The 2009 IndyCar Series schedule:

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Originally Posted by MDS

Have you looked at the schedule? Watkins Glen, Infineon, Homestead, St. Pete, Infineon, Edmonton and likely Tornoto are all money losers. Chicago and Kansas aren't promoted because there's no need since the hold NASCAR fans hostage to get them to buy tickets. Mid-Ohio and Motegi are Honda Company picnics. Milwaukee and Richmond are at best a marginally profitable. So that leaves what, Indy, Surfers and Iowa as profitable, healthy events?

Moving Homestead to the fall a few weeks before the NASCAR finale is just moronic. The race was a boring affair in front of a bunch of Malboro smokers who got free tickets. How is making it the last race of the season any better?

I don't want the schedule to look more like Champ Car, I just want to be better and more exciting. Most ovals offer parade-style racing and courses like Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio just don't create good racing with these cars, but I suppose as long mega-rich companies are willing to bleed cash to put them on you'll support it.

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You are the classic example of a CC fan that will never be happy with anything TG or the IRL does. If I were the IRL I wouldn't even try. You are in that .01% that has it in for TG & will hold a grudge till the grave.

The IRL isn't going to try & keep you as a fan. Because nothing they ever do will make you happy.

Agree, dd. The CW brethren are depleted further, and even at full strength, the IRL cannot spend an ounce of energy trying to placate that group. It is gone. Period. It. Over. There are millions of others to appeal to.

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Originally Posted by indycool

This event WASN'T a "Hey, we're going to Zhuhai and 500 million Chinese are gonna care."

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You keep referencing Zhuhai like it was standard operating procedure. There was a lot more that went on with that race than what has been made public. One of my exes worked for a marketing company that was involved in setting up the deal, and while he doesn't know everything, and hasn't told me all he knows, he did say that there was a promoter, sponsor and season long TV package ready to be announced, and literally hours before the press conference the Chinese government shut the whole thing down.

Why? I don't know. Was it pressure from F-1 and the FIA? Maybe, probably not. Was it a result of complex regional politics within China unhappy with the ever expanding American presence in that country? More likely.

This wasn't just Keystone Cops moment. KG and GF know how to run a business and make international deals. This involved forces far outside of Champ Car. The loss of face, time, money and momentum of the whole Zunhai disaster is one of the causes for the merger. I do know that.

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Originally Posted by indycool

MDS, congratulations on an understanding of markets. You get an "A" in reading market population lists and an "F" in how racing schedules come together.

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An "F" according to your scale of measurement. What qualifies you to be judge, jury and executioner?

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Originally Posted by indycool

There are many elements to a schedule: Promoter, sanctioning body, venue, weather, dates, TV, where sponsors want to be, where competitors want to be, where fans want to be, etc. If all those elements strike a bargain, you are likely to have a successful race. If it was just to take a list of the top 50 markets, say "okay, NYC is No. 1 so we'll go there," any sport would do it in a heartbeat. But ISC already struck out building a track there and CART's efforts at the Meadowlands were a disaster.

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Meadowlands disaster? Like many other cities including Seattle where NIMBY politicians have undermined the concept due to undisclosed outside influence? I guess as close as it is, Watkins Glen isn't that big a deal for New Yorkers or New Englanders. F1 couldn't do it, CART couldn't do it, and your suggesting your uncle Tony has the magic formula for success? Maybe its his checkbook!

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Originally Posted by indycool

Iowa? Newton is just down I-80 from Des Moines, a city with the second largest number of insurance company headquarters in the nation behind Hartford, Conn. Near Des Moines are the Knoxville Nationals, one of the premier events in sprint car racing in the nation and an event with a long racing history. IMO, it should not be dismissed as a bunch of hayseeds.

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Or hayseed growers? I thought we were looking to develop a fan base for American Open Wheel Racing. I thought the Grays Lake Park circuit idea was interesting.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Houston? A loser, financially. Loudon? Probably in 2010. Cleveland? A loser, financially. Portland? A loser, financially. It's still a question of who dropped who on Nashville and I'm not convinced that both sides, promoter and sanctioning body, just couldn't agree on money. Vegas? Lost money on both IRL and CC at LVMS, lost a TON with CC downtown, enough that the promoter it talked into it canceled his other race in Phoenix.

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Are Houston, Clevelend, or Laguna Seca much different than Watkins Glen when it comes to a being a "PROFITABLE" event by your standards? Whatever they are? Care to elaborate?
IIRC you also said Long Beach was a financial disaster when it was CC's marquee event. Do you still refuse to acknowledge the negative impact Dover had on events managed by the LBGPA. Denver, St. Pete's, Laguna Seca and Gateway? Just wondered.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Did you/do you expect all of that, the top 19 markets, to just be knocked over in a nice tidy row in six months' time and throw out the rest? If so, you knock out the Indianapolis 500 because Indianapolis isn't in the top 19, even though it contains the world's largest seating facility and the world's longest standing auto race.

Richmond? Draw a circle 100 miles around Richmond on your atlas and see what you find.

Pikes Peak? It's closed. Period. All gone. No more. Brazil? What good does that do American sponsors for teams and series? CART's teams and sponsors complained in the late '80s and early '90s when it was making noise about going abroad. Surfers? Mexico City? Same thing. Don't think Mexico City even has a promoter now. Motegi? Honda and Firestone, two of the major sponsors, want it and they get it.

Six months to execute all of your wonderful options would be next to impossible, even if venues suddenly sprouted up in NYC and elsewhere on your target list and were following the IRL like a Pied Piper to your doorstep.

This will take time and, IMO, you will never be pleased with it.

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At least we have a pied piper in Honda to prop things up in the mean time.

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

You are the classic example of a CC fan that will never be happy with anything TG or the IRL does. If I were the IRL I wouldn't even try. You are in that .01% that has it in for TG & will hold a grudge till the grave.

The IRL isn't going to try & keep you as a fan. Because nothing they ever do will make you happy.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Agree, dd. The CW brethren are depleted further, and even at full strength, the IRL cannot spend an ounce of energy trying to placate that group. It is gone. Period. It. Over. There are millions of others to appeal to.

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Both of you ought to stop assuming that because someone disagrees with an ICS decision that they are of the CCF ilk. I disagree with the ICS on some of this stuff and I sure as hell am not one of the CCF crowd. I have my countdown to prove it. I also have the grudge and indeed will hold it until the grave, however it does not and will not prevent me from moving on. I think there are more than .01% with that grudge. I also think that the ICS knows that and can overcome it too. I think they have demonstrated that with among other things, the embrace of Edmonton, Long Beach, Surfers and getting Paul Tracy into a car.

I agree there are some of those CCF type folks still around, but question how many of them actually post HERE. There are a few, to be sure. But don't make that blanket assumption.

Gary

MDS, fine, Zhuhai wasn't all CC's fault. But CC's principals were bragging about getting it and beating the drums long before it went blooey. KK and GF know how to put together an international deal? For racing? Ansan, too? Brazil?

Starter, Cleveland might've had a good start, but that went away with Frascoesque sanctioning fee manipulations. The Meadowlands, sounds like you pretty much know what I know. The thing about temporary courses is how many seats they build for attendance and how much GA room they have. The Meadowlands had very little of each. Long Beach has had the most seats of ANY temporary and you'd be surprised to know that figure.

weefly:
1. IMO
2. I've never suggested TG could do anything about NYC. I've never suggested that I've seen anything anywhere that he even wanted to.
3. Those hayseed growers pack 'em for the Knoxville Nationals and corporate support can come from Des Moines. There's a lot of money in that town. Otherwise, I don't understand your b---h.
4. Houston and Cleveland ARE different. Laguna is a fine road course. All three were economic victims of CART/CC in some form. And sure Dover had a big part to play in some of those.
5. So you're not pleased that Honda and Firestone sponsor things. Tough.

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Originally Posted by garyshell

Both of you ought to stop assuming that because someone disagrees with an ICS decision that they are of the CCF ilk. I disagree with the ICS on some of this stuff and I sure as hell am not one of the CCF crowd. I have my countdown to prove it. I also have the grudge and indeed will hold it until the grave, however it does not and will not prevent me from moving on. I think there are more than .01% with that grudge. I also think that the ICS knows that and can overcome it too. I think they have demonstrated that with among other things, the embrace of Edmonton, Long Beach, Surfers and getting Paul Tracy into a car.

I agree there are some of those CCF type folks still around, but question how many of them actually post HERE. There are a few, to be sure. But don't make that blanket assumption.

Gary

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I call them like I see them. I wasn't lumping in all former CC fans. I was specifically addressing one fan and the comments they made. I don't take it back.

What do you think the chances are that if we were to go through MDS's posts over the last few years that before the split they said they would never, under any circumstances, support any series that TG was in charge of? Pretty good odds I bet.

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

I call them like I see them. I wasn't lumping in all former CC fans. I was specifically addressing one fan and the comments they made. I don't take it back.

What do you think the chances are that if we were to go through MDS's posts over the last few years that before the split they said they would never, under any circumstances, support any series that TG was in charge of? Pretty good odds I bet.

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Seeing as how MDS didn't join here until June of 2008, that's a very big assumption on your point. And that is precisely my point. You jumped on his comments as if you knew that he was one of the CCF crowd you are talking about. But you don't know that at all. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. That's not calling 'em like you see 'em, it is calling 'em like you want to see 'em. Or more to the point, like you ASSUME you see 'em.

If we are to truly get past the bad blood that has existed for years, it is going to take more than just the old Champ Car fans getting over the fact that the ICS won the war of attrition. It is going to take some of the old IRL fans having some patience, instead of calling everyone who doesn't agree with you a member of the CCF community.

Gary

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

I call them like I see them. I wasn't lumping in all former CC fans. I was specifically addressing one fan and the comments they made. I don't take it back.

What do you think the chances are that if we were to go through MDS's posts over the last few years that before the split they said they would never, under any circumstances, support any series that TG was in charge of? Pretty good odds I bet.

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Because you asked.
CCF
I think that was the first internet forum I ever joined

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Originally Posted by MDS

Because you asked.
CCF
I think that was the first internet forum I ever joined

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Because many of us are banned from there (including me) you might want to quote the message here.

Gary