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I think Tony has done a good job at IMS, attendance has stayed even or improved in the last 2 years despite the economy. The smart move seems to be give Tony IMS and get some PR management pros to handle the IRL. The opposite sounds like a disaster to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MilkaDunoFan
I couldn't agree more
"Some track promoters feel the IRL hasn't done enough to support other races because George felt it would detract from the Indy 500. If so, it's flawed logic. One great event can't keep a league viable."
If this is true, and everything going back to the split suggests it is, then I would be very concerned if TG was solely in charge of the series that for many years he's simply used as a prop for the 500. NASCAR certainly benefits from Daytona (and Talladega to a similar extent) but their series has a very solid support for every race on the calendar. I do feel like a lot of IRL races are treated as second-rate events. The IRL has even admitted this, and said it's up to the local promoters to get the races in peoples faces... well, it's not working.
How would we know if attendance is up, down or unchanged? The track refuses to EVER give out those stats. I'd say from the TV coverage showing all the empty seats in the grandstands behind pit lane, it would be difficult to say they were up this year, unless there was a bumper crop in the infield. The latter being impossible to guess from the TV coverage. So maybe they were up, but to state this as if it were FACT is just not possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by MilkaDunoFan
Gary
from where I was sitting (across from pit in)....i could see all the way from turn 3 thru 4......the infield corner 'burm' in 4....all the way down inside of the main straight... and the what can be decieving becuase it's a 'across shot' of the main grand stands.... and turn one into the first short chute...Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
compared to the screen grabs from the telecasts the past 2 years which showed huge gaps of aluminum it certainly looked like attendance was up this year
Someone answers your post , then you resort to proclaiming to know their political allegiance by using the derogatory Dem instead of democrat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Riebe
As for Limbaugh, he knows nothing of political science and the mere fact that you think/believe he does is proof enough on it's own.
Recall "send them down the river" relating to drug users
"Go take those bones out of your nose" to a black caller.
"I hope he fails" regarding the sitting president"
I have many more of the $40 milllion dollar a year joke for a political whatever he is. They don't call his listeners, dittoheads for nothing. I'd much prefer bobbleheads.
As for Miller. His piece yesterday sums most everything up.
I was in the same seats this year and last. There are in the top of the North Vista. I can see 3-4-some of the front straight. What I saw was that the seats were about the same level of "fill" this year and last. But the infield this year was absolutely packed. So I would say attendance was up at least a bit. Plus it took like 4 hours to get from 65 to the north 40 on 30th street. Last year it took less than an hour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken
I think it's a crapshoot either way, whether TG runs IMS or the IRL. But maybe if he concentrates on one or the other, he might come through. Come to think of it, maybe he'd be better off running the IRL. If he ran IMS, and he percieved the people who would run the racing series were beginning to de-emphasize Indy, we might go through this BS all over again...his mother and sisters are starting to look very sharp.
Chaparral66,
I think that's why the team owners wrote that letter in support of Tony George. I don't think that they're all in love with him. But if he gets taken out at IMS, how will they race? Where will they race? After all the years of speculation back & forth, we've recently had confirmation that the IRL has been a money loser since Day 1. And Tony himself has now admited that his sisters have never given the IRL their full and consistent support. So if he loses his ability to fund his pet (money losing) project, his failure to build the IRL into a profitable business, after 15 years of operation, could put the current IRL teams in a very bad spot.
At least for right now, Penske, Ganassi, AGR and ALL the others need Tony to be able to access IMS's "checking account." The IRL, on its own, is basically just another CART/CCWS waiting to happen. And this talk of a title sponsor being just around the corner has been around for years, and has now gotten rather old & tired. The NASCAR truck series found a title sponsor before Craftsman left. The Busch Series is now the Nationwide Series. Grand Am has Rolex. NHRA has Powerade. The IRL is still talking about the prom date that still hasn't happened... but any day now, she's gonna say "yes". The family seems to be at the point of saying "sh## or get off the pot!". As we've said on here before, that's just the free market in action. Though I think the person who used to say that a lot was applying it to CCWS, it applies equally to the IRL or any other business.
IMO, the IRL needs to come to grips with reality. Currently it remind me of Forsythe and several of the CCWS guys refusing lower sponsorship offers because they felt that taking less than $4 or $5 million would "devalue" their teams. Team Owner X: "This is what it costs! I won't take a cent less than what it costs!" Sponsor Y: "Well, I guess that's really nice and all... but I'm going to only offer you what I think it's worth." And we know how that turned out. But in this brave new world, I have a financial term for the IRL and Mr. George to ponder: "mark to market". Learn it. Live it. Love it (painful though it may be).
Ah, "mark to market". I was a principal in a service bureau for money market funds back during the Carter administration when interest rates went through the roof and dollars under management was doubling each month. That term, "mark to market" rose from the SEC and sent shudders through every portfolio managers bones at the prospect of having to do this on a daily basis. It was sweet music to my ears as it meant my customers were suddenly in NEED for a system to automate that process. But in digress...
I wonder if the series sponsorship or lack thereof is hinging on this point.
Gary