Tony George resigned

Look all I'm saying is that CART is at least as much at fault for all of this as TG. And I don't understand why everyone only piles on one side or the other. They are BOTH at fault. It would be nice if the old CART boys could put down the sword and see that CART was not ever perfect. Indy and CART both needed each other. That is painfully obvious.

But lets take a look at things from the late '94-'95 time frame. CART did NOT run at Indy. CART had nothing to do with Indy. CART adopted simmilar rules to the USAC rules at Indy, and as such they were allowed to run there. Another way to see things is that Indy, pre-'96, was a stand alone race. TG (right or wrong) wanted to enhace Indy by becoming part of the board of CART and making Indy/CART one unified deal. CART told him to fly a kite. So he did and started his own series. At that point, and this is the part that no one ever wants to acknoledge, is that NOTHING HAD CHANGED. CART still had there series, completely unchanged. They were still allowed to run at Indy just as they had been allowed to for the previous 16 years.

It was CART who went and started their own race that started the downward spiral. They could have just as easily left well enough alone, gone to Indy in '96, beat the pants off the IRL guys and the whole experiment would have been over in about a year or maybe two.

Bottom line is that TG has some fault, probably about 50%, and CART shares the other 50%. All this TG is the devil because he started his own league just denies the facts.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

At that point, and this is the part that no one ever wants to acknoledge, is that NOTHING HAD CHANGED. CART still had there series, completely unchanged. They were still allowed to run at Indy just as they had been allowed to for the previous 16 years.

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Look up 25-8 and get back to us if you still believe that ridiculous statement.

Gary

Hey Gary, know what's almost as ridiculous? Curt Cavin of the Indy Star in a recent column talking about Our Good Friend Tony George's abdication. He called TG the "driving force" behind last year's reunification efforts. Yikes...

I wonder how much Mari and the Sisters Three had to do with TG finally going along with it?

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Originally Posted by garyshell

Look up 25-8 and get back to us if you still believe that ridiculous statement.

Gary

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I looked it up and here's what I found. It's from 1996 so it does not have 15 years of urban legend misinformation spin on it that has been perpetuated on some forums. Please feel free to dispute any of the following;



FICTION: Twenty-five of the 33 starting spots in the 1996 Indianapolis 500 have been guaranteed to IRL teams.

FACT: There are no guaranteed spots in the Indianapolis 500 field. If a top-25 car in IRL owner points after the Phoenix 200 enters and completes a four-lap qualifying attempt at Indianapolis within a percentage (to be determined) of the pole speed, the car's in the show. EVERYTHING ELSE STAYS THE SAME.

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FICTION: The first 25 positions in the Indianapolis 500 field are reserved for IRL competitors.

FACT: No individual starting positions are reserved in the field. As stated above, EVERYTHING ELSE STAYS THE SAME. The pole is decided by the fastest qualifier either on the first day or after the original qualifying line is completed, whichever comes last...the same as 1995 and before.

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FICTION: The first 25 positions in the Indianapolis 500 field are reserved for IRL competitors.

FACT: No individual starting positions are reserved in the field. As stated above, EVERYTHING ELSE STAYS THE SAME. The pole is decided by the fastest qualifier either on the first day or after the original qualifying line is completed, whichever comes last...the same as 1995 and before.

FICTION: CART car owners and drivers have been "locked out" of the Indianapolis 500.

FACT: No drivers or owners have been locked out of any IRL event, including the Indianapolis 500, in any sense of the words. All CART owners and prospective IRL team owners received entry invitations for the first IRL event at Orlando. All CART and IRL teams will receive entry invitations to the Phoenix 200 and Indianapolis 500. Accepting or declining to enter is up to them.

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

within a percentage (to be determined)

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Those are the operative words in that statement. Do you honestly thing that the determined percentage would have excluded any IRL car? But even if it had, it is obvious this plan was created to maximize the number of IRL cars and limit the number of outsiders, "guarantees" or not. It was a clear and distinct shot across the bow. The shot that perpetrated the US500. The 25-8 rule and the US 500 were BOTH stupid, idiotic moves by egos larger than their corresponding brains.

Gary

Call it what you want. It was not without precedent. In fact, it was a page out of the CART rulebook:


FICTION: The percentage allows an unfair governing procedure as to who makes the field.

FACT: Percentages of the pole time to ALLOW cars in fields have been part of rule books for years, very similar to the IRL rule, in order to protect the quality of fields. The IRL rule does just that, and at the same time offers a "perk" to the top cars in IRL owner points. In CART during 1995, the figure was 115 percent for all races. (Source: 1995 IndyCar Rule Book, Chapter 6.17.1, page 20, which states: "Eligibility. In addition to the requirements set forth herein, a race car or driver that has not demonstrated the ability to run with consistency and safety with other competitors at a speed greater than one hundred fifteen percent (115%) of the time posted by the fastest qualified race car and driver during practice or qualifying for a competition, may be denied a starting position for that competition by the Chief Steward.") Both Formula One and IMSA have also had percentage procedures in their histories.

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Originally Posted by garyshell

Those are the operative words in that statement. Do you honestly thing that the determined percentage would have excluded any IRL car? But even if it had, it is obvious this plan was created to maximize the number of IRL cars and limit the number of outsiders, "guarantees" or not. It was a clear and distinct shot across the bow. The shot that perpetrated the US500. The 25-8 rule and the US 500 were BOTH stupid, idiotic moves by egos larger than their corresponding brains.

Gary

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

Call it what you want. It was not without precedent. In fact, it was a page out of the CART rulebook:


FICTION: The percentage allows an unfair governing procedure as to who makes the field.

FACT: Percentages of the pole time to ALLOW cars in fields have been part of rule books for years, very similar to the IRL rule, in order to protect the quality of fields. The IRL rule does just that, and at the same time offers a "perk" to the top cars in IRL owner points. In CART during 1995, the figure was 115 percent for all races. (Source: 1995 IndyCar Rule Book, Chapter 6.17.1, page 20, which states: "Eligibility. In addition to the requirements set forth herein, a race car or driver that has not demonstrated the ability to run with consistency and safety with other competitors at a speed greater than one hundred fifteen percent (115%) of the time posted by the fastest qualified race car and driver during practice or qualifying for a competition, may be denied a starting position for that competition by the Chief Steward.") Both Formula One and IMSA have also had percentage procedures in their histories.

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You really are a piece of work. The CART rule applied to the ENTIRE field. It was a safety rule meant to exclude the likes of the driving dentist, not an addendum to some method of maximizing the number of CART participants and excluding others. The % clause was there as a lame attempt (probably suggested up by some lawyer) to make it look like there was not a quota system being put in place. It was as transparent as a piece of glass.

You can spin the 25-8 rule all you like and keep trying to re-write history. We all know what it was, why it was and what it caused.

After the split was formalized how many other races that the IRL ran had any sort of speed percentage rule?

BTW you never answered my question, do you think that an announced percentage ever would have exclueded a single IRL car?

Gary

You're just blowing smoke, DTD. The 25-8 rule wasn't a percentage rule designed to protect the speed integrity of the fields during qualifying, it was put into practice before qualifying to make sure a specific portion of the field (25 spots) who had committed to the IRL series exclusive priority to those 25 positions. Doesn't matter how the IRL spinned it back then, that's what it was. That was the reason for CART's boycott. The 25-8 rule was in place for two years, 1996-97, before being cancelled.

Speaking of research, here's some I did, with the sources indicated after posting:

* Jump ahead to the mid-1990s. Tony George, whose family owns Indianapolis Motor Speedway and remains closely associated to USAC, is frustrated with the F1-like dominance of a few wealthy teams in CART and the fact that the owners also run the sanctioning body. He announces that the 1996 Indy 500 will operate as part of his new Indy Racing League. George’s implementation of the 25/8 rule, which allows only eight spots on the Indy 500 starting grid for teams that don’t compete in the IRL’s races, is seen by CART owners as proof of ill will. They call it a lockout and schedule their own race, the U.S. 500 at Michigan, on the same day in 1996. -- Jeff Olson, SPEEDTV.com, 2/23/2008

In 1995, George announced that 25 of the 33 starting positions at the 1996 Indy 500 would be reserved for the top 25 cars in IRL points standings (similar in practice to NASCAR's Top 35 rule introduced years later). The move effectively left only eight starting positions open to the CART-regulars. CART's reaction was to boycott the race, and they staged a competing event, the U.S. 500, on the same day. Veteran Buddy Lazier, won a competitive but crash-filled 1996 Indy 500. The U.S. 500 was marred by a massive opening lap pileup. The competing U.S. 500 failed to establish itself as a major event, and was cancelled after only one running. -- Answers.com

The 25/8 Rule Is Gone
INDIANAPOLIS: Leo Mehl, executive director of The Indy Racing League, announced this morning that the much publicized twenty-five/eight rule will no longer be in effect after this year's Indy 500. The rule was implemented in 1996. It guaranteed that twenty-five spots for the Indianapolis 500 would be held for series regulars, leaving only 8 spots in the field for "at large" participants.
Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) used the rule as a basis for their boycott of the 1996 and 1997 Indy 500. Mehl said the rule was necessary. It was used by the IRL as an insurance policy. The rule showed a commitment by the IRL to the teams that wanted to participate in the series. Mehl said that the 33 fastest qualifiers will start the 1998 Indy 500. -- Terry Callahan, 5/24/97, The Auto Channel

This confirms what the 25-8 rule was, as spoken by then IRL exec. director Leo Mehl. TG stacked the deck in the IRL's first Indy 500 so its teams would have most of the field. When the IRL spec G-Force and Dallara bodies and Infiniti and Oldsmobile engines were firmly established in 1998, that's when TG went back to the normal procedure to give starting spots to the fastest 33 cars...as long as they used, of course, IRL specific equipment which were NOW different from CART's. --Chap66

* May 1996: The 25/8 rule, which guarantees spots in the field for IRL teams, is applied to the IRL's first Indy 500. CART boycotts the race and stages its U.S. 500 at Michigan International Speedway on the same day. Buddy Lazier wins Indy. Nobody remembers who won the U.S. 500. (OK, it was Jimmy Vasser.) -- Preston Lerner, 2/24/2009, Automobilemag.com

You can blow all the smoke you want, DTD, quote abitrary rules all day, but there is no disputing what the 25-8 rule was, which is exactly what Garyshell said it was, Tony George's method of stacking the deck of the Indy 500 for the IRL, the first real shot in a 14 year war to destroy CART/Champ Car. Your "facts" are lacking in any logic or basis in reality.

According to the rule book, yes, it was possible.

I'm sorry if the facts are not as you want to remember them or if they don't fit the "Everything CART did was great & everything TG did was awful." mold. But the reality is the percentage rule that the IRL had was no different, in fact, than the rule that CART had.

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Originally Posted by garyshell

BTW you never answered my question, do you think that an announced percentage ever would have exclueded a single IRL car?

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

According to the rule book, yes, it was possible.

I'm sorry if the facts are not as you want to remember them or if they don't fit the "Everything CART did was great & everything TG did was awful." mold. But the reality is the percentage rule that the IRL had was no different, in fact, than the rule that CART had.

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CART/Champ Car was guilty of many mistakes and stupid blunders on its own, but the issue here is the 25-8 rule. The CART rule is VERY different, the 25-8 rule on the IRL's part was a calculated exclusionary rule to protect its own @$$.