2011 Indianapolis 500

I'm not sure I can agree with the level of apparent outrage some people are displaying about this. Look at HRT last season and the musical chairs between Senna, Chandhok, Yamamoto and Klein. Not exactly the same situation, but still money buying rides and displacing incumbent drivers. It's always gone on and always will. I've no idea what Foyt's funding situation is, but maybe enough cash changed hands to see Bruno reappear later in the season or again next year, who knows? It sucks he's not driving, but then you could argue he's not a series regular and as such was always going to be viewed as disposable. I'm assuming he bought the ride to start with?

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

I will explain it to you one more time. Try to pay attention.

In the case of both Mario and Goodyear the drivers replaced were both driving for the same teams as Mario and Goodyear and were aware that their job was to get the car into the race.
No seat was Purchased.
No Grid position was filled by the "highest bidder"

In the current case we had a driver receiving a starting grid position for the Indy 500 for a team that wasn't his and until qualifying was over wasn't even planned!

Get it????

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I get it perfectly. RHR, DHL, Foyt, Junky, and Andretti came an amicable agreement which is perfectly legal within the rules as written and the spirit of the rules, and has been done many times before, on who would run in the race. You on the other hand .....

Yup. Another example of "Indycar bad/whatever was before Indycar good." Same thing with the people complaining about low skill level ride buyers. This is something that has always gone on & if you were to go through each and every one of the fields since the race started there is almost always a few no name guys in each race that sort of got in through means other than their raw talent. It has always happened and always will.

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Originally Posted by hornet

I'm not sure I can agree with the level of apparent outrage some people are displaying about this. Look at HRT last season and the musical chairs between Senna, Chandhok, Yamamoto and Klein. Not exactly the same situation, but still money buying rides and displacing incumbent drivers. It's always gone on and always will. I've no idea what Foyt's funding situation is, but maybe enough cash changed hands to see Bruno reappear later in the season or again next year, who knows? It sucks he's not driving, but then you could argue he's not a series regular and as such was always going to be viewed as disposable. I'm assuming he bought the ride to start with?

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Originally Posted by chuck34

I get it perfectly. RHR, DHL, Foyt, Junky, and Andretti came an amicable agreement which is perfectly legal within the rules as written and the spirit of the rules, and has been done many times before, on who would run in the race. You on the other hand .....

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And I on the other hand thinks the rule sucks and all that manufactured drama on "bump day" was just that....manufactured.

I wonder how many defenders here would feel the same way if instead of RHR we were talking about Milka Duno by a starting spot.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

And I on the other hand thinks the rule sucks and all that manufactured drama on "bump day" was just that....manufactured.

I wonder how many defenders here would feel the same way if instead of RHR we were talking about Milka Duno by a starting spot.

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If you think that the Andretti cars sucking was done on purpose to "manufacture drama" ... well then I think we're done here. It's hard to talk to someone with paranoid delusions.

And do you honestly think that AJ would let Milka anywhere near his car, no matter how big the check is? Thanks for proving my point of this being a racing decision, not solely a money deal.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

And I on the other hand thinks the rule sucks and all that manufactured drama on "bump day" was just that....manufactured.

I wonder how many defenders here would feel the same way if instead of RHR we were talking about Milka Duno by a starting spot.

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Of course, were there only 28 cars on site, precluding the need for bump day and thus the chance of this sort of drama, you'd be singing the praises of the race wouldn't you? No, you'd be on here whining about the series being weak and how having more entrants than qualifying spots was the hallmark of popularity....

Bottom line: It's the car that gets qualified. It's a fairly straight forward rule. It can only be driven by a driver who has been qualified to run at Indy. Everbody knows the rules and apparently Bruno, who should be the most upset by this whole affair, is okay with it. He apparently knew the rules going in.

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Originally Posted by downtowndeco

Yup. Another example of "Indycar bad/whatever was before Indycar good."

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This rule was around long before IRL\Indycar. Tony George was starting his failed motorsport career on a Big Wheel when it was brought into effect.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

I wonder how many defenders here would feel the same way if instead of RHR we were talking about Milka Duno by a starting spot.

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If you qualify to run at Indy -- you qualify to run at Indy. I get your point but that's a different issue entirely.

I can live with this rule for this race alone. With the NASCAR like restart rules this year I'm just grateful we don't have those absurd "Past Champions", "Past Winners" and "Best Smoked Ribs" exemptions that make NASCAR qualifying a joke.

Ok, I can live with AJ Foyt changing out his driver, in a car that his team qualified. However, when i hear details like AJ will get to use Andretti's crew, payoffs, etc. it rubs me the wrong way. That driver trades have happened at Indy for a while does not make it any more reasonable to me, and the nitty gritty of this particular deal seems even more unsportsmanlike than the usual. It won't really affect my enjoyment of the race, unless by some chance RHR happens to win, in which case I will be pretty annoyed with Indycar.

You can replace a driver who qualified with one who didn't because it's the car that qualifies--indeed that's the rule, but that doesn't make it right.

Michael Kinsley has postulated the First Law of Scandals, which is that it's not what happens that is illegal that's a scandal--it's what happens that actually is legal. His idea is validated here.

People are too fixated on how long this rule has been in place--slavery was legal for centuries, and it took 55 years after African-American men got the vote before women of any color did. I would love to hear someone claim that it was OK that women didn't have the vote because they'd known for 54 years that was the rule...

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Originally Posted by Will Rogers

You can replace a driver who qualified with one who didn't because it's the car that qualifies--indeed that's the rule, but that doesn't make it right.

Michael Kinsley has postulated the First Law of Scandals, which is that it's not what happens that is illegal that's a scandal--it's what happens that actually is legal. His idea is validated here.

People are too fixated on how long this rule has been in place--slavery was legal for centuries, and it took 55 years after African-American men got the vote before women of any color did. I would love to hear someone claim that it was OK that women didn't have the vote because they'd known for 54 years that was the rule...

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Oh please! This is just a little bit of hyperbole, don't you think? Swapping a driver, slavery and women's sufferage aren't even close to being in the same category.

Gary