being a team owner and all, if he did not have indyitis, then why run an IRL team at all?

Honda gave him some $$$$ to do so?



Adrian is an owner with sponsors who want to be in the big show.

I guess then the next move is IRL to Mexico or does Tecate feel the 500 is bigger then Carts Mexico races? Or is that comment in regards to just running the 500? I am confused! I guess time will tell, I wont loose any sleep over it.

[JLMannin]

This is so funny. Months ago, it was blasphemy in the nth degree to allude to Honda $$ as a driving factor in Andretti taking his newly acquired team over to IRL land. Spook assured us that there were many, many sponsors that wanted to go to Indy and that the Honda contribution was insignificant in relation to the entire pot put on the table.

Now, it is accepted that Honda gave Adrian enough yen to start up the IRL team. Maybe the Andretti-Honda connection was not as blasphemous as it was portrayed to be.

I don't buy this "the teams didn't have a choice" argument. N/H passed on the Toyota yen to stay in CART. Other team owners, if committed to CART, could have done the same and worked to secure sponsors. In this case, "sponsors" = "excuses"

[Dr. Corkski]

I don't think the big problem with Andretti was that he took the Honda money. The bigger problem people had with him was that he badmouthed CART endlessly, something that I don't recall Fernandez doing. Saying that he has indyitis is pretty childish, but then considering the source...:rolleyes:

If finding sponsorship was that easy there wouldn't be so many sidepods filled by sponsors paying Barber Dodge money.

[JLMannin]

DrZ, your probably right. I bet Mikey really had Homesteaditis. :rolleyes:

I never said finding sponsorship for a CART team was easy. I said that it is possible. Possible does not equal easy, in many cases.

If Mikey, et al were really chasing sponsor $$, they would go NASCAR, as the majority of NASCAR races get higher races than the IRL's biggest race.

Mikey and Adrian both have Indyitis, but as you pointed out, they had/will have different CART exit strageties.

JLM