Panther Racing Owner Fined

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Originally Posted by Starter

They probably could have hired a couple of high school kids and gotten a reasonably respectable website up over the winter AND on the cheap.

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I *think* it was for Long Beach back in the mid-late 90's, but do you remember when CART or its TV partner did a nice intro piece for a race? It had a kind of avant garde feel to it. Wasn't that done by some film school students? Sure, it might cost a bundle to get SoftPauer to do a live timing & scoring app or for Remy Sharp to design a site for them. But as you say, even a reasonably competent high school computer science student could have built them a basic site that would have served the purpose. The web is no longer new. This isn't or shouldn't be hard. But hard or not, it's necessary!

I want to see the sport grow. As one who cheered heavily against the IRL, I now want to see this series grow and be successful. So just as I was critical of the stupid things that CART did (and I was a HUGE fan of CART), it's frustrating when I sense that the ICS is devoting any amount of time to silly, meaningless things and not (yet) fixing the things that actually do matter.

Just my 2c's...

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

Well, now that they've killed this fly with a sledgehammer, maybe they'll get around to fixing the website (something that should have been done before the season started) and getting on to truly important things. I've just not heard that team owner insubordination was a real concern for prospective or current sponsors. But I don't know. I would think that ratings, or lack thereof, mean more to them.

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Spot on Jag. For all the talk about momentum the series has, it hasn't translated into anything meaningful for the TV ratings. They are as stagnant and miserable as ever. Nothing will ever really change if they can't get on top of this.

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

I've just not heard that team owner insubordination was a real concern for prospective or current sponsors. But I don't know. I would think that ratings, or lack thereof, mean more to them.

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I personally know of one sponsor who has backed away because of the ICS lack of control of what the owners and drivers say.

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

I personally know of one sponsor who has backed away because of the ICS lack of control of what the owners and drivers say.

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What was it, specifically, that caused such concern?

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Originally Posted by anthonyvop

I personally know of one sponsor who has backed away because of the ICS lack of control of what the owners and drivers say.

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Possibly so. But my guess is, they could easily make up for that lone lost sponsor if they were capable of delivering sufficient sponsor exposure value. But it's been several years since I worked for a company that sponsored cars in an American formula car series. And the reason that last company left was because of declining viewership and ROI/sponsor value... not because someone said something mean about some other competitor or the series. If that was really a concern among sponsors, half the drivers/teams in NASCAR wouldn't have sponsors. And my former company (along with many others) did end up going to NASCAR. So there's that...

Many moons ago, I got a chance to attend a sponsor conference down in Charlotte. I had nothing to contribute. I think my company sent me just to get me to shut up about racing participation. But anyway, I learned quite a bit. And I have to say, not once did anyone mention anything about "owner insubordination" being an issue. The behavior of drivers, especially off-track, was listed as a sponsorship risk... but nothing about insubordination.

And BTW...

IndyCar tabs retired Indiana Supreme Court justice to hear Chevrolet appeal

Wonder if Indy Car will now try to fine GM and put them on probation? Wonder how that would turn out? Hey, I'm just saying if they want to imitate CART, for goodness sake, at least imitate the things that CART did right... not the things that contributed to the downfall.