...if the original "vision" was carried out?

[Otto-Matic]

With the TG and the IRL's original vision of stock block engines and cheap chasis, I was wondering of when the 'turning point" came when the costs started to really get out of control and teams started dropping by the wayside. Probably 2003 when Toyota and Honda came over. Before that wasnt there a price cap of $80K or something on the Oldsmobile/Chevy and Infinity engines? i dont recall how much the G-Force, Riley and Dallara cars were but teams seemed to be able to field a car for under $500K and be semi-competative.
If Tony and the brass had stuck to their guns and really held true to his originalo "vision", what does everyone think the current landscape of Indycar would look like? (since most people on this forum think we have CART-light circa 1990's today).

[nigelred5]

We would have indy lights circa 1995.

[px400r]

The true vision was to wrest control of the sport from CART.

[Otto-Matic]

We would have indy lights circa 1995.

I disagree. I think it would look more like the IRL circa 2001. Think of all the competative teams forced out do to the Honda/Toyota invasion:
Kelley, Treadway (won the I500), Hemelgarn (severley crippled), Bradley motorsports, Foyt (nowhere near competative anymore), Blair,...the list goes on. Not to mention Chevy, who was also a casualty. I think its highly probable that most of those teAms plus Chevy and maybe even Toyota and Infinity would still be involved if the $$$ caps and cost control had been maintained and enforced. We certainly would have the de-facto spec series we have today.

[chuck34]

Yep, letting Honda and Toyota in with their "lease" program was the start of the slide to spec racing. But it is hard to prove a negative. So we'll probably never really know.

[Jag_Warrior]

If Tony and the brass had stuck to their guns and really held true to his originalo "vision", what does everyone think the current landscape of Indycar would look like? (since most people on this forum think we have CART-light circa 1990's today).

An open wheel version of Grand Am DP.

Which if you ask me, considering what we have now, that would not necessarily be a bad thing: pretty decent variety of tracks, affordable packages including multiple chassis makers, multiple branded engines and engine configurations, big name drivers for select races and TV ratings for an average race pretty much equal to what the IRL gets on Versus. And about the same time that the IRL wants to introduce a (single) new spec chassis and a turbo engine, Grand Am will be introducing a variety of new chassis and both turbo and N.A. engines.

I guess the downside is that you might still have one or two dominant teams. But at least there would be some interesting things about the series that wouldn't include a bikini model trying to pass herself off as a true, blue auto racer.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I disagree. I think it would look more like the IRL circa 2001. Think of all the competative teams forced out do to the Honda/Toyota invasion:
Kelley, Treadway (won the I500), Hemelgarn (severley crippled), Bradley motorsports, Foyt (nowhere near competative anymore), Blair,...the list goes on. Not to mention Chevy, who was also a casualty. I think its highly probable that most of those teAms plus Chevy and maybe even Toyota and Infinity would still be involved if the $$$ caps and cost control had been maintained and enforced. We certainly would have the de-facto spec series we have today.

I think the "Vision" was naive, just like the man who put it out there. Listen, I have no problem with the idea of cost control, but it is a false argument to force manufacturers to fix their prices if the cost of doing business is more than you are going to let them charge for their product.

I think racing is expensive at this level. There is no getting around it. If the purses and sponsors can support teams spending the money they do, they will do so. You can fix the cost of engines, or fix the cost of chassis all you like, but there are outlets for teams to spend money that will make them faster and in the end, you save no one money. Rich teams will find the resources to win. They did in the 20's, they did in the 30's and so on. Look at the history of racing. The factory teams from Germany in the 30's taking GP's. That was MONEY as much as anything. In the 50's, the top teams in F1 or Indycars were top because they spent the money on getting the details right.

Fixed cost series are still dominated by the teams that spend the money to get things right and you see it right now with Penske and Ganassi in the IRL, Ganassi's Grand Am Effort, the top teams in NASCAR (none of them are sparing the cost in a series that is all about fixed technology) and in F1.

Tony's assumption was he could dictate a simple few rules and everyone would play with cheaper equipment and allow the little guy from USAC OW ranks to find his way back to Indy. It didn't happen, and it was abandoned because it was clear that there is more to this than just wishing things were cheaper. The stock blocks he pushed for blew up left and right. The engines that eventually were sussed out as winners meant everyone who didn't have one was a loser. The restrictions on the rules and the economics basically made any evolution of the lesser engine impossible.

The vision if you believe it was naive and flawed...or you could adopt the take that the real "vision" was the taking over of the sport.....either way, it has been a BAD idea...

[DBell]

The true vision was to wrest control of the sport from CART.

Bingo! That says it all on the subject as far as I am concerned.

[Scotty G.]

The author of this post, is spot-on.

The IRL actually died, in May of 2002. That is when Barnhart and company thought that changing their engine rules to accomodate Honda and Toyota, would not only bring more money into the series (a failed CART fallacy) but also put a stake in CART as well. The IRL in 2002, was getting healthy and moving (although slowly, in a upward direction). Its races were far superior to anything else in American racing. It had multiple teams and drivers winning races and competing at the front. Budgets were under control. New teams were forming each year. The Indy 500 never had to worry about finding enough cars for 33 spots. Young Americans were looking at Indy Cars again. They had all races on a network people actually watched. But that wasn't enough for TG and BB. They wanted to kill CART, ASAP. And taking their engine yen and funded teams away from them, was just what they thought would do it. Their thinking was, once CART went away, that Indy Car would truly take off. They thought wrong.

All it did, was kill both entities. Took longer to kill them both, then it should have. But they were (and still are) both dead. Maybe they both would have died eventually, no matter what. But this just made it a certainity.

And yes, Indy Car is still dead.

Bernard is trying. But, he's swimming up-stream. He's got a embarrassingly bad TV contract he can't get out of. He's got a bunch of drivers, he can't sell. He's got a bunch of races, that (even if people were actually watching), are turds on TV. He's got very few American drivers to grow the sport. He's got a dying Indy Lights series, with no money, fewer teams each year and no TV contract. He has lost his relationship with ISC (who, like it or not, have most of the power in American racing/race tracks). He has less money to work with (thanks to the Hulman/George sisters scaling back) and he has to work in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, trying to sell a sport and a product that obviously nobody wants anymore.

I have thought all along, this thing should have been completely blown up and started from scratch years ago. Now, it might be too late to ever become relevent again, no matter what Randy and company do or try. Randy seems to have some good ideas and is trying to do the right things. But it might be too late.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Scott, I will agree with some of your post, but not all of it.

I think the IRL was never as rosy or as healthy in 2002 as you put it. It WAS better than it is now, but I feel the real death knell for this series isn't anything the IRL had done, it is the sheer weight of the NASCAR media machine and ESPN's slavish sucking up to them feeding the public NASCAR related content. Lets face it, if ESPN doesn't like your product, you are done. That writing was on the wall long ago...because even when FOX and NBC had the Cup series, ESPN never gave up their coverage nor giving the NASCAR boys their love. They never once showed the IRL the love they gave NASCAR, even when they carried all the races. Some of that is ratings related I am sure, but I think the downward spiral has a lot of authors.

Another point I will quibble is this: Tony was having a hard time getting 33 cars at Indy. When did Bubble day disappear amigo? Really we haven't had one anything close to the drama of the pre split days ever. The rumours of Tony funding small teams to get entries is something that has been around for a while.

No, I don't think the health of OW has been worth a damn since 200O really. United we conquer, divided we fall...and in 95 we fell...and now that we are one again, as you point out, Randy is handcuffed.

[Bob Riebe]

With the TG and the IRL's original vision of stock block engines and cheap chasis, I was wondering of when the 'turning point" came when the costs started to really get out of control and teams started dropping by the wayside. Probably 2003 when Toyota and Honda came over. Before that wasnt there a price cap of $80K or something on the Oldsmobile/Chevy and Infinity engines? i dont recall how much the G-Force, Riley and Dallara cars were but teams seemed to be able to field a car for under $500K and be semi-competative.
If Tony and the brass had stuck to their guns and really held true to his originalo "vision", what does everyone think the current landscape of Indycar would look like? (since most people on this forum think we have CART-light circa 1990's today).

Tony actually started destruction of his vision, the second the Olds "stock-block" engines turned out to be anything but stock-block in any manner.
Nissan, to its great credit, did try to use a stock-block, and managed to eek out one win with it, but in reality that part of the rules was a farce from the get-go.

Had George made true stock-block engines competitive with the competition only OHC engines, things might have been different.

[Marbles]

An open wheel version of Grand Am DP.

Which if you ask me, considering what we have now, that would not necessarily be a bad thing: pretty decent variety of tracks, affordable packages including multiple chassis makers, multiple branded engines and engine configurations, big name drivers for select races and TV ratings for an average race pretty much equal to what the IRL gets on Versus. And about the same time that the IRL wants to introduce a (single) new spec chassis and a turbo engine, Grand Am will be introducing a variety of new chassis and both turbo and N.A. engines.


Grand Am is definitely entertaining but let's not forget the constant rules tinkering from race to race in Grand Am that still can't keep a team like Ganassi from dominating. The teams do a good job for very little. The IRL would be a better place with Valiente and especially Fogarty. The mix is very refreshing.

I think the turning point with the IRL had as much, if not more, to do with the players than the manufacturers. Money really messes up a nice even playing field!

[Scotty G.]

Another point I will quibble is this: Tony was having a hard time getting 33 cars at Indy. When did Bubble day disappear amigo?


It disappeared in 2003.

From 1999 to 2002, there were plenty of cars at Indy. The 2001 Bubble Day, for example, was about as good as it gets. Billy Boat had to sweat it out for the last half hour, with numerous drivers taking shots at him.

When the yen came into the series, getting to 33 became a big problem.

[Alexamateo]

......

Another point I will quibble is this: Tony was having a hard time getting 33 cars at Indy. When did Bubble day disappear amigo? Really we haven't had one anything close to the drama of the pre split days ever. The rumours of Tony funding small teams to get entries is something that has been around for a while.




FYI

Bumping statistics.

http://johnsonindy500.trackforum.com/indy500/bumping.html

[call_me_andrew]

Clearly, I'm missing something. Why are Honda and Toyota bad?

[Otto-Matic]

Clearly, I'm missing something. Why are Honda and Toyota bad?

They're not bad, what we're debating is the IRL/Tony George's abandoning of the original cost control aspects (the "vision") to allow Toyota and Honda to out-spend their rivals, wich forced out most of the original IRL teams as CART teams started to cross over. They didnt really anything wrong, they were trying to beat each other and did what the rules allowed. i think the blame lies with the IRL brass for not sticking to their guns and allowing the spending race to get out of control. At the end of the 2002 season car counts were in the mid-to-high 20's. Indy had bumping and there was no issue getting 33 cars. the very next season, 2003 (when Toyota and Honda entered) the car count immediatley fell to 18 and that strated several years of struggle just to get to 33 at Indy (and zero bumping).

[px400r]

They're not bad, what we're debating is the IRL/Tony George's abandoning of the original cost control aspects (the "vision") to allow Toyota and Honda to out-spend their rivals, wich forced out most of the original IRL teams as CART teams started to cross over.


At the end of the 2002 season car counts were in the mid-to-high 20's. Indy had bumping and there was no issue getting 33 cars. the very next season, 2003 (when Toyota and Honda entered) the car count immediatley fell to 18 and that strated several years of struggle just to get to 33 at Indy (and zero bumping).

If things were so great (as far as car count and affordability), then one has to ask why bother with Toyota, Honda, and the CART teams? Why were they (the IRL brass) so willing and eager to sell out their original "vision" (and teams) for the chance to become CART?

The answer, IMO wasn't about short track drivers, keeping costs down, or preserving some tradition. It was all about control of the sport. Tony George and the IMS couldn't stand the success that CART had- or the fact that Indy Car racing world wide had become synonymous with CART's brand of racing (short tracks, super speedways, road courses, and street circuits) along with the multitude of sponsors and manufacturers who poured money into CART's coffers.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

[Bob Riebe]

If things were so great (as far as car count and affordability), then one has to ask why bother with Toyota, Honda, and the CART teams? Why were they (the IRL brass) so willing and eager to sell out their original "vision" (and teams) for the chance to become CART?

The answer, IMO wasn't about short track drivers, keeping costs down, or preserving some tradition. It was all about control of the sport. Tony George and the IMS couldn't stand the success that CART had- or the fact that Indy Car racing world wide had become synonymous with CART's brand of racing (short tracks, super speedways, road courses, and street circuits) along with the multitude of sponsors and manufacturers who poured money into CART's coffers.

Nothing more. Nothing less.
By that point in time that was old news; the IRL had control of the only race that counted, and CART was dying.
CART had inherited what USAC had created, including road racing as USAC was road racing again two years before CART existed, but was no better at running it than USAC was.
The IRL won the battle and war but it seems cut of its own nose to spite its face.

[Chamoo]

The IRL won the battle and war but it seems cut of its own nose to spite its face.

I don't know that anyone won that war. The IRL won the battle because it had deeper pockets then the CCWS owners did, it was a battle of attrition, not a battle of smarts.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I don't know that anyone won that war. The IRL won the battle because it had deeper pockets then the CCWS owners did, it was a battle of attrition, not a battle of smarts.

OH so true Chamoo...Tony won a war based on outspending, not out thinking. If it was a battle of brains and wits, Tony would have not won...even with some of the facile and stupid people CART had running it over the years into the dumper....

IMO...Randy Bernard is the right man now however....