pchall
03-08-05, 12:47 PM
Costs forcing teams out of the IRL (http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/sports/11066596.htm)
Sometimes it’s the things he doesn’t see anymore that Ron Hemelgarn sees clearest.
Ten years along he looks across the landscape of Tony George’s excellent adventure, and its contours are unrecognizable, its face increasingly alien. So much has changed, he says, since the day in 1996 when he sent his driver, Buddy Lazier, off on the pole in that first Indy Racing League event in Orlando. So many old friends have vanished from the scene.
The he gets a bit of the Kool-Aid shakes:
“We’re probably a victim of our own success,” he says. “I think it became so successful, and it looked like, ‘Wow, this is the right way to go.’ Unfortunately with that came runaway costs, and it’s very hard to compete against large corporate dollars.”
Interesting stuff.
Sometimes it’s the things he doesn’t see anymore that Ron Hemelgarn sees clearest.
Ten years along he looks across the landscape of Tony George’s excellent adventure, and its contours are unrecognizable, its face increasingly alien. So much has changed, he says, since the day in 1996 when he sent his driver, Buddy Lazier, off on the pole in that first Indy Racing League event in Orlando. So many old friends have vanished from the scene.
The he gets a bit of the Kool-Aid shakes:
“We’re probably a victim of our own success,” he says. “I think it became so successful, and it looked like, ‘Wow, this is the right way to go.’ Unfortunately with that came runaway costs, and it’s very hard to compete against large corporate dollars.”
Interesting stuff.