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Tony George is out at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Tony George, the architect of the civil war that savaged American open wheel racing for a decade, has been ousted as president and CEO of his family's businesses -- including the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Board of Directors of Hulman & Company and the Speedway announced this afternoon that a new management team of current Speedway executives will head the Hulman-George companies effective tomorrow.

George remains on the board of directors. But the man who for 20 years exercised so much willful authority over auto racing in the United States is virtually left only with his IndyCar racing team. Vision Racing's driver is George's stepson, Ed Carpenter.

Tony got dumped. There's no other way to read even the carefully written statement issued today by his family-dominated business. The question remains whether this should have happened many, many years ago.

He denied the rumors that he was about to be deposed when the board met after the Memorial Day weekend running of the 98th Indianapolis 500.

Today, it was Tony's mother making the announcement:

"Our board had asked Tony to structure our executive staff to create efficiencies in our business structure and to concentrate his leadership efforts in the Indy Racing League," said Mari Hulman George, chairman of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway board. "He has decided that with the recent unification of open-wheel racing and the experienced management team IMS has cultivated over the years, now would be the time for him to concentrate on his team ownership of Vision Racing with his family and other personal business interests he and his family share."

A lot of race fans hate this guy, but it was the sour economy that caught up with Tony's decades of willful spending on consolidating open-wheel racing under his family's name in the way the France family controls NASCAR's dominance of stock car racing. Tony has long displayed horrible fiscal restraint, with estimates ofhis spending on the Speedway and IRL over the last 13 years in the hundreds of millions.

While today's statement made no admission that the family businesses are in trouble back in Terre Haute, Ind., the speedway and IRL have been cutting back. About 60 staffers have been let go in the last six months. Even Tony's wife Laura lost her job as an adviser. George told the Associated Press that she hasn't been fired.

W. Curtis Brighton becomes president and CEO of Hulman & Company. He's currently executive vice president and chief legal counsel to the family's companies that were founded on Clabber Girl Baking Powder.

Jeffrey G. Belskus will be president and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation. Belskus is currently executive vice president and chief financial officer of the family companies.

And, according to the statement, Brighton and Belskus have the support of Tony's mom:

"Jeff and Curt have both been with the company for many years in positions of top leadership," said Mari Hulman George. "Tony, as well as the entire Board of Directors, has the utmost confidence in their capabilities.

In other words, one is an accountant and the other is a lawyer. That's who runs businesses these days with all the passion of undertakers.

George's grandfather, the late Tony Hulman was widely adored by race car fans because he bought the abandoned historic race track, restored and reopened it after World War II. Mari Hulman George continues her father's tradition by issuing the command before each race to, "start your engines."

It was Tony who changed things at a place where change and innovation is constant, but clinging to the traditions of the track's 100-year history is not only a good marketing strategy -- it's religion to many fans.

At age 29, Tony George took over the speedway after the 1989 death of Tony Hulman's trusted manager, Joe Cloutier. Tony ruffled feathers bringing NASCAR's stock cars to the hallowed ground in 1994, but it was a move that has paid off big and helped the Speedway to a piece of NASCAR's popularity. The International Race of Champions was added in 1998 long after its popularity had waned.

And then, Tony made a deal with the devil, bringing Bernie Eccelstone's international Formula One circus and the return of Grand Prix racing to the United States in 2000.

Tony poured money chasing and pleasing the F-1 set, new garages, new suites, a new road course that reconfigured the beloved infield. All for a race in 2005 that fielded just 5 of 22 cars and complete abandonment after 2007 when Tony refused to pay Bernie as much as the treasuries of Asian and Middle Eastern nations competing for the calendar slot.

Add the MotoGP motorcycle grand prix in 2008, and the required infield remodeling turned what was left of the famous turn one "Snake Pit" into a desert of gravel.

All of this turned the historic Speedway into a monster that Tony himself described as "... a place that wakes up every morning and eats money."

Now remember, all of this spending was going on while Tony spent a decade establishing his own sanctioning body, the Indy Racing League in the image of NASCAR. From 1996 to 2008 he poured more money into his opposition of CART and then Champ Car never learning the lessons of Napoleon and Hitler -- never fight a two-front war.

And while the confused crowds dwindled and open-wheel racing missed the American economic boom of the late 1990's and early 2000's, NASCAR blossomed.

Mom tossed her boy some nice words on his way out the door today.

"Our family and the entire racing community are grateful to Tony for the leadership and direction he has provided since 1990," Mari Hulman George said in the press release. "We are pleased that he will continue to be an important part of the Indy Racing League as a team owner and as a member of our Board of Directors, and we wish him every success."

Other familiar Indy executives remain in place: Joie Chitwood stays as president and chief operating officer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Terry Angstadt is president of the commercial division of the Indy Racing League. Brian Barnhart is president of the competition division of the Indy Racing League. Charlie Morgan is president and COO of IMS Productions. Gary Morris is president and COO of Clabber Girl.

"These changes underscore our family's commitment going forward to all of our companies, especially our commitment to the growth of the Indy Racing League and the sport of open-wheel racing," Mari Hulman George said. "We believe the Hulman-George family's long stewardship of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, beginning in 1945, and our significant investment in the Speedway and in the IRL demonstrates that we have full confidence in all of our companies and that we intend to grow them in the future."

Just not with Tony at the helm.

It is going to be intersting to see what that means. Some of it you might not like. For all of his modernization of the Speedway, Tony George never sold the right to name the Indianapolis 500. As a reader of this blog pointed out in our comments section, Allstate has been attached to the Brickyard 400 for years. How long do you expect it will take the lawyer and the accountant to cash in on the millions sponsors will pay to put their names in front of the Indy 500?