RPM last night - Laustiz moved so Haas/Patrick can qualify at Indy?

[mnkywrch]

Didn't see this posted...

In RPM last night, RM said that Haas & Patrick want the Euro swing re-jigged so they can qualify at Indy as first day qualifiers.

Comments?

[mnkywrch]

Sorry, the subject should be

RPM last night - Laustiz to be moved so Haas/Patrick can qualify at Indy?

WB, change it if you wish... and you can delete this apology post also...

[patm]

This would be just plain stupid if you ask me. All this juggling of the schedule...what about people that have already made plans. Not to mention the fact that it is catering to people that can't seem to let the indy race go. TG is going to have enough trouble filling his 33 spots with out help from Haas and Patrick.

patm

[damiandoan]

What a load of crap. Haas & Patrick? Pook needs to have a nice little sit down with the two of them. Ask what their intentions are with ChampCar & IndyCar. Make it clear that they are either on our side or not. No more crossover. Pook has started to steer a course clear of Indy, keep it that way.

I hate to say it, but they need to have their feet held to the fire on this. ChampCar's teams should not be supporting Tony George & the IRL.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

DD

[Foxman]

No riding the fence, you are either with CART, or against CART. You wanna give in to your indy lust, go for it, but don't let the door hit you where the good lord split ya on the way out. :mad: :mad:

[cart7]

If it's so important for Haas and patrick to run, how about letting someone else qual the car and then put the driver you want in for the race. It's been done before. Don't change Cart for these guys. It's not worth it.

Nothing has changed with some of the things that are wrong with the 500. You don't need to spend 3 weeks to put a race on. Even Nascar spends less time on their marque event and it's far surpassed the 500 in importance. This was one of the bitches C|art had with TG back then. There's no need to sit around in Indy for 3 weeks to run 1 race.:mad:

[JLMannin]

Originally posted by Foxman
No riding the fence, you are either with CART, or against CART. You wanna give in to your indy lust, go for it, but don't let the door hit you where the good lord split ya on the way out. :mad: :mad:

My sentiments exactly. Indyitis is incurable

[fourrunner]

I'm assuming since both Haas & Newman are way to close to 80 years of age, they are realizing that they only have a few more chances to get involved in this Race before they can't remember if they have pants on, no less run the Team!! :eek

I KID the Great Newman Haas Organization!!! ;)

[JT265]

I agree with the sentiment that both of 'em need to fish or cut bait.
Who would have ever thought that UE, and especially Haas, would be trying to angle for an Indy start?

This is as out there as the Newman's Own presents the Pep Boys Earl League, Powered by Northern Lights.

[pchall]

The only worthwhile reason I can see for moving the Lausitzring date back a week is to fit in a race at Estoril.

[nrc]

Right. I can't see any reason to move Germany that doesn't involve making room for another date on the calendar. For instance, if they did have a Memorial Day weekend race in Chicago, they might want to break it up to avoid three races in a row along with all that travel.

Haas and Patrick are directors. If they're asking CART to take a clearly less advantagous date in Germany in order to benefit their own personal business, then it's time for Vannini to break out the shareholder lawsuits.

[MightySurfClam]

What difference is there from having Lausitz the week before or the week after Brands?


And consider this for a moment. Doesnt a CART team winning indy do more for CART's reputation as a series? Now granted it promotes the IRL too, but it does promote CART

[JLMannin]

Originally posted by MightySurfClam
What difference is there from having Lausitz the week before or the week after Brands?


And consider this for a moment. Doesnt a CART team winning indy do more for CART's reputation as a series? Now granted it promotes the IRL too, but it does promote CART

What did sweeping the top six at the irl500 in 2001 do for CART? Granted, it gave me the best month of my SpeedNet career ;) , but it didn't do much for CART.

Any current CART team principal that was in the series in 1995 is doomed to sucomb to Indyitis, in my opinion. There seem to be two very unlikely exceptions to this: Dale Coyne and Derrick Walker. If anyone had told me that seven years down the road, Coyne and Walker would have been the most loyal CART owners, I would have laughed out loud. For goodness sake, the IRL was made for them! I expected all the low-budget, mid-pack on back teams to bolt; but it was the top dollar teams that have bolted. I know that Walker has run an IRL program since year one, but it has always been a separate operation from the CART effort, meaning that his CART driver(s) did not contest Indy.

Of the big budget 1995 and earlier team principals, I guess Forsythe has been loyal, but I could argue that he just barely meets the pre-1995 requirement, as he re-entered CART in 1994 in a pertnership with Green and founded his team in 1995, and in 1994, it was clear that TG was forming his own league.

The biggest disappointment to me is Rahal. If N/H bolts as well, I will also be very disappointed as well.

John

[nrc]

Originally posted by MightySurfClam
What difference is there from having Lausitz the week before or the week after Brands?

Moving a date after it has been announced is generally not a good thing - especially when you're only a few months away and (presumably) have ticket sales underway. There needs to be some business justification for a move like that.

Aside from that, the main issue is the weather. Western Europe warms up later in the spring than England and the coastal regions, so even just two weeks difference carries a greater risk of unpleasant conditions. While rain may actually be a little more likely in May than April, it would be of much less consequence for the oval venue without the pressure of another race date the following week.


And consider this for a moment. Doesnt a CART team winning indy do more for CART's reputation as a series? Now granted it promotes the IRL too, but it does promote CART

I agreed with that for years. Experience pretty much demonstrates that idea was incorrect. If owners could be trusted to remain loyal the theory might work. Clearly they can't, so it's better to clear out the owners that can't make it work without Indy and move on.

[Railbird]

As most of you know, I'm a fence setter and an Indycentric.

(an AA moment if there ever was one)

IMHO, If I'm Pook I stonewall those two old bastards, "my way or the highway", they're not here one way or the other for too long anyway. For we well studied fans, the loss of Junky would be a bad deal as would to a lesser extant Servia after his promising tests, and missing a chance to see the quick study Bourdais would flat suck, but in the end it might be the one last step to independance.

To the fan that attends one race a year and watches them on TV when his wife isn't dogging his ass to cut the grass, three brightly colored Reynards with some more new names that he can;t pronounce will fill the bill nicely. And who knows where the next talent will find their way?

The series' owners and drivers aren't exactly household names anyway.

Bruno is probably the most famous of the three, but I don't think it's worth reverting back to a plan that has proven not to work just to capitalize on what ever micro market penetration his mug has.

Now

The thought of a few hired guns like Vasser slipping over from Germany to start a bump day assault on Wednesday sounds like a fun deal to me.

However

Any team willing to risk derailing the series itself by trying to strong arm an accomodation for an event the series doesn't sanction should be facing exclusion.

[JT265]

Game, Set. Match. Great post 'Bird!

[MightySurfClam]

Originally posted by Railbird
Any team willing to risk derailing the series itself by trying to strong arm an accomodation for an event the series doesn't sanction should be facing exclusion.


Thats BS and you know it. Its got nothing to do with series and sanctioning, its got everything to do with politics. No one got all uppity when Rahal wanted to do ALMS, no one freaked when Haas and Ganassi started NASCAR operations. But if its IRL, well then we gotta burn someone in the town square before nightfall.

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by MightySurfClam
No one got all uppity when Rahal wanted to do ALMS,

Did anyone ask CART to keep an entire month of CART's schedule open for ALMS? If Rahal wants to do ALMS fine, but he is going to have to work it in around CART's schedule.

Thats not what the Haas/Patrick story is about.

[RaceGrrl]

Originally posted by MightySurfClam
And consider this for a moment. Doesnt a CART team winning indy do more for CART's reputation as a series? Now granted it promotes the IRL too, but it does promote CART

Not worth considering, because the (former) CART teams with a chance of winning at Indy now race in the IRL. The days of CART cherry picking that race are over, IMO. Time to move on.

[JLMannin]

Originally posted by RaceGrrl
Not worth considering, because the (former) CART teams with a chance of winning at Indy now race in the IRL. The days of CART cherry picking that race are over, IMO. Time to move on.

The time to move on was 1996, and CART almost pulled it off, but too many teams fell ill with Indyitis. Better late than never, I guess.

[Railbird]

Thats BS and you know it.

Ah, the vulgar presumption.

If you know me so well, and since you brought up Rahal, why is it that I've never taken a swipe at Team Rahal for fielding a full season IRL effort?

Bobby got a deal, formed a team, and went racing. While I wish, and have every reason to believe he does too, that he was running a second team in CART along side his IRL effort, he has a professional racing operation that has to go where the sponsors go. CART, the IRL and to a lesser extant the ALMs are where the sponsorship oportunities lie outside of the Nascar nation at this point in time.

What Haas and Patrick are trying to do, if this rumor has any truth to it, is to drag the series away from the new direction Pook is exploring for nothing more than their own interests.

IMO, if those two old bastards want to chug the milk before they reach room temp they need to nut up and each form an IRL team for that purpose rather than hinder Pook with their bully boy tactics.