Indy 500 ... irrelevant?

[spnited]

So I'm channel surfing and what do I stumble across on ESPN2 but pole qualifying for the Indy 500. I didn't even realize today was pole day at Indy.

I remember when Indy qualifying was a major event in itself... 5-6 hours of coverage on ABC, 150,000-200,000 fans at the Speedway.
Now... 2 hours on the deuce (poker on ESPN!) and virtually empty grandstands.

So, did Tony George effectively kill off his own once-golden goose?

 

[JBHawkEye]

He didn't kill it, but he injured it.

The feud with CART in the mid-1990s came at the time NASCAR started to really take off. Poor timing.

Don't get me wrong, IRL has good racing. It's just not as many people notice because of NASCAR.

 

[93Devil]

In America it ranks with horse racing, tennis and boxing as sports that were once great and automatic SI covers, but now have fallen well behind X Games, poker, IFC and NASCAR.

It's just not that viewer friendly or SportsCenter friendly.

 

[spnited]

NASCAR is more viewer friendly than Indy?

Poker is exciting to watch ... like watching grass grow?

IFC? You're kidding, right?

X Games? Sure, if you're 16 years old.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

NASCAR has the personalities. Look the whole Junior-DEI soap opera. If Gordon, Junior, and Stewart were racing open wheel, Indy cars would be big again. But that's not where the money is.

 

[93Devil]

NASCAR is more viewer friendly than Indy?

Poker is exciting to watch ... like watching grass grow?

IFC? You're kidding, right?

X Games? Sure, if you're 16 years old.

I do not remember typing that I watched IFC, poker, NASCAR or the X Games. I was just stating how the veiwing audience is changing.

 

[Bob Cook]

NASCAR has the personalities. Look the whole Junior-DEI soap opera. If Gordon, Junior, and Stewart were racing open wheel, Indy cars would be big again. But that's not where the money is.

In retrospect, Tony George's biggest blunder might have been being penny-wise and pound-foolish. He wanted to make Indy racing less cost-intensive so more teams could be competitive, a good idea in theory. But in doing so he guaranteed anyone who wanted to make a lot of money would go elsewhere. Tony Stewart, most notably, was reluctant to leave open-wheel, but it was hard for him to ignore the cash NASCAR offered.

 

[wickedwritah]

In retrospect, Tony George's biggest blunder might have been being penny-wise and pound-foolish. He wanted to make Indy racing less cost-intensive so more teams could be competitive, a good idea in theory. But in doing so he guaranteed anyone who wanted to make a lot of money would go elsewhere. Tony Stewart, most notably, was reluctant to leave open-wheel, but it was hard for him to ignore the cash NASCAR offered.

Tony George wanted to make open-wheel racing less expensive for two reasons:
1. To allow more young American drivers a chance to break into the ranks of Indy-style cars without massive sponsorship, thus preventing the Jeff Gordons of the world from fleeing when they can't break into a ride without $$$$;
2 (and more importantly). So he could take over the whole damn thing hisself and be the next Big Bill France.

Well, Big Bill France never saw NASCAR explode to the point where it is now, so even if the IRL is gangbusters in 40 years, Tony George won't reap any of the success.

Instead, what happened was that the Dr. Jack Millers and Greg Rays of the world found themselves racing in a top-level open-wheel racing league, when they probably should've been driving Indy Lights, if that.

Of course, Tony only has No. 2 to hold onto now. As Robin Miller pointed out years ago, the young drivers that the IRL was supposed to give opportunities to all have fled for NASCAR -- Stewart, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, for starters.

So he's done whatever he's had to do to prevent from capitulating. He's allowed Honda and Toyota to overrun the series with money and wipe out the smaller competitors, which ended with Toyota pulling out and leaving the carnage for everyone else to clean up, and he allowed engine leases (which he was against when CART was doing it), and he allowed the big-dollar teams to come over from CART and crusher the Panther Racings of the world.

Way much more involved than I'm making it, of course, but for the most part Tony George only has Tony George to blame for messing things up.

 

[spnited]

In other words, Wicked, Tony George is a greedy **** who wanted it all his way and has ****ed things up royally.

As a result, the greatest race in American hostory has been reduced to an afterthought and the cash cow that was the Indy 500 is becoming a losing proposition.

 

[wickedwritah]

CART wasn't perfect, and the idiots made several bad moves, tops among them leaving Pocono, a track where they could've cleaned up easily because of the Andretti connection. Makes total sense to abandon your two hook-ins (Pocono, Meadowlands) into the New York market, even if they weren't the most ideal racetracks.

Who's to say that this same meltdown wouldn't have happened with CART at the controls?

 

[Sxysprtswrtr]

Further proof the Indy 500 is not the same as it once was: Rusty Wallace is in the booth - not that he isn't knowledgable, I mean a whole year of broadcasting races gives you some type of authoritarian purpose, I'm sure.

I'll be anxious to see how the *new / though not really new since rain killed efforts past 2 years* qualifying system works.

 

[Hank_Scorpio]

NASCAR has the personalities. Look the whole Junior-DEI soap opera. If Gordon, Junior, and Stewart were racing open wheel, Indy cars would be big again. But that's not where the money is.

Nobody cares about NASCAR, especially those south of the MD. [/boots]

 

[sportschick]

For the Ashley Judd fans in the house, lots of shots of her at qualifying. Her hubby's on the pole at the moment.

 

[Sxysprtswrtr]

For the Ashley Judd fans in the house, lots of shots of her at qualifying. Her hubby's on the pole at the moment.

He's gorgeous.

 

[sportschick]

Like Juan Pablo and his wife, just a gorgeous couple. I hate them.

 

[bydesign77]

Having lived just a few miles from the IMS, let me say that it's still a big event in the city. You don't want to live on that side of town on Memorial Day weekend, NASCAR weekend or F-1 weekend. Can't eat, can't drive anywhere. My apartment was on the road that led from the Interstate to the IRP (where the Busch and Trucks race, as well as the dragway).

I think maybe because it's a month long event that has diluted the event some?

I got to meet Ashley Judd when her husband and father-in-law played the course I worked at. Made my life.

 

[sportschick]

Towns as far as Terre Haute have their hotels filled to the brim when there are things going on on the Speedway. Anything at that track is a huge deal in Indiana.

 

[dooley_womack1]

For the Ashley Judd fans in the house, lots of shots of her at qualifying. Her hubby's on the pole at the moment.

He's gorgeous.

There's a guy in that picture?

Anyhoo, any sport is only as good as the next generation, and Indy-car racing lost a generation.

 

[Bubbler]

Pole day has suffered the most in Tony George's gun-eating destruction of domestic open-wheel racing. Spnited is right, it was once an event almost on par with the race itself. When I moved to Indy in '86, I couldn't believe what a big deal it was. Indy did not move on race day or Pole day. Now its worse than a shadow of its former greatness.

And Indy practice sessions, which once drew or came close to five-figure crowds daily, are now ghost towns.

The race itself is still major. A major draw, a major event, and in the last few years, very compelling races. I think America still cares too, along the lines of the Kentucky Derby, etc.

But in the bigger picture, George ****ed up big time with his timing. When NASCAR was rising, the Indy 500 was at its worst -- the 500s from 1996-1999 are utterly forgettable and ******* sons of the great tradition of the race.

He gave fans a reason not to give a ****, why would they? It was ****. I'm a huge Indy fan, and other than the two I covered in that era, I didn't watch those races either. He had to win me over and I was easy, I've always liked open-wheel racing. The rest of America hasn't -- and won't be -- nearly as easy. I still don't think Indy gets it that they have to win people over anew.

Other things that have messed up the experience ...

-- The Indy infield -- once a maelstorm of drinking, nudity and all manner of debauchery -- has been remodeled out of existence. The Snake Pit is no more and Indy has lost its blue-collar soul as a result. There's at least a generation of fans who went to the Indy 500, and never saw a car. It might not have enhanced the racing, but it was certainly part of the experience.

-- Bump day was once frought with drama. Now bump day is sad ... will 33 cars even qualify?

-- Some of the Indy traditions have always been -- to be kind -- staid. "Gentlemen, start your engines" and some of the other traditions are priceless. But Jim Nabors isn't going to wow the teenyboppers ... from 1970 much less 2007.

I'll never forget reading a feature in the 1988 Indy 500 yearbook, a flowery multi-page tribute to one of the guests of the '87 race, one of three sons from My Three Sons (Tim Considine?). It was unintentional hilarity at its finest. I believe another of those books had a similar feature on Pee Wee from Porky's -- apparently a native Hoosier.

The only Queen visiting IMS in May will probably have -ryche at the end of it and they'll likely be playing across the street at one of the many strip clubs.

Indy has always done a lot to make itself feel like a museum to the sport, in bad ways as well as good. You never get the feeling you're appreciating the best (domestic) racing technology the sport has to offer. Indy never makes itself as deluxe as open wheel racing really is (unlike the USGP, where it is deluxe in excelsius). That's one thing CART/Champ Car has always beat the **** out of Indy in.

Instead you get force-fed "celebrities" like Donald Davidson and TV stars of the 60s that grey-haired pre-comeback Elvis fans cream their pants to, but no one else cares about. You get tributes to the long-insiginficant-to-Indy sprint racers of the 60s and 70s, something that has virtually no relevance to the sport anymore, for better or worse. Indy doesn't do itself any favors when it comes to making itself look square.

Still, the Indy 500 is still a major event. I'll be covering my first in many, many years this year. I'm looking forward to it.

And to the poster who thinks IFC, XGames and ****ing poker are bigger? You need to turn ESPN off and get out more.

 

[shotglass]

I have absolutely no empirical evidence of NASCAR being more interesting than Indy-car racing. I just know that it is to me, and it isn't even close.

But I felt this way back when Indy was just as big or bigger. And I have no concrete reason for it. Others must feel the same way.