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Category: Motorsports

What Tony George's ouster means to auto racing

The Indy Racing League runs on funding from the Hulman-George family coffers. The IRL never has made a profit and the current economic downturn has only made matters worse.

But, a hopeful sign came from Mari Hulman George's pledge of continued support in the same dramatic statement that announced Tuesday her son Tony George no longer controls the family purse strings.

"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 in the statement released on Tuesday."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."

The IRL was Tony's spawn, born to do combat with CART and make the Hulman George family the France family of American open wheel racing. Problem is, it took more than a decade of expensive warfare to take total control of the sport. It happened only last year, late to advantage from the now long past economic boom that propelled NASCAR and the France family to national popularity, power and riches.

Some are saying there is no way to predict the impact of George's departure on IndyCar and NASCAR racing.

IRL and IMS live or die together

The Hulman family money must continue to flow to the Indy Racing League. Without it, the IRL would fold. But then, so would the Indianapolis 500 without an open-wheel series to provide race cars.

"IMS and the IRL are hooked at the hip," Panther Racing team owner John Barnes told Indianapolis Star writer Curt Cavin. "Only a fool would believe that's not the case, especially after you see how many people show up for the (NASCAR race) compared to how many people were at the Indy 500."

There has been a significant downturn in ticket sales reported for the July 26 Brickyard 400. Every NASCAR track is suffering, but Indy is taking a double hit because last year's race was another tire-problem related farce.

Fans will never forget what happened at the 2005 Formula One race, when just five of the 22 cars took the green due to tire safety problems. Last summer, Goodyear produced a tire for the NASCAR stock cars that wouldn't hold up for more than a handful of laps without exploding.

Angry fans poured out of the historic race course and Goodyear has been back numerous times, testing a new tire it claims will perform well this time.

But the survival of NASCAR doesn't depend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Brickyard 400 is just another race. Indy's ownership is supporting the entire IRL series.

This year's Indy 500 was a nationally followed emotional resurrection for open-wheel racing and for the popular Helio Castroneves after being cleared of tax evasion charges. The event claimed a near capacity crowd. Although the IRL says its brand is growing since the unification, the ticket-holders I spoke with described lots of empty spaces in the 250,000 seat facility.

Still, it was a good showing compared with other events in this summer's difficult economy. After all, we here in Detroit saw our IndyCar race on Belle Isle canceled because even the promotional power of Roger Penske couldn't land enough sponsorship.

Tony George apparently had been less and less involved in the daily operations of the IRL and IMS since the founding of his own race team, Vision Racing, in 2005.

"I don't think (George's departure) changes the league much because Brian has been effectively running the league," race team owner Sam Schmidt, told USA Today.

Penske told Cavin he has confidence in the newly appointed management team of Jeff Belskus and Curt Brighton, because they come from within the organization with intimate knowledge about the business, the Speedway and the IRL: "Those are good people and capable people, and they represent the family's interest," Penske said. "They've been involved in the discussions before, so it's not like we've got a brand-new cast of characters that we don't know."

Resurrecting the messenger

SPEED TV's Robin Miller broke the story about the Hulman George family feud in May. He wrote that Tony George's three sisters on the businesses board of directors voted to oust Tony from power, then Miller got castigated for his reporting when the family circled the wagons and denied his reporting's now obvious truth. Other news agencies were quick to follow up with similar reports, confirming and expanding on Miller's original report. Miller has long been a lightening rod for his frequent agitation against Tony George's controversial decisions.

Apparently, it only took Tony George's family 20 years to catch up.