The Owner's Meeting

[71Fan]

http://www.mikemulhern.net/index.php...-good-question

This little quote pretty well sums it up for me....

" And why wasn't Baldwin invited? "That was just for the rich folks," Baldwin said. "And they're facing some tough times. "

Anyways, I've always appreciated Mulhern's stuff and if this article doesn't sum up all that imo is wrong with na$ccar today, I don't know what does. It's the have's vs. the have-nots, and no way this side of Cucamonga are the have-nots even going to be allowed to play.

btw Mr. Hendrick, Cry me a river. Those guys in your employ who made you a gazillionaire have given you a lifetime of hard work and dedication. And you want to cut their wages? What an ass.

[Mark in Oshawa]

http://www.mikemulhern.net/index.php...-good-question

This little quote pretty well sums it up for me....

" And why wasn't Baldwin invited? "That was just for the rich folks," Baldwin said. "And they're facing some tough times. "

Anyways, I've always appreciated Mulhern's stuff and if this article doesn't sum up all that imo is wrong with na$ccar today, I don't know what does. It's the have's vs. the have-nots, and no way this side of Cucamonga are the have-nots even going to be allowed to play.

btw Mr. Hendrick, Cry me a river. Those guys in your employ who made you a gazillionaire have given you a lifetime of hard work and dedication. And you want to cut their wages? What an ass.

Since when did any form of racing have an equality standard? Did it ever occur to you that any of these owners were not once small fish themselves?

Ganassi didn't start off with a winning team, Richard Childress used to race his own car and drag it behind a station wagon. Hendrick's teams sucked for years until he figured it out, and it was HIS money that built that team. You going to tell me it is a crime to have money and own a race team?

This socialist notion (and that is what it is) that all the teams are equal is silly. The history of the sport has been filled with big buck operations using their money to win races.It isn't WRONG to win races and build a big team that can dominate. Go back to the very start, with Red Vogt's innovations being behind Red Byron's championships. Ole Man Parkes was writing a lot of big checks to win those championships. Karl Kiekhafer and his Chryslers and the factory supported Hudson Hornets followed.

How about Petty Enterprises? THey started with Lee Petty's sweat before coming a powerhouse team with STP and Chrysler money. They beat up on the competition because THEY had money. Junior Johnson wasn't a rich man, he build race cars beside his chicken coop but it was his ingenuity that won him races and then the money he was able to attract. All the rich teams started small....so for small team owners to whine they aren't getting a fair shake are just being losers....

This whiney suckey attitude that Tommy Baldwin has is just too much sour grapes. They had a meeting to stop spending stupid amounts of money because they were the ones DOING it. NASCAR I am sure wanted them to have this discussion....it is better if the teams have a consensus, and the teams have the most to lose...

[71Fan]

If the CoT isn't an equality clause, I don't know what is.

As for Tommy...sure ok, sour grapes. It still doesn't take away the fact that in any other business what they did would be called collusion.

[Mark in Oshawa]

If the CoT isn't an equality clause, I don't know what is.

As for Tommy...sure ok, sour grapes. It still doesn't take away the fact that in any other business what they did would be called collusion.

It isn't collusion. Are they meeting to divide the market? No...they compete on a race track, not for market share. Are they colluding to hold down driver's salaries? No...

What is more, all what was said in that meeting was pretty much in the hands of the press. They might as well have had Monte Dutton or Mulhern sitting there listening for all the secrecy. Tommy Baldwin's bleats are pathetic. He runs a start and park operation....this meeting was for teams that try to win....

[Jag_Warrior]

No offense, Mark, but over the past couple of years, I'd have to say that "socialism" is probably the most misused term that I'm aware of. Nothing about the notion that "all men are created equal" suggests socialism, does it? And inviting smaller teams, and giving them a voice, would not have made this a meeting of socialists. NASCAR/ISC owns most of the tracks and controls the entire sanctioning body. NASCAR, not the teams, owns the rights to the CoT. NASCAR makes ALL the rules and decides how revenue, apart from team sponsorships, is distributed. NASCAR even decides what sponsors are allowed into the series. NASCAR decides when they test and how often they can test. So unless the owners were trying to change how they fit into the means of production, the making of rules and/or the distribution of income, how exactly would this relate to socialism??? As far as I can tell, this was nothing more than an owners' meeting designed to gather cost cutting ideas. And IMO, the danger in just hearing from the very top teams is that (as always) those owners will only offer ideas which benefit them. CART was the most glaring example of that. And though I dearly loved the fast & furious, top shelf racing produced by that series, its management structure had some fatal flaws. Put a bunch of oligarchs in charge of anything, and they'll eventually screw it up. And as the IRL has shown, if you put the wrong dictator in charge of something, he'll screw that up too. IMO, NASCAR, like Formula One, gets a lot more right than it does wrong.

But at the end of the day, NASCAR will or won't take whatever comes from the owners, and NASCAR, and only NASCAR, will decide what's going to be done going forward. The CoT is basically a spec car that was mandated by NASCAR. Because F1 is my first love, I find it rather disturbing to hear owners complaining that someone shouldn't be allowed to have a lightweight dash or trick parts... even when they fit within the rules: like Jeff Gordon's "T-Rex" car several years ago. NASCAR told Hendrick that the car fit within the rules... but he was not to bring that car back to the track again. The team owners could begin wearing Che Guevara t-shirts and flying the hammer & sickle flag above their shops. Wouldn't matter! For better or worse, NASCAR is a dictatorship. But IMO, it would be better for the sport if NASCAR gets and considers ideas from top to bottom, rather than just the top.

[e2mtt]

Since when did any form of racing have an equality standard? Did it ever occur to you that any of these owners were not once small fish themselves?

Ganassi didn't start off with a winning team, Richard Childress used to race his own car and drag it behind a station wagon. Hendrick's teams sucked for years until he figured it out, and it was HIS money that built that team. You going to tell me it is a crime to have money and own a race team?

This socialist notion (and that is what it is) that all the teams are equal is silly. The history of the sport has been filled with big buck operations using their money to win races.It isn't WRONG to win races and build a big team that can dominate. Go back to the very start, with Red Vogt's innovations being behind Red Byron's championships. Ole Man Parkes was writing a lot of big checks to win those championships. Karl Kiekhafer and his Chryslers and the factory supported Hudson Hornets followed.

How about Petty Enterprises? THey started with Lee Petty's sweat before coming a powerhouse team with STP and Chrysler money. They beat up on the competition because THEY had money. Junior Johnson wasn't a rich man, he build race cars beside his chicken coop but it was his ingenuity that won him races and then the money he was able to attract. All the rich teams started small....so for small team owners to whine they aren't getting a fair shake are just being losers....

This whiney suckey attitude that Tommy Baldwin has is just too much sour grapes. They had a meeting to stop spending stupid amounts of money because they were the ones DOING it. NASCAR I am sure wanted them to have this discussion....it is better if the teams have a consensus, and the teams have the most to lose...

And to add to this very accurate post... never forget how quickly the rich can fall. Look at the recent fates of DEI & Petty Enterprises. Once the best, richest, & winningest, now sold & merged with other teams just so they could avoid bankruptcy.

Rule #1 of racing... Q. How fast do you want to go? A. How much money do you have?

Everybody's always going to use up as much money as they can raise. New rules aren't going to fix that. Loosening up rules & restrictions could make it easier for lower-budget teams to compete, at least more likely to occasionally run up front.

[I am evil Homer]

This socialist notion (and that is what it is) that all the teams are equal is silly.

You don't understand the tenets of socialism do you? So stop using the phrase because you make yourself look very silly, nay, kinda dumb.

[Mark in Oshawa]

You don't understand the tenets of socialism do you? So stop using the phrase because you make yourself look very silly, nay, kinda dumb.

What part of socialism have I missed? Socialism is always trying to knock down the rich and create an equal outcome. Tell me where I am wrong. In this case, everyone wants to b!tch and moan about the rich teams in NASCAR ruining the sport, and they must be stopped. How Rick Hendrick doesn't play fair because he has more money...or Joe Gibbs is spending Toyota money to wreck teh sport.

Socialism in racing is this idea that the big teams are somehow cheating or have an unfair advantage. I am not talking about socialism in society at large, but I we can argue THAT over in Chit Chat.

I understand perfectly well what socialism is, and those who wish to push it on people always say those who opposed it don't know what we are talking about. World history suggests we do...

[Jag_Warrior]

I read the article (twice) and I didn't see anything in it that met even the broadest definition of socialism. Sorry. Nothing was said about changing the prize money payout, so that the smaller/poorer teams would get a bigger share of the prize fund. Nothing was said about levying a tax/fee on the wealthier teams and and using that to support the poorer teams. Nothing was said about making the larger teams give the smaller teams some of their sponsors. Pointing out that there are quasi-oligarchs in racing is not socialism.

My point is this: if F1 has a team meeting and the only teams they get ideas from are Ferrari and McLaren, the input will be skewed to those ideas that benefit those teams, and ONLY those teams. Allowing Lotus, Virgin and Sauber to have a voice is not socialism. Not even close. And unless someone is proposing something which takes from the rich teams in order to give to the poor teams, the rubber band will break before one could stretch anything short of that to be "socialism".

[Mark in Oshawa]

I read the article (twice) and I didn't see anything in it that met even the broadest definition of socialism. Sorry. Nothing was said about changing the prize money payout, so that the smaller/poorer teams would get a bigger share of the prize fund. Nothing was said about levying a tax/fee on the wealthier teams and and using that to support the poorer teams. Nothing was said about making the larger teams give the smaller teams some of their sponsors. Pointing out that there are quasi-oligarchs in racing is not socialism.

My point is this: if F1 has a team meeting and the only teams they get ideas from are Ferrari and McLaren, the input will be skewed to those ideas that benefit those teams, and ONLY those teams. Allowing Lotus, Virgin and Sauber to have a voice is not socialism. Not even close. And unless someone is proposing something which takes from the rich teams in order to give to the poor teams, the rubber band will break before one could stretch anything short of that to be "socialism".

Hey I wasn't the one advocating all of them should be at the meeting, but it wasn't me also crying that Baldwin wasn't there wasn't "Fair" is taking on many of the socialist ideas that permeate society.

The top teams meeting to figure out ways to save money by not competing on certain ideas still has to be passed by NASCAR. NASCAR still holds the cards and determines how it regulates the competition.

I just found it funny someone thought Tommy Baldwin should have been there. He doesn't spend the money the guys at this meeting do on stuff like race day only crews and chartered jets. This is just good business....