I've not felt as skeptical about the general future of racing as I do this first day of July, 2009.All three major series, NASCAR's Sprint Cup division, FIA's Formula One World Championship and the IRL IndyCar Series, have all had politics and off-track issues, mainly the economic reverberations, cause adverse effects on their 2009 seasons. ALMS has also been rumored to go away completely if Acura pulls the plug on its P1 program.
NASCAR teams are losing their manufacturer-backed support as GM's new era of government-run management is in its first stage. The automaker is only alive thanks to a series of bailout payments and in the future, a wealth of additional taxes to be paid by the general public. The series costs a fortune to run annually, the $20 million a year threshold proving too much for any sponsor to foot solely on its own in many respects from 2010 on.
F1 is on the brink of war, its own divide of seas that could wreak unfathomable havoc for it going forward. Max Mosley, only days after agreeing to a deal with FOTA (Formula One Teams Association, basically everyone including the lynchpin of all, Ferrari), believed the response back from the FOTA teams undermined his authority and the regulations agreed to in the peace deal.
Mosley is a power-hungry, ageless lunatic who has several times threatened to leave his post as FIA President and when in fact his term ends this October, he has said he will actually do so. Yet the prospect of him reneging on that once again has everyone within the sport concerned that he and his partner-in-crime, FOM chairman and the sport's magnate Bernie Ecclestone, will act in their own self-interests to in fact destroy the future of the sport into two series.
F1 would just be Williams, Force India and a handful of new teams if the peace deal falls through, unflatteringly referred to as a "Formula GP3", while the FOTA teams include the eight manufacturer-backed teams and Monaco, with a host of other events F1 has discarded over the years.
F1 would of course be wise to acknowledge the devastation wrought on American open-wheel racing that is, at the moment, teetering on collapse altogether. Yesterday the cards indeed fell on Tony George resigning as IMS and Hulman & Co. president and CEO, leaving the future of the track, and by default the Indy Racing League, to new management team Jeffrey Belskus and Curt Brighton.
Those two are financial minds rather than pure racers, but each has been within the IMS system for 15-plus years. They have their eyes set solely on the bottom line, and basically, the IRL has to sink or swim as its own independent entity separate from IMS. It's been the IMS cash-cow series since its inception in 1996 but there are no signs of it becoming profitable now with limited sponsorship, decreased TV ratings, and most gutting, a completely uninspiring on-track product.
This week marks a race at Watkins Glen, and in the year since this race last year drivers from Ganassi Racing and Team Penske have been defeated only once (Justin Wilson of Newman/Haas/Lanigan at Detroit last year, aided by a blocking penalty assessed to Penske's Helio Castroneves).
Robin Miller, who first broke the unification story last year and did likewise of TG's ouster as the main man at IMS, has said it's both sad and ironic that what was originally created to be an all-American, all-oval series with low costs is pinning its hopes on a road race with mostly foreign drivers and much higher costs to keep people interested.
The IRL, I always felt, paled in comparison to CART and Champ Car. A lot of people felt that way but when unification happened last year, everyone drank the kool-aid, sang "Kumbaya" and discarded the issues still facing the series.
The IRL flat stinks right now. The cars need more power, the chassis must be altered to not look like a 20-year-old outdated tugboat, the drivers outside Ganassi and Penske need a chance, the tires need to stop rubbering off a second groove, the races are aired on a channel no-one gets, and most of all, the fans need to see passing!
It's doubtful anyone has the foresight, the financial wherewithall or the commitment to save American open-wheel from its current state right now, let alone make it a viable entity that can survive on its own dime and not the funds from the Speedway.
At the moment, that cautious optimism I had in February 2008 has been whittled away to nothing. I'm still going to a handful more races this year to see everything while I still can.
Otherwise, I feel sick about what is happening to all of the sport I have passionately devoted 13 of my 20 years to, motorsports, as a result of hubris, greed, arrogance, and economic reality.
My article on the changes at IMS:
http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=334778
Out for now, cheers.
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