Tony George

[TerryH]

Has anyone been more detrimental to open wheel racing in the history of the sport? I will say he did good getting Nascar at Indy, but he ruined the Great American Race when he started Indycar and he continues to create havoc at every turn.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_sp_bk_ne/car_f1_indianapolis_4;_ylt=AraGXGX.PYYp_e1RYVleVu4 E1vAI

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Fine, bring it to Long Beach instead. ***** Tony George.

[Rearden]

There's only so much of his family money he can justify transferring to Bernie.

I remember when the Indy 500 meant something. No more.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by Rearden
There's only so much of his family money he can justify transferring to Bernie.

+1

Bernie's a little greed-head twit.

[CurtEgerer]

As much as I think a return to LB would be cool, I don't see it as a realistic option. F1 on a street course?? How could it possibly meet current FIA requirements? (Monaco is 'grandfathered' in of course).

Without Indy, I'd say there will be no F1 in the US for some time. Laguna Seca, maybe. Aren't they doing a bunch of work out there right now? Maybe FIA modifications?

[Aerkuld]

Funny, but I had this opinion of TG a while back, but then I was involved in CART at the time.
His creation of the IRL was one thing, but changing the rules of eligability for the Indy 500 purely to boost his IRL series was what took the interest away from the race for me. Ultimately I guess he got what he wanted - CART reduced to a shadow of it's former self and several of the major teams moving to the IRL. I always thought that CART was a great series. The challenge to the drivers and teams of having to run such different tracks was enjoyable. I never did watch IRL. I suppose TG hoped to pull the viewers over from CART along with the teams, but from my point of view all it achieved was that I don't watch either.

[dd74]

Originally posted by CurtEgerer
As much as I think a return to LB would be cool, I don't see it as a realistic option. F1 on a street course?? How could it possibly meet current FIA requirements? (Monaco is 'grandfathered' in of course).

Without Indy, I'd say there will be no F1 in the US for some time. Laguna Seca, maybe. Aren't they doing a bunch of work out there right now? Maybe FIA modifications?

F1 ended at Long Beach when? In the early '80s. And CART/Indycar or whomever races there yearly, so I don't see why it couldn't happen again. No, Bernie suffers the same as any other big circus promoter (which F1 is - a circus). He wants the most buck for the bang, and both LV and NY have tons of buck.

Never mind the fact both George and Bernie have screwed the F1 fan on this one. I've also read Montreal as well will no longer have an F1 race, so at this point all of North America is left without an F1 presence.

I wonder what the manufacturers are saying now. Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Honda - all have huge markets in the U.S., but no top-shelf racing presence.

All-in-all, a stupid move by two very conceded narrow-minded men. On top of it, I think Bernie has a genuine dislike of the United States.

[tonypeoni]

If Bernie keeps greedily running F1 he will destroy the sport. In my opinion hes far worse than Tony. Heck the last two years I haven't watched a single race and they visit (used to) my town every June. Last year Bernie really showed F1 is nothing more than part of a banking institutions stock portfolio. His allegiance is to F1s stockholders not F1s fans. I hope F1 and the FIA dies.

[Neal Boysen]

Tony George has totally ruined open wheel (Indy/Champcar) racing here in the states with his IRL baloney!

My friends and I attended 15 years of CART/Champcar events at Laguna Seca before they (Champcar) moved to San Jose on a street course. What a joke! After that I have totally given up on Champcar or Indy car for that matter!

CART in the late 80's, early 90's rivaled F1 and everything else, now the whole open wheel thing is just a shadow of what it once was, it is a damn shame.

So now my interest is roadracing, Rolex seris and Grand Am. I have always loved the roadracing but I got to tell you CART in it's heh day was just awesome! Long and short ovals, road courses, and great street courses made it the best all around racing worldwide! Made Bernie nervous!

And now F1 won't be back at Indy, for whatever that was worth! But the bottom line is yes Tony George has ruined open wheel racing in the US;

IRL: Big names but no one cares...

Champcar(or whatever it is called now): who are those guys
i.e. where are the big names...

And now F1 won't be back at Indy.

Can anyone do more ruin open racing? I don't think so!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Rolex series is freekin' awesome. I was stoked that they had 'em here last year. Unfortunately they didn't have them this year (they were able to get ALMS instead), so I suppose if Rolex was going to get bumped for anyone, ALMS is okay to do it. Personally I'd like to see 'em kick out the drifting bull***** and other "filler" crap they do, get ALMS/Champ Car/Rolex and Toyota Atlantic in here for the LBGP. Or they could just get F1 back and I could go to my grave a happy man.