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I'm guessing you mean "Tres Amigos/Champ Car at its best", since CART at its technical best had multiple chassis manufacturers (4 or 5?) and 4 engine manufacturers.... with engines in the 900hp range. From what I can gather, the current IRL car is technically in about the same league as a GP2 car (in terms of hp/weight). But yeah, CCWS became a mandated spec series and that's what the IRL is now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris R
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris R
-Michael Waltrip and Sterling Marlin are known and will always be known for winning the biggest stock car race on the planet. That is all that matters. They were good at the race that means the most in NASCAR. That means much more then being good at Loudon or Homestead. Same deal as a guy like Justin Wilson who might be really good at a Toronto or a Mid Ohio. That's swell, but in Indy Cars, its about Indy. And I'd rather be Buddy Lazier then Justin Wilson for that reason.
-That's fair. But we haven't had "the best" in Indy Cars in 25 years. If we had "the best", then Jon Fogarty would have been here instead of Dani Patrick. Alex Gurney would have been here. Jon Edwards would be here. Some of the best American oval racers would be here. Currently, we have none.
So do we degrade anyone who has won a Indy 500 in the past 25 years because of that? They have all done it against weaker fields and weaker top talents, then the drivers of the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's did.
-Yes, Buddy was a good Indy driver. That's really the only argument being made.
I am not ure the fields of the last 25 years were any worse than past fields - the past gets rosier the further away it is... As we have both said - the field has always had as many hacks as real talents.... I don't see how the past was any different.....
You are right about the race making the driver - but the drivers (over many years) also made the race... the legend cannot be sustained by the likes of Waltrip, Marlin, Lazier and Cheever.... Take a guy like Rahal - only a 1 time winner - sure Indy made him a household name (in as much as any of these guys are or ever were "household names") but he made that name more by being a winner outside of Indy - and he made Indy more by being a multi-time champion in his sport. Sure - no Rahal and Indy is still just a big - but if you take away all the Rahals (Rathman, Murphy, Clark, Hill, Donahue, Montoya, Lockhart, Ruttman, Andretti etc. ) than the Indy 500 is significantly less than it would be with them collectively.....
Guys like Lazier, Cheever, Luyendyk, Wallard, Robson, Sullivan, Roberts, etc. just don't build the 500 like these other guys did...
By the same token, guys like Horn, Mays, Mi. Andretti were almost as famous as if they had won the 500 because they DIDN'T....
Do not feed the trolls!
EagleEye started this thread to talk about the IndyCar year in review. (You remember IndyCar, right? It is the ONLY series that exists at this point.) And then good old ScottyG gets his panties all in a wad because of some off handed comment about Milka not belonging in the series and comparing her to other previous IRL hacks. He then proceeds to hijack the thread and turn it into another one of his tirades of us versus them and how glorious the IRL was and how horrific CART and ChampCar was and how dare EagleEye mention IRL hacks without giving equal time to CART/ChampCar hacks. Well who gives a rats ass? That was then, this is now. The thread was about the past year of IndyCar nee IRL.
Can we take all this other BS somewhere else, another thread maybe or preferably someplace else entirely like TF or some other place I don't bother to visit because all they want to talk about is the IRL/CART war and who was more virtuous. :s nore:
Stats: the original message + 5 others about it, then ScottyG's off topic rant and 19 other messages surrounding it.
Gary
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starter
You bet you can, my friend!
Gary
fair enough - my bad.... (although I do enjoy these rather pointless discussions.... :D
good - Randy, close title fight, generally decent racing, new car announced, Chevy and Lotus announced... best season for good news in years
bad - tv package (in terms of market impact). still pretty stagnant technical package. Danica mania continues....
ugly - Milka being allowed to "compete". Andretti Autosport looking pretty weak during post season announcements etc... KV Racing....
Foregive my naivete' but did Tony Hulman do something in OW other than promote his own race? Granted, rescuing the speedway is pretty high up there but I was of the opinion most people believed OW was much more than just the Indianapolis 500.Quote:
Originally Posted by EagleEye
More than the Indy 500???Quote:
Originally Posted by Wilf
Be prepared to be vilified!!!
No IRL driver has won a 500 since the top CART teams started running the Indy 500, and (Robby Gordon should have won in 1999...'nuff said.)
I'm guessing you were either not present or had your head stuck in your, er the sand at the mess that was the 1996 Indy 500. I will not mention the mess that was the 1996 Disney race, which was a miracle at all.
Had there not been a 25/8 rule, the race would have been won by one of the Target Ganassi drivers, and dominated by CART. And to be honest I was being quite generous by saying only 75% of the drivers, as the number that did not belong was probably much higher. I think the others here have done a fair job evaluating the hacker, er, drivers in that race. And I do agree with you that save for Della Penna, Walker and Menard there were no strong teams taking part.
But I have to fill in some facts from your IRL induced amnesia, I think those drivers did run into each other with devastating results (check youtube of the last lap crash of the 1996 500) which is something that is missed by most IRL homers, er, devotees.
True, CART had many ride buyers and hacks in the day. Hated it! Speed covered it well with the top ten list of all time worst drivers for both the IRL, CART, Indycar by several diffferent writers. I agree with every one, though they left off Mack.
My post was about this past year, but I will make a comment on the biggest farce of your post:
Really? NASCAR, pulling away? Interesting spin, er, point. Let me see, the most watched race in 1995 was, the Indy 500 (with I believe a record TV rating). The number one watched race in 1996 or 1997 (after the split), was the Daytona 500. With rating of about half of the 1995 Indy 500 TV rating. Soon, the 500 would fall behind multiple NASCAR races, again, well after the split.Quote:
Originally Posted by Scotty G.
Indy 500, 1995...all tickets offered by the speedway were sold out in June, 1994. Indy 500, 1997.....tickets available the day of the event....which is still the case today.
The most money paid by a TV network to televise a race series? Indycar, in 1995. Surpassed by NASCAR....again, after the split.
Miller has again and again been spot on. He bashed CART back in the day (do a google) and was equally astute at chastising the joke that was the IRL. There is a good reason (and support) that RB is kicking the IRL name to the curb. There is also a good reason why RB hangs out with Robin....and not just for the fine food at the 'mug-n-bun.
Not trying to pick a fight with you, as you have had some very good posts in the past, that I believe were spot on. This one though, was a miss, wide left!