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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
Only YOU would turn this into an "IRL" versus CART argument. YOU, ScottyG, are the one who needs to get the freakin' chip off your shoulder and put this to bed. Any time some one dares mention the IRL without first putting on YOUR rose colored glasses, you trot out this same dead horse. Give it a damn rest already. The poor horse is long past rigor mortis.
Gary
Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
Gar, I wasn't the one who made the inflammatory comments in the post. I was just responding to the post. YOU (as usual) have made it personal. And the poster was the one trotting out the tired "dead-horse" IRL rants. But I guess that's OK, huh?
I know its cool now to just dump on anything related to the "evil" IRL. Hope you all get your jolly's on that. But just don't expect everyone to lap it up and not try and refute statements.
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Originally Posted by Chris R
We are talking about their skills at INDIANAPOLIS, remember.
Buddy Lazier was FAR from a "mid-field" talent at Indy. He kinda proved that in 2005, when he kicked most of the fields ass in a one-off Panther car. He was a natural at Indy in his prime. Ask the drivers and team members. They'll tell you the same thing.
The fact that he drove junk until he got into a Hemelgarn car (after Stan Fox's serious injury) in 1996, does not make him "mediocre". He more then proved his worth at Indy and has nothing to be ashamed of.
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Originally Posted by EagleEye
What a stinking load of BS. Look at EagleEye's quote above and please tell me how this is an inflammatory anti-IRL comment. It is a "anti-unfit driver who happen to have been in the series that the ENTIRE thread was about" comment. As always, when someone says anything derogatory about any aspect of the IRL, you want to turn it into an us against them argument. It is tiresome. Get over it and yourself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
Gary
(BTW my name is GARY not Gar. Trust me, we are not on friendly enough terms for you to be using such a shortened colloquial form.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starter
Knocking down your thoughts, one high curveball at a time:
-Davy Jones was "way past his sell date"? He was 32 years old in 1996. Hardly ancient. He was solid and was solid enough in the early to mid 90's to make the Indy 500, during the all-powerful CART era.
-Eddie Cheever was still at the top of his oval game in 1996. Was on the front-row at the 1995 Indy 500.
-Guerrero was not the same, I agree. But in the same class at Duno or Roth (which is what the original post was about) in 1996? Hardly.
-Lazier was never "so-so" at Indy. Above average there, at worst.
-Groff was only a CART "backmarker", because he drove for Antonio Ferrari's junkyard team and the SLLLLLOW factory Honda team. He was the CART ladder Indy Lights champion in 1989.
-Alboreto was one of those great "F1 stars" we love so much in Indy Cars now. Again, we were talking about Jack Miller types. Not even close.
-Gregoire made Indy 500's in the pre-1996 era.
-Dismore about killed himself in a piece of junk Arceiro car in 1991. He never got a shot in CART after that serious injury.
-John Paul was a solid, naturally talented race driver, before prison and after. Again, not in the Roth class.
-Arie was still a stud at Indy in the mid 90's. Anyone who thinks otherwise, is clueless. He was as fast as anyone in 1995, remember.
-Sharp was all of 28 years old in 1996. Hardly "washed up". He won the Daytona 24 hours after 1995. He had only run in one previous Indy 500 before 1996.
-Buhl was one of your CART ladder champions. I guess they weren't good enough to get hired or noticed by the CART owners back then too.
-Durant was a rookie. Of course he was an "unknown quality". Most rookies at Indy always have been and always will be.
-O'Connell was "fair". Again, is that better then Roth or Herb or Duno?
-Gosek was a rookie. See the Durant post above.
-Ongais was only in the race because of the Brayton death. I don't even count him. Brayton was so lousy at Indy, that he won the pole in 1995 and won it again in 1996. Very "Milka-esque".
Again, the original misguided post said that "75% of the 1996 field had no business in any sort of race car". As we can all see, that was totally ignorant. Were there SOME, that didn't belong? Sure. Just like there were SOME that didn't belong at Indy in 1990 or 1995 or 2000 or 2006 or 2010 too.
You CART-slurpers have every right to feel great about your series and even take a few shots at the IRL, every now-and-then. The IRL had its flaws that deserved criticism. But at least get your facts straight. The truth can be a kick in the 'nads' sometimes, when you are called out with actual facts. :p
CART had some great drivers and great racing. The IRL had some great drivers and some great racing. Now the ICS has some great drivers and some good racing (hasn't been that great in the past few years). We need to build on that and make the sport as great as possible.
You don't want a Milka or a Guido Dacco in the series? Don't license them. Pretty simple.
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Originally Posted by garyshell
Quote:
"She will hopefully be the last in a long line of IRL drivers who should not have been allowed to drive, let alone work on a car (Dr. Miller, Roth, Herb, Hattori, Mack and 75% of the '96 Indy 500 Field)"
Sounds like a shot at the IRL to me. We all know what it means. This is a constant mantra from the CART faithful. The IRL had all of these unfit, untalented drivers, who sullied the history of the Indy 500. The FACTS are, that there have always been unfit, untalented drivers in the sport, no matter whether it was CART, Champ Car, IRL, USAC or OWRS. Why wasn't Guido Dacco or Naoki Hattori or Prince Charles Nuerenburg or Dennis Vitolo or about 20 others mentioned in the quote?
Go back and look at the list of "all-time worst Indy Car drivers" that recently came out. There is a long list there.
Why weren't they? Because they weren't IRL drivers. Those same sort of hack drivers so derided by some, were a part of CART too.
The problem with only being good at Indy is that it does not do anything for Indy.... Michael Waltrip and Sterling Marlin were good at Daytona - are they great drivers? Did either one bring the Daytona 500 to a higher level?
I do not think Buddy was a "bad" driver - I just don't think he would have ever won Indy had the rest of the field been of the quality it had been the year before... Yes, he drove junk and never got to prove himself - he also won in what would have been "junk" the previous year - Hemelgarn was never a great team - they were never terrible - but even in the IRL they never set the world on fire on a consistent basis.....
I do not mean to slight Buddy or Eddie - they both won the race against the competition they were against - kudos to both - but it is pretty hard to deny that it is unlikely either WOULD have won had there been no temporary degradation of the field (both in terms of team and driver quality) due to the split....
So, yes, Buddy was a good Indy driver - but that does not mean he was a top notch racer everywhere... and while I generally agree with Scotty's contention that an Indy 500 win does "make" a driver more than any other win - it took a series of great drivers to "make" the Indy 500 and it takes a continuation of a supply of truly great all around racers (from all over the world if need be) to continue to build the legacy of the 500 - too many Laziers and Cheevers win the race in too many situations like that from 1996 to say 1999 or so and even the greatest spectacle in racing will lose some of its lustre and street cred....
In short, the drivers and series need the Indy 500 more on a short term basis than the race needs them - but without a continuous supply of the best drivers coming from the best series the race WILL eventually lose its appeal.... In the long haul, the race needs great drivers and a great series to support it just as much - it just takes a lot longer for the race to become "damaged goods"....
You are 100% right - the sport has always had more hacks than talents - but it is futile to deny that 1996 to 1999 (picking a random year when thing started to look up) that the IRL was pretty weak relative to the "norm" - they had less than the best drivers and less than exciting cars (1997-to arguably even today).... As the good teams slowly migrated back to Indy, the IRL picked up its game and by 2001 or 2002 between the rise of the IRL and the fall of CART the fields and equipment of both series were pretty "equal" and then it became a straight up fight over ideology and resentment over a destructive and pointless war..... By the time of the "merge" the IRL was clearly the better series by most measures and today it is more or less the technical equal of CART at its best (I doubt CART today would be any better quality than the IRL today even if there had been no split... it might have been more popular/profitable - but that is about it...)....Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
Is anybody here watching The Walking Dead on AMC? Pretty good series, IMO. But anyway, by your reasoning, the IRL has been dead for years, but just hasn't realized it. What you're saying (or how you're saying it) is like a fan of AIG arguing that he can see exactly why GM went bankrupt... while not fully realizing his own position.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
This is the fallacy believed by many (and repeated ad infinitum): because NASCAR was gaining in popularity by the early 80's (not the early 90's), that made CART's demise inevitable, even if the IRL/Tony George had never come on the scene. That is a fallacy because a business does not fail just because it is not the market leader. NASCAR's gain did not guarantee CART's failure. Even by the late 90's, Ford and Toyota didn't start to get cold feet until the average rating began dropping below 1.5. It was not necessary for CART to be as big or popular as NASCAR. It was only necessary for CART to meet its customer, stakeholder and fan expectations. Because they didn't do that, they failed. But there was nothing inevitable or fateful about it.
NASCAR's ratings advantage over the IRL is now MUCH greater than it had been over CART in the early 90's, or even CART in the mid 90's (minus the 500). I'm just going by objective data, not emotion.
There's no way to spin the FACT that the Indy 500 posted a record low Nielsen rating in 2010 or that the IRL has never turned a profit in 15 years of operation (AFAIK). But all this aside, we have what we have now. We'll never be able to go back. So we can either watch or not watch - maybe it'll get better, or maybe it won't. But fate and inevitability have NOTHING to do with 2012 or 2013... or any other year. And I thought EagleEye's OP was entirely reasonable. He wasn't picking on the IRL. People need to stop being so sensitive, IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris R
You are correct.
The big difference between the IRL and CART in 1996 through 1999, were the TEAMS. The TEAMS in CART back then were stronger and deeper and had more money.
The DRIVERS? I'd argue, there wasn't nearly as much difference as some think.
Look at the 1995 field at Indy. King Hiro was in that race. An aging Teo Fabi was in that race. Eric Bachelart was in that race. So was Lyn St. James. So was Carlos Guerrero.
Some of the drivers derided earlier (Zampedri, Sharp, Lazier, Roberto Guerrero, Luyendyk, Cheever, Matsuda, Salazar and Davy Jones) were all in that race.
Look at the 1994 field. Dominic Dobson. King Hiro again. Dennis Vitolo. Brian Till. Marco Greco Checko. Some of those other guys from 1996 were in that race too.
Not saying that the 1996 or 1997 fields were as deep or as talented at the top as the 1992 or 1994 or 1995 fields. That would be foolish. But they weren't nearly as hopeless as some like to remember. Because if you rip the 1996 field too much, you have to rip on the 1994 and 1995 fields too. Because many of those same drivers were in both.