It is easy to blame Indianapolis Motor Speedway president/Indy Racing League founder Tony George. After all, he is the one most responsible for the catastrophic “split” between CART (and its successor, Champ Car) and the IRL; the one who has nixed various reunification plans at the 11th hour. And, in truth, had George exercised more patience and leadership within the CART framework, it’s possible things wouldn’t have arrived at today’s lamentable state.
But let’s not forget CART was anything but a smoothly running machine in the ’90s. For all that was good about the series, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it is clear CART’s success had more to do with serendipity (for example, the timely demise of the Can-Am that injected new blood like Newman/Haas, Truesports and Galles Racing into the sport) than brilliant planning or management. Recall when Andrew Craig was anointed CART’s savior in ’94, he was at least the sixth individual to hold the top spot in the organization’s turbulent history. Sponsors were sharply divided over whether the series should expand internationally or remain focused on North America, and the emergence of “foreign” drivers was hotly debated by fans, sponsors and promoters alike. CART’s technical operations group was inadequate (as the engine manufacturers war would prove) and, of course, the collective genius of CART, USAC and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had failed to fully integrate the Indy 500 into the PPG Indy Car World Series.
Ironically, the causes for much of this dysfunction can be gleaned from a single sentence in the White Paper. Writing about FOCA, Gurney noted, “They appointed Bernie Ecclestone as the chief of operations officer and negotiator and they made a solemn pledge to abide by his decisions 100 percent.”
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Two points. First, like NASCAR’s Bill France and the NHRA’s Wally Parks, Ecclestone is one in a billion. You don’t find his likes by promoting some lackey from within or by advertising in Autosport or The Wall Street Journal. Number two, CART’s team owners never made a vow (let alone acted accordingly) to abide by their chairman’s decision 100 percent.
Second, unlike Ecclestone, Ron Dennis, Frank Williams, Ken Tyrrell, Guy Ligier and many of the other FOCA signatories, few CART team owners derived their living from motorsports; rather, their race teams were expensive hobbies. And when push came to shove, Patrick, Penske, Rick Galles and their ilk inevitably reverted to the law of the sandlot: It’s my football and we play by my rules or we don’t play at all. Exit a disgusted Mr. Gurney.
Little has changed in that regard. Of Champ Car’s current owners (Gerald Forsythe, Paul Gentilozzi, Dan Pettit and Kevin Kalkhoven) only one (Gentilozzi) ever realized a significant portion of his income from auto racing.
Indeed, like Mr. George, Champ Car’s co-owners are subsidizing teams and/or their series out of their own deep pockets. Nor, thanks to the Brickyard 400 and (now) the U.S. MotoGP round, does the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s bottom line depend on the Indy 500, let alone American open-wheel racing.
Given the state of American open-wheel racing, that’s a good thing for IMS. But it’s a sad commentary on a sport that may no longer have “the potential to be financially rewarding and healthy from a business standpoint for all participants.”
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To read Gurney’s White Paper in its entirety, go to www.allamericanracers.com/cart_white-paper.html
