A stick & ball writer looking in from the outside

[Warlock!]

This guys is pretty well missing all the facts, but it seems he gets the point. I wonder if this is how open-wheel racing looks to most people...

"Indy 500 is quickly running out of gas" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5047499/)

Warlock!

[Wabbit]

Read the article. I like the errors

"The guardians of the 500 and open-wheeled racing will say different. They’ll say their sport is fine, even after eight years of turmoil that set in when Tony Hulman, the late owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, formed his own racing circuit, the IRL, in a split with the established outfit, CART — Championship Auto Racing Teams."

Gee, all this time, we've been blaming Tony George.

"The split was eventually mended"

Really, I must've slept through that day.

"IRL and Champ, as CART is now known"

Wow, they changed the name of our series too. I need to stop sleeping, I keep missing things.

[racer2c]

As a life long fan of open wheel racing and the Indy 500 up to 1996, I am saddened. Never since the lockout has there been such a negative and dismal light shed on the 500. To see Robin Miller and Derick Daly on ESPN2 call Bump Day, "a joke" makes this IRL, Tony George hater happy, but makes this fan of the Indy 500 sad.
So what pray tell is Tony George going to do about it? Continue to back stab and manipulate sponsors and tracks away from the CCWS? And once he's there in front of 10K people what will he have achieved?
Let the Champ Car run Indy Tony. Throw the crapwagons in the garbage bin. You can keep your all oval series and we all meet at Indy.
You don't have the intelligence though do you tony? Tony! Stay with me boy, I'm talking to you.

[Madmaxfan2]

As a life long fan of open wheel racing and the Indy 500 up to 1996, I am saddened. Never since the lockout has there been such a negative and dismal light shed on the 500. To see Robin Miller and Derick Daly on ESPN2 call Bump Day, "a joke" makes this IRL, Tony George hater happy, but makes this fan of the Indy 500 sad.
So what pray tell is Tony George going to do about it? Continue to back stab and manipulate sponsors and tracks away from the CCWS? And once he's there in front of 10K people what will he have achieved?
Let the Champ Car run Indy Tony. Throw the crapwagons in the garbage bin. You can keep your all oval series and we all meet at Indy.
You don't have the intelligence though do you tony? Tony! Stay with me boy, I'm talking to you.

You are wasting your breath.TG is not capable of grasping the situation He will run it into the ground, so he cannot be accused of being a quiter, which is probably the worst insult a hoosier can suffer.

[RTKar]

One thing that rankles me about that article is dismissing De Ferran as a no name. He was a quality driver who paid his dues and advanced through the lower formulas properly. He very well may have won a quality 500 had there been one. He easily ranks among the names mentioned in the article and I would guess above a couple of them. He won against some top notch competition in CART. His lack of name recognition by the general sports public is not a problem of his doing but one of little vision in open wheel racing.

[RobGuru]

One thing that rankles me about that article is dismissing De Ferran as a no name. He was a quality driver who paid his dues and advanced through the lower formulas properly. He very well may have won a quality 500 had there been one. He easily ranks among the names mentioned in the article and I would guess above a couple of them. He won against some top notch competition in CART. His lack of name recognition by the general sports public is not a problem of his doing but one of little vision in open wheel racing.

Of course, I believe that article called de Ferren a two-time Indy Racing League champion. Saying that in and of itself would render him a no-name.

I do, however, agree with your assessment of de Ferren CART championships.

[4wheeldrifter]

One thing that rankles me about that article is dismissing De Ferran as a no name. He was a quality driver who paid his dues and advanced through the lower formulas properly. He very well may have won a quality 500 had there been one. He easily ranks among the names mentioned in the article and I would guess above a couple of them. He won against some top notch competition in CART. His lack of name recognition by the general sports public is not a problem of his doing but one of little vision in open wheel racing.

Probably meant "no name" as in:

1) Not born in America.

2) Not named Earnhardt, Gordon, Wallace, etc.

:thumdown:

[mueber]

To his credit he stated the obvious. The brown nosers amongst the press here in Fort Wayne have yet to acknowledge Boy George's culpability in the decline of open wheel and the Gomerville Invitational or even that there is a problem.

Rather than hand wringing about this, I prefer to look forward to the day when the death of the Greatest Spectacle in Debasing clears the way for a first-class open wheel series in North America. It can’t be soon enough, and I have every confidence in Boy George's getting the job done.

[Andrew Longman]

One thing that rankles me about that article is dismissing De Ferran as a no name. He was a quality driver who paid his dues and advanced through the lower formulas properly. He very well may have won a quality 500 had there been one. He easily ranks among the names mentioned in the article and I would guess above a couple of them. He won against some top notch competition in CART. His lack of name recognition by the general sports public is not a problem of his doing but one of little vision in open wheel racing.

I think that was the writer's point. Open wheel guys like Parnelli Jones, Andretti, Hill, Clark and Foyt accomplished a lot and earned every bit of it. The result was they became household names. DeFerran pays his dues and achieves championship and no one notices.

Contrast that with Michael Waltrip, Ward Burton, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Jimmy Spencer or Kenny Wallace or twenty other losers who have collectively won maybe 4 races in 5 years. Three of those races happened to be Daytona 500s but even without that these lesser "stars" are known by even casual race fans. The true stars of Nascar like Jr, Stewart and Gordon have achieved cultural icon status.

[dando]

Looks like the piece was updated to correct some of the errors. All in all, he made his point: Indy has become a sham.

-Kevin

[fourrunner]

The article reads much better now that a couple of GLARING research errors have been corrected.

Ahh the benefits of the Internet & the "backspace" key on the Computer!!! ;)