What Happens Next?

sanguin, how you reach that conclusion logically is beyond my comprehension.

Laguna Seca was a favorite stop on the old PPG Indy Car World Series trail with a standing October date and CART even ended its season and held its banquet in Monterey once. Crowds were fine.

Then Pook switched the race to June for TV and it lost attendance drastically. Then someone tried to switch it back to September but the horse was out of the barn, attendance was minimal and CC gave up on it and threw together a street race in San Jose.

That turned into a nightmare of railroad tracks, under-the-table city subsidies, the subsidies getting yanked, Listwin tossing in the towel and CC saying it's going back to Laguna....in May...simply trying to save face from its screwups in the marketplace.

So, sanguin, I'd like to know the reasons you say Laguna will be bigger than Sonoma? Laguna wasn't when it ended before and the same bad date is in effect and San Jose wasn't when it ended, either.

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Originally Posted by sanguin

I did not say that.

:rolleyes:

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It was YOU who predicted that CC would launch a bold new marketing plan at this year's Laguna Seca Spring Training event. Unless that marketing plan was to not promote the series or cancel 3 races then YOUR prediction has been proven false.

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Originally Posted by sanguin

Yes ,thanks. In the context and dates in which they were said any intelligent person can understand what was meant. IMO, LS will be bigger than Sonoma. SJ lost out.

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Sanguin, that's why I posted the links INTENTIONALLY rather than just the quotes so everyone COULD see the context and dates.

Note, in the last message, your response to Cart 750. Note the context of his question.

Then note the date...about 48 hours prior to when SJ was cancelled and LS was announced.

Just sayin'...... :p :

Why do you guys even bother trying to make sense of Sanguin's posts?

We can see what his posts are about. The guy loves his CCWS, doesn't like the IRL and thinks all is rosy in the world of Champ Car.

His posts are completely biased one way and therefore lacking in any objective reasoning based on factual occurrences.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Sanguin is sitting at his keyboard giggling away at some of the replies to his posts.

JDS collapse headed for court
FIRM SAYS IT WAS VICTIM OF TECH BUST; LAWSUIT TELLS A DARKER STORY
By Chris O'Brien
San Jose Mercury News, 10/21/07

There may have been no more meteoric rise and fall during the tech boom than the one experienced by JDS Uniphase.

The fiber-optic company seemingly came out of nowhere in 1999 and, over a 20-month period, became a Wall Street darling that used its soaring stock to buy 11 companies. Then, just as suddenly, the company imploded in February 2001, going on to report one of the largest annual corporate losses in history, firing 83 percent of its workforce, and closing 29 offices and plants.

It might have remained a footnote of the era. But JDS is about to step back into an unwanted spotlight thanks to a shareholder lawsuit filed by the state of Connecticut that is scheduled for trial Monday in an Oakland federal courtroom.

The case may provide a verdict not only on a company, but on one of the most tumultuous moments of American economic history. Did investors simply get caught up in the hype of the bubble? Or were they deliberately deceived by unscrupulous executives in a position to cash in, as the plaintiffs allege?

Those questions prompted a surge of securities lawsuits in the wake of the Internet bust. Most were either dismissed or settled, their outcomes eclipsed by the more spectacular flameouts at Enron and WorldCom.

But JDS could be one of the first to reach trial. And one of the biggest business disasters people missed. Connecticut's lawsuit claims shareholders lost $18 billion on JDS. Since 1999, records from the state of California show that its largest public pension funds have lost more than $520 million on JDS stock.

The four JDS executives who are named as defendants sold $851.34 million in stock during that 20-month run, according to court records. They say they never saw the downturn coming. Instead, the company argues that JDS was the victim of an industrywide telecommunications bust.

"It's a simple story," said Jordan Eth, a JDS attorney. "The telecom industry thrived. And then it unexpectedly collapsed in 2001."

But Connecticut and its attorneys believe there remains a darker, untold story: They allege that JDS executives knew for months that the end was coming but did everything they could to hide the truth so they would have more time to sell stock and complete one last mega-acquisition.

At stake are perhaps billions of dollars, the future of a still struggling company and something far more elusive: the truth.

"The magnitude of the loss of shareholder value was enormous," said Catherine LaMarr, general counsel to the Connecticut state treasurer. "And it's why we consider this case so important."

1999 merger
JDS Uniphase was created on June 30, 1999, from the merger of two fiber-optic equipment makers - Uniphase of San Jose and JDS Fitel of Ottawa, Canada. The company would be jointly run by JDS's Jozef Straus, a Czech-born, beret-wearing engineer, and Uniphase's Kevin Kalkhoven, a buttoned-down Australian who drives race cars as a hobby. Kalkhoven may be best known today to San Jose residents as one of the main backers of the now-canceled Grand Prix. Both men have since left the company and are defendants in the case, along with former President Charles Abbe and former Chief Financial Officer Anthony Muller.

With joint headquarters in each city, the new company became the leading supplier of fiber-optic components to big telecom equipment companies like Nortel, Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems. And these companies were clamoring for fiber-optic equipment that delivered blazing fast Internet services by sending beams of light through glass wires.

JDS's stock rose 600 percent over the next year, creating a valuable currency that it used to acquire 11 companies. These acquisitions reached a climax when JDS announced an all-stock deal on July 10, 2000 worth a then-record $41 billion to acquire rival SDL.

Analysts swooned. JDS seemed like the closest thing to a sure bet. Its stock had raced up from $166 on a reverse-split adjusted basis on June 30, 1999, to $1,087.52 a share on July 26, 2000. It would never be higher. After trading closed that day, JDS was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 index - a fateful decision. Automatically, numerous mutual and pension funds that mirror the index bought millions of shares to add to their portfolios.

One year later, JDS's stock stood at $75.76 a share, creating larger losses than many funds suffered on either Enron or WorldCom stock. On Friday, JDS closed at $15.23 a share.

Between June 1999 and September 2007, for example, the California Public Employees' Retirement System lost $318 million on JDS, including losses on stock it had sold and the 1.2 million shares it still owns.

Throughout 2000, however, JDS executives said publicly and in regulatory filings that business was fine. The company closed its acquisition of SDL on Feb. 12, 2001. The next day, JDS announced that the good times were over: It warned that it would miss its profit estimates for the current quarter by 19 percent.

Over the next year, the company unraveled, firing 24,000 of its 29,000 employees. It announced a $38.7 billion write-off because the value of the companies it bought had fallen and said 75 percent of its inventory was worthless and could never be sold. JDS restated its earnings for the first three months of 2001.

But JDS's woes received relatively little attention compared with WorldCom and Enron - except from one politician thousands of miles away.

Waste Management
Since being elected Connecticut treasurer in 1999, Denise Nappier has been an aggressive watchdog on stocks held by her state's public employee pension fund. In 2002, her office won a $457 million settlement from Waste Management, at the time the third-largest securities litigation settlement in history.

Connecticut's lawyer in that case was Barbara Hart, whose New York-based firm is now called Labaton Sucharow. Just as the Waste Management case was concluding, Nappier contacted Hart to tell her auditors had noticed the state's pension fund had lost $65 million on JDS stock compared with just $17 million on Enron.

After consulting with Hart, Nappier decided she wanted the state to pursue litigation against JDS.

While businesses have frequently complained about the frivolous nature of shareholder lawsuits, the odds are stacked against successfully winning a securities litigation case, thanks to the securities reform act passed in the mid-1990s and championed by Silicon Valley.

Most are dismissed without ever reaching the point where a plaintiff can interview insiders or subpoena documents. And when cases aren't dismissed, companies usually settle.

Hart referred questions about the case to Nappier's office. But during a pretrial hearing last July, Hart said JDS insiders knew by April 2000 that the business was in trouble. Big customers were canceling orders and inventory was building up. JDS should have taken big write-downs that summer of its goodwill and inventory - signals that probably would have caused panic among investors.

Instead, the company continued to paint a rosy picture the rest of 2000, while executives continued to sell stock, Hart noted.

"What was to happen in 2001 was dramatically different than what they were representing to the public," Hart said in July. "And internally, they knew that."

End of the boom
Through its attorneys, JDS has maintained that the explanation for its downfall is both simple and innocent: A tightly networked telecom industry that had experience phenomenal growth for several years suddenly went off a cliff when customers abruptly stopped buying in early 2001.

"When the boom began to fade in 2001, JDSU and thousands of other companies saw their sales decrease and their stock prices decline," JDS attorneys wrote in court filings.

JDS argues that its executives believed every word they said throughout 2000 based on the information they had. After all, the company experienced seven consecutive quarters of increased sales through the end of 2000 and always delivered on the guidance it gave Wall Street.
As soon as executives began noticing problems in January 2001, company attorneys say, they disclosed them. And sale of stock by executives was conducted within the narrow and appropriate windows allowed by regulations.

During the hearing last July, JDS attorney Jordan Eth argued that Connecticut's case isn't alleging that revenue was falling during 2000 at JDS, but rather that growth rates were declining.

"It's like my 14-year-old is not growing as much as he used to," Eth said. "But he's not projected to shrink."

By continuing to fight, JDS is defying conventional wisdom. Experts can recall only a few securities cases out of thousands filed over the past decade that have gone through trial. Many observers say they still expect a last-minute settlement.

"If this case goes to a jury decision, you'd have a lot of people paying very close attention," said Lyle Roberts, author of a securities litigation blog called the 10b-5 Daily and a partner in a Washington, D.C., securities litigation firm.

JDS has not turned a profit since its heyday. It consolidated its headquarters in San Jose in late 2003 though it is now based in Milpitas. In the fiscal year ending June 2007, the company lost $119.2 million on $1.4 billion in revenue. And while the company has managed to hang on by expanding into business besides fiber optics, some observers wonder if it could survive an adverse ruling in a case where plaintiffs are claiming $18 billion in damages. In its most recent proxy, the company warned that losing could have a big impact.

"I think I'm a little surprised the defendants have let it go this far," LaMarr said. "There's a big risk for the defendants. But that's OK. We're ready to go to trial."

FCR, you could be right. I've never seen anyone here as inaccurate.....maybe to the "fire up the troops?" If so, doesn't seem to be working when we have a discussion and flames it out.

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Originally Posted by FlatChatRacer

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Sanguin is sitting at his keyboard giggling away at some of the replies to his posts.

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BINGO!

The converstation seems to be stalling out here on my favorite thread so in honor of Halloween, I have decided to once again rise from the Cyberdead. Just call me DrJack-The-Cipper.

Don't you just hate it when, once a month, great Champ Car racing at a wonderful venue (and a fourth consecutive Championship won) interupts our idle speculation against the vaccum of fact that now surrounds our favorite series?

So, now that we are all back to waiting an eternity for the next race we can all go back to pondering "what happens next".

We all have seen the hard denials by both sides of the wild rumors coming out of Australia about an unlikely V-8 Super Car and Champ Car mega-alliance that some hoped was being forged as the lastest "plan" to resurect the Champ Car World Series.

But don't fret! This week we have two potentially scary events: The JDS Uniphase Class Action lawsuit (see the Autoracing1.com homepage), has started and is scheduled to run another 17 days. Then there is the FIA World Council meeting in Paris on Wednesday (tomorrow) where I imagine Champ Car will give some clue about the schedule and International events.

Even Derrick Walker was recently wondering "what happens next?":

"The proof in the pudding as to if the series will be around in '08 will not be whether or not we produce a schedule between now and Mexico City. The series can announce anything it wants. It doesn't mean it is a commitment. That entices sponsors and networks stability and shows a commitment to the schedule and philosophy of the series. If we are wrestling with a schedule for next year a few weeks before the end of our fourth season, then the sponsors and the networks are going to ignore us into obscurity. Another year of pounding sand and losing money is not what we needed for year 2 or 3, and especially not year 4. Asking for one more would be a tall order from the owners who are sick of the malaise."

Stay tuned. I have a feeling it is about to get more interesting.

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Originally Posted by DrJackMiller

The converstation seems to be stalling out here on my favorite thread so in honor of Halloween, I have decided to once again rise from the Cyberdead. Just call me DrJack-The-Cipper.

Don't you just hate it when, once a month, great Champ Car racing at a wonderful venue (and a fourth consecutive Championship won) interupts our idle speculation against the vaccum of fact that now surrounds our favorite series?

So, now that we are all back to waiting an eternity for the next race we can all go back to pondering "what happens next".

We all have seen the hard denials by both sides of the wild rumors coming out of Australia about an unlikely V-8 Super Car and Champ Car mega-alliance that some hoped was being forged as the lastest "plan" to resurect the Champ Car World Series.

But don't fret! This week we have two potentially scary events: The JDS Uniphase Class Action lawsuit (see the Autoracing1.com homepage), has started and is scheduled to run another 17 days. Then there is the FIA World Council meeting in Paris on Wednesday (tomorrow) where I imagine Champ Car will give some clue about the schedule and International events.

Even Derrick Walker was recently wondering "what happens next?":

"The proof in the pudding as to if the series will be around in '08 will not be whether or not we produce a schedule between now and Mexico City. The series can announce anything it wants. It doesn't mean it is a commitment. That entices sponsors and networks stability and shows a commitment to the schedule and philosophy of the series. If we are wrestling with a schedule for next year a few weeks before the end of our fourth season, then the sponsors and the networks are going to ignore us into obscurity. Another year of pounding sand and losing money is not what we needed for year 2 or 3, and especially not year 4. Asking for one more would be a tall order from the owners who are sick of the malaise."

Stay tuned. I have a feeling it is about to get more interesting.

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I think we'll see what's next when the schedule comes out for 2008. Problem is, CC takes way too long. Add to that, they now have a history of putting events on there that later get cancelled. That's not exactly confidence inspiring with the fans or sponsors. If I were them, I'd come out with a schedule of reliable domestic (that being North American) and solid foriegn dates, and announce the other prospective dates when confirmed in granite. The IRL's schedule is out already I believe, which means that teams can start chasing sponsors. The CC teams can't really secure a sponsor on spec, no sponsor with a brain will do that. Fix this one thing and CC would look better right away.

Agree, Chap. And I don't know why I think this other than just the general trend at various places, but I don't think, at this point, that even a tentative CC schedule is even close to reality. Bob Garage posted seven races or so he thought would be "good" on another thread, and with the exception that I still believe Vegas is history, I can't see any further than he did.

Where's the link to that quote?

it's passed around the IRL forums with no source.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Agree, Chap. And I don't know why I think this other than just the general trend at various places, but I don't think, at this point, that even a tentative CC schedule is even close to reality. Bob Garage posted seven races or so he thought would be "good" on another thread, and with the exception that I still believe Vegas is history, I can't see any further than he did.

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IC ,its been reported that the schedule is waiting for FIA approval.

Yep, that's what been hazily reported here and there.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Agree, Chap. And I don't know why I think this other than just the general trend at various places, but I don't think, at this point, that even a tentative CC schedule is even close to reality. Bob Garage posted seven races or so he thought would be "good" on another thread, and with the exception that I still believe Vegas is history, I can't see any further than he did.

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This is my main point. CC can't afford to wait so long on a schedule, they would end up shooting themselves in the foot. Wait too long and the sponsors lose interest, and without any funding coming in, that means cash strapped teams might come to the Amigos for cash and they said that garvy train has run aground. If it came out right now, the teams would have at least a fighting chance to get some support.

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Originally Posted by indycool

Yep, that's what been hazily reported here and there.

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Umm, since the formation of OWRS/CCWS, when has the FIA approval ever been mentioned as a reason for the late announcement of the schedule? Since the schedule has been put out late EVERY SINGLE YEAR, why is it only this year that it's being used to make us believe the delay is legitimate? Maybe because of the China debacle? I mean it certainly can't be because the series has to have so many races outside of the US just to survive, is it :)

That's why I said "hazily." :)

In case you missed it-

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The Champ Car World Series officials have confirmed to PaddockTalk that their calendar will be released within the next few weeks.

The 2008 Champ Car calendar is currently being reviewed by the FIA, who are due to meet to ratify the schedule.

It would be reasonable to expect that Champ Car are double and triple checking their events to avoid race cancellations that have plagued the series over the last couple of seasons.

Champ Car staff were cagy about the details, but they were confident that they will have enough cars on the grid next year.


PaddockTalk Perspective

Be patient race fans, the new schedule will certainly be an interesting opportunity to see Champ Car's direction, and what it will mean for its future.

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http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html...icle&sid=69619

Oh.

Hey Guys,

No need to worry. Sanguin has set everything straight with his post in case we missed it.

I didn't miss it and read it on another site. However I will wait patiently to see this final schedule and what it looks like. As I have said before, the contents of the schedule will be the clearest indication of what lies ahead for the series in 2008.

Funny, every other significant racing series has posted their schedules and many (most) need FIA approvals. Smoke and mirrors.

The FIA world council met yesterday. The calendar should be approved now (or not).

Should we expect an announcement today then?

The FIA approved the Singapore race for F1 as the first night race in F1 history yesterday, per AR1. When are they scheduled to discuss/approve the CC schedule if it has been submitted?

apparently... they meet last week in October. CC schedule and "superleague formula" schedule should both be up for approval that week.

Bob, do we know for sure if CC has submitted one? I remember your post on it that listed seven events (including Vegas, which I don't think will happen), and I couldn't name any more than you did. Certainly CC knows the deals they're making better than us, but.....

theres been no official statement to say it has, but from interviews with cc officials you can gather that it is with the fia and approval is all we are waiting for before an announcement.

I would expect a schedule announcement first week of November. if not certainly before mexico. If we don't get a schedule before mexico i would be worried.

As for the dates i posted, they are the confirmed ones. They were either announced when the ALMS schedule was and confirmed as double headers with Champ Car or confirmed by ticket renewals etc. Vegas date i posted was on the vegas website, but has since been removed, hence the speculation around the event.

You can work out what the schedule will look like. an educated guess would give you something like this:-

6th April - Vegas (originally confirmed on website but no longer there)
20th April - Long Beach (Confirmed)
27 April - Houston (Confirmed)
20 May - Laguna Seca (Confirmed)
3rd June - Euro 1 (possibly nurburgring)
8 June - Euro 2 (Belgium or another)
22 June - Cleveland
29 June Mt. Tremblant
6 July Toronto (Confirmed)
20 July Edmonton (Confirmed)
10 August - Road America (Confirmed)
31 August - Euro 3 (UK, France, Greece?)
7 Septemebr - Assen (speculation based on dates mentioned by the track at this years round)
12 October - Dubai/Barhain/China
19 October - Sufers Paradise
9 November - Mexico

Items in bold are confirmed dates. The rest is of course all speculation.

That would elave out Portland. But they could move china/dubai/bahrain back to after the surfers round and have portland in mid-September if they were to keep it. Or they could keep it in its currentl slot and have just oen euro trip.

We'll know for sure in a week or two ;)

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Originally Posted by BobGarage

theres been no official statement to say it has, but from interviews with cc officials you can gather that it is with the fia and approval is all we are waiting for before an announcement.

I would expect a schedule announcement first week of November. if not certainly before mexico. If we don't get a schedule before mexico i would be worried.

As for the dates i posted, they are the confirmed ones. They were either announced when the ALMS schedule was and confirmed as double headers with Champ Car or confirmed by ticket renewals etc. Vegas date i posted was on the vegas website, but has since been removed, hence the speculation around the event.

You can work out what the schedule will look like. an educated guess would give you something like this:-

6th April - Vegas (originally confirmed on website but no longer there)
20th April - Long Beach (Confirmed)
27 April - Houston (Confirmed)
20 May - Laguna Seca (Confirmed)
3rd June - Euro 1 (possibly nurburgring)
8 June - Euro 2 (Belgium or another)
22 June - Cleveland
29 June Mt. Tremblant
6 July Toronto (Confirmed)
20 July Edmonton (Confirmed)
10 August - Road America (Confirmed)
31 August - Euro 3 (UK, France, Greece?)
7 Septemebr - Assen (speculation based on dates mentioned by the track at this years round)
12 October - Dubai/Barhain/China
19 October - Sufers Paradise
9 November - Mexico

Items in bold are confirmed dates. The rest is of course all speculation.

That would elave out Portland. But they could move china/dubai/bahrain back to after the surfers round and have portland in mid-September if they were to keep it. Or they could keep it in its currentl slot and have just oen euro trip.

We'll know for sure in a week or two ;)

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It has been announced elsewhere that the schedules have been approved for all FIA member series, including CCWS, but that it has not been released yet...we should know soon.

according to FIA website the world motorsport council met yesterday. their news item only confirms schedules for FIA run series. I guess we'll have to wait for CC to make the announcement for their schedule now....

Time will tell, but I cannot imagine that all the non-North American dates are etched in granite, signed, sealed and delivered and if, in fact, the FIA has a CC schedule, I would think there are some races in the "China" mode of '07. IMO, some reasonable reporter should call the FIA and ask what the status of the CC schedule is.

If I had a contact point, I'd do that myself...

Ok. The World Motor Sport Coucil met yesterday, Wednesday Oct. 24, and approved the Formula 1 schedule for 2008, news of which was released by the FIA. See http://www.autosport.com

Now, we will see how long it takes for Champ Car. See if the holdup really is the FIA/World Motor Sport Council.

Sorry I'm skeptical about the reason(s) for the delay in the release of Champ Car's 2008 schedule. Actually, I have no reason to believe that it'll be released any time before the first "scheduled" race of 2008. We didn't know who most of the drivers were going to be and who they were going to race for until they went out for first practice that weekend. Why should I expect anything different for 2008?

And please, this is not doom-and-gloom. Just being realistic based on all past performances by the series.

Me too, Chap....I don't either.

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Originally Posted by DrJackMiller

So, now that we are all back to waiting an eternity for the next race we can all go back to pondering "what happens next".

We all have seen the hard denials by both sides of the wild rumors coming out of Australia about an unlikely V-8 Super Car and Champ Car mega-alliance that some hoped was being forged as the lastest "plan" to resurect the Champ Car World Series.

But don't fret! This week we have two potentially scary events: The JDS Uniphase Class Action lawsuit (see the Autoracing1.com homepage), has started and is scheduled to run another 17 days. Then there is the FIA World Council meeting in Paris on Wednesday (tomorrow) where I imagine Champ Car will give some clue about the schedule and International events.

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Next week its AAPEX and SEMA. Will Champ Car be there again this year?

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Originally Posted by pits4me

Next week its AAPEX and SEMA. Will Champ Car be there again this year?

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They aren't listed as an exibitor.

Looking at the the celebs list, the only two CCWS-related participants listed are Graham Rahal (can't remember where he was) and Paul Tracy, who is at the Sherwin Williams booth right after Michael Andretti.

By the way, someone with at least a basic knowledge of web-based database applications needs to take a serious look at the SEMA site. That's terrible! Some of the pages I looked at took over 10 minutes to load, and my ISP seems to be clicking along pretty good tonight.

In keeping with the original theme of this thread, "What Happens Next", well I see a lot of posts referring to confirmed races for 2008.

So, indeed it does look like there will be 2008 season. However, does anyone know if the schedule has been officially released or are the other posts just speculation and rumour?

Some tracks and ALMS have announced schedules but CC has said nothing.

By all accounts Champ Car is holding nothing back for the season finale in Mexico City. So if Champ Car has the biggest awaited news of the Fall, it would makes sense to me to announce it there.

Hi Everyone, long time lurker, first time poster….and I’m a Champcaroholic.

First let me state for the record, I have never watched an entire IRL or NASCAR race.

This thread sure has taken some twists and turns, but Dr. Jack’s question remains “what happens next”. I’m not an insider, just a long time fan. I watched the series last year with child-like glee, it reminded me of the early 90’s. The Tracy/Tags/Seb antics, the great AJ story, Kat’s scary crash and subsequent smile’n wave…great stuff. Things were looking good for CC, I really thought so anyway. Heck, they were even on mainstream TV sometimes. The plan was coming together!

In one year the series went from that….to where we are now. Sure, there were some negatives last year - cancelled race, lost AJ to the dark side – but things were looking good, or maybe ignorance was bliss in my case. New cars were on the way, higher car count promised, new races (Vegas streets no less) and new sponsor deals in the works. What we got instead was more cancelled races, more lost drivers, less cars on track, less sponsors and a team shutting down. Sure the new car is good, but the intention was to bring in more new teams as well as better racing. Ok, maybe this year is just a set back. Maybe this time next year we’ll look back and say “wow, things were really bad there for a while, sure glad Kevin knew what he was doing” But I don’t think so.

I’ve always thought CART/CC would be there forever, this year is the first time I have ever questioned that. It is truly sad what’s become of the once mighty IndyCar series, but that doesn’t change what I see as the inevitable. Only one top level AOW series can exist, there just isn’t room for two. Whose fault it is for this predicament doesn’t really matter anymore does it? TG, Bernie, the France family, the Amigo’s, they all played their part I suppose. From a fan’s perspective I don’t really care. All we want is good racing at good venues with good drivers that we know and can cheer for, period.

IMO what should happen next is the much talked about merger, not a take over. What shouldn’t happen is for the two sides to sit around and wait until one or the other goes out of business. That doesn’t make sense. Both series have something to offer right now, and both would benefit from a merger. One side may have more to offer than the other, leave that to the arbitrators to decide. If KK and TG really care about AOW then they should do what’s right. It’s time to heal, they were all family once…years ago. Like an awkward family squabble, both side need to swallow their pride and do what’s right. For the good of the sport and out of respect to the fans, I hope they can find a way to make it work.

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Originally Posted by calacan

...IMO what should happen next is the much talked about merger, not a take over. What shouldn’t happen is for the two sides to sit around and wait until one or the other goes out of business...

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Actually, is there a good reason for TG to not sit around & wait for CC to go out of business, even it means risking the IRL?

Think about it. As I remember, the idea for CART came around, in part, because Tony Hulman had no interest in helping to promote the rest of the Championship series because he thought that it would detract from Indy.

If BOTH series die, then what are we left with? Just the I500. Right where we started before CART came into existence. TG wouldn't have to help prop up the IRL anymore.

What would be the downside for TG?

IMO, they won't BOTH go out of business. TG founded the IRL as a series centered around the "500" and that point hasn't changed. CC picked up the assets of CART and is doing its thing...for better or worse, that point hasn't changed, either.