USGP

[Warlock!]

Bottom line is:

On Sunday, Bridgestone won, Michelin lost.

End of story.
Just watched the race that I Tivo'ed from Speed. At the end of the coverage, either when they came back to close the show or when they were leaving the show, they said the race had been brought to you by Castrol, "and also Michelin..." with some tagline about giving you what you want. Perfect irony.

[Mike Lawler]

[QUOTE=Methanolandbrats]I read all this stuff. Were some of you on OJ's jury?

So the Indianapolis Motor Speedway "feel(s) as victimized as the fans" in the
wake of Sunday's United States Non-Prix which saw 14 cars withdraw from the
race owing to safety issues with their Michelin tires. According to IMS Chief
Operating Officer Joie Chitwood, to say the Speedway is "disappointed" at
its "inability to have control over (the) actions" is "an understatement."

At the risk of kicking the Speedway when it's down, right now several million
disenfranchised fans of American open-wheel racing are probably thinking, if
not saying aloud, "How does it feel?"

After all, a fair number of them probably felt "victimized" when they showed up
at Phoenix and Indianapolis in 1996 expecting to see Michael Andretti, Al Unser
Jr. and Bobby Rahal race, and, instead, found they'd paid good money to watch
Paul Durant, Fermin Velez and Jim Guthrie do battle in quest of the inaugural
Indy Racing League title.

Doubtless, those same fans were also more than a little disappointed at
their "inability to have control over (the) actions" of IMS president/IRL
founder Tony George over the years as he steadfastly refused to seriously
entertain good-faith efforts from Ford, CART and an assortment of team owners
to re-unify American open-wheel racing even as the rough beast of NASCAR found
its hour had come 'round at last.

But perhaps there is a silver lining to the cloud cast upon the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, the U.S. Grand Prix and Formula 1 as a whole by Sunday's
events. For surely the management of the Speedway (and by extension, the IRL)
now understands what it's like to be a pawn in a purely political game played
by Brahmins so insulated from reality as to have forgotten a fundamental tenet
of professional sports: the sport and its fans are bigger than any one
individual, organization or agenda. And those who lose sight of that risk
inflicting incalculable harm on the sport. And, ultimately, themselves. Checked
the price of Michelin stock lately? How about ticket availability for an Indy
500 that, once upon a time, was a guaranteed sell-out?

It remains to be seen whether Formula 1 can rehabilitate itself in the United
States. For a start, drivers, officials, Michelin and its teams could dispense
with the word "sad" in future platitudes about Sunday's events in favor of a
more appropriate term. "Disgrace" and "shameful" come to mind.

More than that, there needs to be a quick and genuinely empathetic response
from Formula 1 grandee Bernie Ecclestone, FIA boss Max Mosley and, of course,
Michelin and its teams, to the fans who invested their time and money attending
the '05 U.S. Grand Prix. The time, of course, is irretrievably lost, but not
the money. Beyond a mere refund, there needs to be a public and generous
acknowledgment of the fact the fans were jobbed. In a sport whose bosses play
penny ante poker with Krugeraands, free (or at the very least, deeply
discounted) tickets for the '06 U.S. Grand Prix (assuming there is one) would
be a step in the right direction; but only if paid for by Michelin, its teams,
Bernie and/or the FIA rather than a Hulman-George family which was blameless in
this case.
F1 principals' "We're sorry" declarations won't cut it this time, Phillips
reckons. (LAT photo)

For the braintrust of the IRL (and Champ Car for that matter) could learn a
lesson from last weekend; one that might jump-start the rehabilitation of
American open-wheel racing. To wit, while the legitimate business interests of
Tony George, Paul Gentilozzi, Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven must be taken
into account, they shouldn't automatically take precedence over the interests
of the sport itself. And just as George has been excoriated for spurning past
efforts to bring the two series together, so should Messrs. Kalkhoven, Forsythe
and Gentilozzi be called on the carpet for dismissing (however sympathetically)
recent reunification efforts as driven more by nostalgia rather than pragmatic,
hard-headed business motives.

In their egomaniacal drive to consolidate power and line their coffers with
still more dollars, dinars, euros and yuans, Messrs Ecclestone and Mosley seem
to have lost sight of the fact they are the stewards of Formula 1's
incalculable legacy; a legacy that includes not just win-at-any-cost drivers
like Senna and Schumacher, but real sportsmen like Fangio and Moss - the latter
of whom was sickened by Sunday's events, being one of the few to describe the
situation as a "disgrace."

Similarly, in his efforts to concentrate all power in American open-wheel
racing at the corner of Georgetown and 16th - and in their efforts to create a
financially viable Champ Car World Series without the Indianapolis 500 - George
and Three Amigos risk losing sight of the fact they too are stewards of a rich
legacy; one dating back nearly 100 years, to which men from Frank Lockhart to
Greg Moore have given their lives and countless fans have given their hearts
and souls.

The flurry of media attention, letters to editors and website traffic that
attends any hint of a reconciliation between Champ Car and the IRL is, in my
opinion, indicative of an untapped reservoir of enthusiasm and, yes, even good
will, that still exists for American open-wheel racing. And just as Ecclestone,
Mosley, Michelin and the rest of the Formula 1 community would be well advised
to put aside their collective hubris to make amends with America's fans, so
would Forsythe, Gentilozzi, George and Kalkhoven do well to remember that,
despite the great damage done in the past decade, American open-wheel racing is
still bigger than all four of them combined.

And wouldn't it be wonderful if George and the Three Amigos told Formula 1 to
stuff it and invited the '05 USGP ticket holders to be their guests at a double-
header weekend on the IMS road course next June featuring the IndyCar Series
and the Champ Car World Series? It's a wildly impractical idea, of course, not
least of which because George has a huge investment in the U.S. Grand Prix
while Forsythe and Kalkhoven own Cosworth; thus neither party is in a position
to go to war with Formula 1. Still, it would be a wonderful way of sending a
signal to American open-wheel racing fans - be they aficionados of F1, Champ
Cars or Indy Cars - that they actually matter. It's high time someone did.