PT get's it

[KLang]

"(CART) spent too many years chasing reconciliation with (IRL owner) Tony George when that option was never on the table," said Tracy, a Scarborough native. "It was always just a mirage placed in front of CART. I think they spent too much time chasing that and not enough time on their own business."

:thumbup:

Toronto Star article (http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1076541906978)

[Kiwifan]

Ain't that the truth.

Rusty.

[TravelGal]

I'm so glad he had the you know whatsies to say this. :thumbup: Why validate that others by measuring yourself against them. Just move on the BE THE BEST!

[RTKar]

It's refreshing to hear someone in sports speak the truth and take a stand for what they believe. It's all too rare in this day and age. For drivers like PT and the fans like us, let's hope the rewards come our way.

[Hard Driver]

Seems kinda obvious to me. If CART had said this is the new engine package to Honda, Toyota and Ford back when their own rule book mandated, we would all be watching 1.8L turbo's kicking but. (when was that back in 97 for the 99 season or something) But they farted around and tried to force similar engines and then the same chassis and other BS that was a futile waste of time and made nobody want to deal with them. Compound that with biting the hand that feeds you, i.e. spacergate, and it was just plain dumb management mistake after another. I personally don't blame manufacturers for deciding they were a bunch of morons leading the series and try to find another. Unfortunately, the other was a single race in Indianapolis that required showing up at other events.

Tony George is the moron that caused the problem. But then when the problem arised, CART dropped the ball dealing with it. They should have said F.U. and done their own thing.

[KLang]

If CART had said this is the new engine package to Honda, Toyota and Ford back when their own rule book mandated, we would all be watching 1.8L turbo's kicking but. (when was that back in 97 for the 99 season or something)

I've always wondered which of the owners voted for and against the 1.8. I suspect Penske and Ganassi where among those against but don't recall reading it anywhere. IMO that was the beginning of the end.

[cart7]

Seems kinda obvious to me. If CART had said this is the new engine package to Honda, Toyota and Ford back when their own rule book mandated, we would all be watching 1.8L turbo's kicking but. (when was that back in 97 for the 99 season or something) But they farted around and tried to force similar engines and then the same chassis and other BS that was a futile waste of time and made nobody want to deal with them. Compound that with biting the hand that feeds you, i.e. spacergate, and it was just plain dumb management mistake after another. I personally don't blame manufacturers for deciding they were a bunch of morons leading the series and try to find another. Unfortunately, the other was a single race in Indianapolis that required showing up at other events.

Tony George is the moron that caused the problem. But then when the problem arised, CART dropped the ball dealing with it. They should have said F.U. and done their own thing.
Yep, too many at the top let Indy pull on their heartstrings which clouded their vision for making good longterm "Post Indy" decisions. Those saps are where they belong now, trying to keep their cars on all four wheels, out of the catch-fencing and helping, in their own way, make advancements in the field of back surgery.

[ChrisB]

we would all be watching 1.8L turbo's kicking but. (when was that back in 97 for the 99 season or something)

It was the Fall of '97 when that was going on.

In retrospect, would the 1.8L turbo have really made a difference? They main reason to cut HP (and go to a smaller engine) was because the oval racing was getting too fast.... but the road-racing was just fine. Even Gil DeFerran said the 900Hp the 2.65L turbos were making at the time was just fine for road-racing.

Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, we can see that CART's oval market was doomed because of theh IMS and Nascar getting together and cornering the oval market. CART having a 1.8L turbo engine with the right power for oval racing would have been useless... CART simply wasn't part of the "oval cabal" and would have eventually lost their oval business anyway.

One of the bigggest mistakes was not realizing that road/street racing was the direction CART should focus on exclusively and not the jack-of-all-trades "diversity" of trying to run both ovals and roads. Of course, we the fans were not much smarter.. we also thought "diversity" was the way to go too.

PT says he wants to stay with Champcars.. but he doesn't really say WHY. That's why I keep saying that CWS should realy come out and declare themselves as a ROAD RACING series! Make it clear as to what they really DO. (and redesign the cars for that, also)

[Hard Driver]

Well ChrisB, I agree that just dropping whatever is left of the ovals is fine by me. If Open Wheel split, let it split upon IRL for Ovals and Champcars for Road/Street. Then you don't have to have extra wings and testing and such and costs can be cut. And if you are a big oval fan firstmost, you probably have already gone to the "other" side.

As far as the engines. If they just picked a package of their own, whatever it had been, with the proper 2 year notice, the manufacturers would have signed on at the time and I believe stayed with the series. I actually was pushing for just chopping off 2 cylnders and going with a 2 Liter V-6. I thought redevelopment costs would be lower because bore/stroke, etc would be the same. But whatever they picked, it would have had manufacturer support I believe.

Yes, the popular opinion was diversity, and still is to many. The new 2004 schedule isn't out yet, but the old 2004 schedule still had 2 ovals. In hindsight, we can nit pick lots. But not listening to your own rule book, and having one manufacturer given early secretive information to develop a spacer and then just plunk it onto the other manufacturers engines was more than a little unfair and stupid and also violated their own rule book about rule changes. If you can't adhere to you rown rule book, then people aren't going to want to play in your game.

And PT was 100% right about Indy being too distracting. TG didn't want reconcilliation and so why would they try to adopt IRL engine and chassis specs. That was just plain stupid.

But enough of the old. We have new ownership with racing experience and I am more confident in OWRS doing good things than I have been in any Champcar management.