An observation about Rahal

[Racewriter]

I'll probably get flamed for this (what else is new), but...

Am I the only one that finds it a tad disingenuous that Rahal decries the state that ChampCar (and openwheel as a whole) is in, without acknowledging his own part in it? Let's review a bit o' history:

Early IRL years: Rahal is front and center with any and every opportunity to disparage the IRL, the Indy 500, oval racing in general, and oval racers of any type. In fact, he's th main CART crybaby. If you believe that negativity in the press and CART's "scorched earth policy" has damaged the sport at all, you have to recognize that Bobby Rahal was one of the foremost (if not THE foremost) torch-bearers.

More recently: Rahal takes over as the interim CEO of CART. His trash talk increases in volume and frequency (assuming that's possible), and he drives three nails in CART's coffin himself:

1. Rahal schedules the Vertigo 600 at Texas, a huge embarrassment and results in a lawsuit.

2. Rahal helps to get Clueless Joe Heitzler in as CEO of CART. Heitzler, master of resume' falsification, proceeds to kill CART's TV package, and winds up with a lawsuit of his own.

3. Rahal starts CART down the road to 3.5 NA engines - a move that's cut off by IRL supplier rules, and leads to another lawsuit from Judd/MG.

And, of course, back to being an owner, Rahal endorses the ESP cash drain program that puts CART in bankruptcy.

Then, he decries the diminished state of CART and openwheel. Well, Mr. Rahal, few people have done as much to damage it as you. In fact, most of the CART crossovers have done this, conveniently forgetting the fact that THEY were power brokers that got it down in the toilet. I can respect why Fernandez left, and I think ChampCar fans are kind of silly for being angry at him. For Rahal, however, their anger is justified. This is one rat that should have had to go down with the ship.

[FTG]

I find it very funny that the people who blame Penske, Ganassi and Rahal for everything that was wrong with open wheel in 1995, now have all those same owners in the IRL.

[DaveL]

I don't think you'll get flamed at all. Your points are perfectly valid.

Rahole is just another ho' to the Yen and he'd sell his mother to them if it meant making a few more bucks...as if he needs more money. He has as much integrity as Cheep and Pimpski, two other owners who carried the CART banner against the IRL until Yoda waved enough dollars in their face.

All this has proven is that when it comes to the men who own the cars, nothing matters to them but themselves. If wrecking a series or two happens to the bye-product of pocketing some more money, hey whatever. And the fans? As if they have ever given two sheyites about the people who paid the money for the tickets to watch their teams race. Fans are as disposible to these guys as car parts. And like car parts, they use the fans up until the point that they meet their needs, and then when something else comes along they discard them.

And this fan is choosing to discard the owners.

Bring on Darlington.

[DaveL]

I find it very funny that the people who blame Penske, Ganassi and Rahal for everything that was wrong with open wheel in 1995, now have all those same owners in the IRL.

But RW is no fan of the IRL anymore, so don't lump him in with the Lemmings who are conveniently forgetting everything they hated about the CART owners now that they are IRL owners.

[Brickman]

I'll probably get flamed for this (what else is new), but...

Am I the only one that finds it a tad disingenuous that Rahal decries the state that ChampCar (and openwheel as a whole) is in, without acknowledging his own part in it? Let's review a bit o' history:

Early IRL years: Rahal is front and center with any and every opportunity to disparage the IRL, the Indy 500, oval racing in general, and oval racers of any type. In fact, he's th main CART crybaby. If you believe that negativity in the press and CART's "scorched earth policy" has damaged the sport at all, you have to recognize that Bobby Rahal was one of the foremost (if not THE foremost) torch-bearers.

More recently: Rahal takes over as the interim CEO of CART. His trash talk increases in volume and frequency (assuming that's possible), and he drives three nails in CART's coffin himself:

1. Rahal schedules the Vertigo 600 at Texas, a huge embarrassment and results in a lawsuit.

2. Rahal helps to get Clueless Joe Heitzler in as CEO of CART. Heitzler, master of resume' falsification, proceeds to kill CART's TV package, and winds up with a lawsuit of his own.

3. Rahal starts CART down the road to 3.5 NA engines - a move that's cut off by IRL supplier rules, and leads to another lawsuit from Judd/MG.

And, of course, back to being an owner, Rahal endorses the ESP cash drain program that puts CART in bankruptcy.

Then, he decries the diminished state of CART and openwheel. Well, Mr. Rahal, few people have done as much to damage it as you. In fact, most of the CART crossovers have done this, conveniently forgetting the fact that THEY were power brokers that got it down in the toilet. I can respect why Fernandez left, and I think ChampCar fans are kind of silly for being angry at him. For Rahal, however, their anger is justified. This is one rat that should have had to go down with the ship.

I agree.

Of all the people who are following their business path Bobby seems to have had his fingers in the pot more than others. He gave me plenty to correctly point the finger at and say it was wrong.
Bobby didn't make or break CART, he hedged his bet by having one foot in each camp, and made a break for it not because of business principle but because last second money.

The funny thing about sports is that I use to be a big football fan, loved the Browns, loved the Broncos, loved the Bills. When the Browns left I lost interest in football, I didn't say F***ArtModel, I just lost interest. He had every right business wise to do what he did, screw up tradition for dollars. I was born a capitalist and that's as american as it gets, people have a right to muck up their series and Bobby was one of the best.

I also remembering a lot of praising of Rahal when get got the job as CEO, I believe "savior" was used quite a bit, just as with Pook. Oh well, another falls from grace. I'll stick to believeing in the basics of open wheel racing NOT the piss poor leaders, (that includes Tony George), Not all those who are looking after their own interests, which as we have even seen with Forsythe and others trying to snap up funded drivers, which means there is no one there who is ONLY looking out for the fan and not for themselves. Business.

[JoeBob]

Here is something to think about:

What business has ever been successful by ignoring their customers?

At the end of the day, you need fans.

It goes like this:
Exciting racing and personalities that fans relate to attracts fans.
Fans attract sponsors.
Sponsors fund teams.
Funded teams make owners rich.

If you have an on track product that draws fans, the rest will take care of itsself. See also: NASCAR.

The IRL seems to banking on this approach:
Sponsors fund teams
Sponsors make team owners rich
Sponsors attract fans

That's an awful lot of burden on sponsors. The foundation of the problem is IMS thinking that sponsors should sell IMS's product in addition to their own. Honda wants to sell cars, not the IRL. Yet TG doesn't see that.

I got the feeling that Chris Pook understood the way to do this, following the same model NASCAR did. His problem was that it is very expensive to do, and he ran out of money. If OWRS is willing to spend the cash putting a product on track that fans will buy, they'll probably be able to make a good deal of money in the long run (or at the very least, break even.)

However, with virtually no sponsor base, it is a very, very costly proposition. That they're taking what funding there is for themselves is not an encouraging sign.

[Joe in LA]

This move was supposedly triggered by Fernandez moving and Bobby saying his sponsors were "concerned". Those sponsors stayed, and Bobby left--it doesn't get more disingenous than that.

[Racewriter]

This move was supposedly triggered by Fernandez moving and Bobby saying his sponsors were "concerned". Those sponsors stayed, and Bobby left--it doesn't get more disingenous than that.

Yeah, I agree. I wasn't big on the 'poaching' conspiracy theory in terms of Fernandez, but there's not much doubt with Rahal. His stutters last night about how tough it is to field teams in two series...I would think he would have already known about that.

[Spicoli]

Yeah, I agree. I wasn't big on the 'poaching' conspiracy theory in terms of Fernandez, but there's not much doubt with Rahal. His stutters last night about how tough it is to field teams in two series...I would think he would have already known about that.

A: All of the above.

[Madmaxfan2]

I have learned the following.
1. Racedrivers by in large do not hold the interest of fans above thier own.
2. Ditto for team owners.
Rahal is both.
Therefore whatever comes out of thier months can be disingenous .
The fans can and do admire certain driver and team owners for thier accomplishements and deeds, but don't confuse that as for pleasing the fans. They race for thier own egos. Tony Goerge knows this and explioted to the max. I know a few drivers in amatuar ranks and this attitude is very evident.
Learning this was quite a revelation to me as a fan. Furthermore, it is the motivation that allowed TG to find participants in the early days of the IRL, and fans who used conventional wisdom to judge the IRL to fail in the early days ( Like myself) have been proven wrong.

[RacinM3]

RW, I wish you had called into Wind Tunnel last night and confronted Rahal with those points. The look on his face would have been as spectacular as the crap coming out of his mouth defending himself.

[Racewriter]

RW, I wish you had called into Wind Tunnel last night and confronted Rahal with those points. The look on his face would have been as spectacular as the crap coming out of his mouth defending himself.


Why bother? He spouted some BS to the guy who asked him about deserting his fans, and I'd imagine that the same BS would have come in response to these points.

Bottom line - all of openwheel, CART and IRL, would have been much better off over the last 8 years without Bobby Rahal.

Incidentally - I was saying that same thing a few years back. Unlike most of the CART fans who loved the guy when he was badmouthing the IRL, or his "new" fan club of the IRL faithful.

[JoeBob]

Here's my observation on Rahal.

Team Rahal has never had the same drivers, engine manufacturer, tire supplier and chassis for two consecutive seasons. I can't think of any other team that comes close to being so poorly managed. Any successful team owner will tell you that consistancy is very important. It is hard to improve your setups from year to year when you keep changing parts of the equasion.

Here's what the Team Rahal lineup has looked like for every year of their existance:

2004: Rice, TBA: Honda/G-Force
2003: Jourdain, Brack: Ford/Lola, Honda/Dallara
2002: Jourdain, Vasser: Ford/Lola
2001: Papis, Brack: Ford/Lola
2000: Papis, Brack: Ford/Reynard
1999: Papis, Herta: Ford/Reynard
1998: Rahal, Herta: Ford/Reynard/Firestone (Goodyear's last season)
1997: Rahal, Herta: Ford/Reynard/Goodyear
1996: Rahal, Herta: Mercedes(Illmor)/Reynard/Goodyear
1995: Rahal, Boesel: Illmor/Lola/Goodyear
1994: Rahal, Groff: Honda/Lola/Goodyear
1993: Rahal: Chevy/Rahal-Hogan/Goodyear
1992: Rahal: Chevy/Lola/Goodyear (First year of Team Rahal)

I can't think of anybody who has done a worse job of team management over the years - and this doesn't even take the Jaguar fiasco into account.

[rocket]

Flames...nah...I made the same statements when he started running his piehole about CART's poor manangement. I don't think he could properly manage a wet dream at this point...The way I see it, Champcar seems to be free of the fence sitters, and we can go on rebuilding the series with new teams, talent and sponsors that want to be here.

[Spicoli]

Here's my observation on Rahal.

Team Rahal has never had the same drivers, engine manufacturer, tire supplier and chassis for two consecutive seasons. I can't think of any other team that comes close to being so poorly managed. Any successful team owner will tell you that consistancy is very important. It is hard to improve your setups from year to year when you keep changing parts of the equasion.

Here's what the Team Rahal lineup has looked like for every year of their existance:

2004: Rice, TBA: Honda/G-Force
2003: Jourdain, Brack: Ford/Lola, Honda/Dallara
2002: Jourdain, Vasser: Ford/Lola
2001: Papis, Brack: Ford/Lola
2000: Papis, Brack: Ford/Reynard
1999: Papis, Herta: Ford/Reynard
1998: Rahal, Herta: Ford/Reynard/Firestone (Goodyear's last season)
1997: Rahal, Herta: Ford/Reynard/Goodyear
1996: Rahal, Herta: Mercedes(Illmor)/Reynard/Goodyear
1995: Rahal: Illmor/Lola/Goodyear
1994: Rahal, Groff: Honda/Lola/Goodyear
1993: Rahal: Chevy/Rahal-Hogan/Goodyear
1992: Rahal: Chevy/Lola/Goodyear (First year of Team Rahal)

I can't think of anybody who has done a worse job of team management over the years - and this doesn't even take the Jaguar fiasco into account.

Wow. That's pretty revealing. Nice work putting that together.

Now can you do one for all his affairs? :saywhat:

[JohnHKart]

Nice work on the history of Team Rahal. You left out.....1995: Raul Boesel was his teammate.

John

[JoeBob]

Thanks. :D Post updated.

[pchall]

I don't think he could properly manage a wet dream at this point...

Well, there goes Danica's career. ;)