NOW the war is over. After being voted out by the Hulman-George board of directors Tony George is no longer the CEO of IMS or his IRL. He was allowed to remain a board member.
Anyone who knows me will remember that I pledged to not attend an IRL race until Tony George apologized for destroying American Open Wheel Racing. With ChampCar gone, I had given up on ever seeing a live IndyCar race again. But now it was announced that Indianapolis Motor Speedway is free of Tony George - mostly. I will take this opportunity to accept, if not Tony's apology, then IMS' admitting to the huge mistake. The Speedway will still need to make me want to come back but there is hope.
This story has been brewing for months: here and here. In May, Tony George was voted out of power CEO of IMS by his mother and sisters. His foolhardy plans for forming the IRL cost the family too much money. Numbers have been reported that come in between $600 to $700 million in 13 years. Mom said, "enough Tony".
Yesterday it was reported that Tony George was stripped of his precious Imitiation Racing League. After last month's firing, Mom allowed Tony to save face and resign as CEO of the IRL and to stay on the various family boards. But, don't make any mistake - Tony is grounded and can't come out to play. He might be allowed to to play on Sundays with his Vision Racing Team - if he saves his allowance & behaves.
This is good news for IndyCar racing. The Hulman-George family could have hired a monkey to do a better job than Tony did. OK. I'll try to be fair. In the nearly 20 years that Tony has been in charge he has done a few good things. He started the Brickyard 400. He brought F1 back to the US and built the road course at IMS. I don't think he can be blamed for losing the USGP. MotoGP now races at Indy. These are good things that bring The Speedway closer to that original plan of Mr Fisher's over 100 years ago. But, Tony's temper tantrum resulted in a 13 year fight over Indy Cars eclipsing all of the progress.
Once it was announced that Tony George no longer controlled the purse strings or the series, the ugly truth was once again openly discussed. Kevin Kalkhoven of KV Racing and former ChampCar owner, "Clearly, we have a problem right now with boring races and old technology so we need new cars and engines as soon as possible." Sure. Now you speak up. Thanks for nothing Kalkhoven. The fans of American Open Wheel Racing knew this last year!
Tony's resignation & dismissal came, at the very least, 18 months too late. ChampCar could have been saved! Heck, the IRL could have been saved. ChampCar and the IRL could have merged on better terms. The Hulman-George family reports that they remain committed to the IndyCar Series as they do all of their companies. But something is up. If Mari's daughters are tired of paying for Tony's folly then why would they remove him only to keep paying for it? I don't believe they will. The former CFO of ChampCar, Gene Cottingham, is currently doing a top to bottom examination of the Hulman-George properties. I'm sure he is to report back on what is worth salvaging. Tony's IRL is eating money even after the 'merger' and the Hulman-George family is tired of paying. Someone needs to step forward and drive IndyCar into its second century.
My hope is that there are more team owners and manufacturers that feel the same way that Kalkhoven feels. Maybe they will step up to save IndyCar. I still have hope for the Indy 500 to return to true greatness by 2011.
