I am perpetually pissed off that there's no real news shows on morning TV. While I'm drinking my coffee and wrangling the kids into school-ready mode, CNN, Fox, etc., bombard me with a pittance of real news, and bucketloads of human-interest drivel.
And since I don't have access to a good daily newspaper (all Michigan papers suck, and the WSJ is expensive, and--frankly--too time consuming--I get most of my news online. But even there it's difficult. CNN.com is as crappy as the network, and even BBC.com is hard to navigate and doesn't know how to guide you to good stories.
But now I've found Foreign Policy's website. Foreign Policy is an excellent journal I used to receive, but never had time to read. But their website is fantastic, with real news--by which I mean economics and politics, with no fluff about Britney Spears and her ilk.
For example, where else have you read that rice prices rose 30% to reach an al-time high this week, creating a risk of "social unrest (such a bland phrase for riotin' and lootin') in Asia. And why did it happen? Partly because Egypt imposed a ban on exporting rice. See, economics and politics. OK, FoPo just linked to the Financial Times, but that's the point. They know which stories are important, and link to them, which helps me out because I don't have enough time to search out all the disparate important news myself. The "Morning Briefings" are especially great. Now I can start my day by quickly catching up on what's going on in the world.
Showing posts with label NASCAR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASCAR. Show all posts
20 February 2008
Best News Ever!
Well, maybe the news isn't as good as the end of World War II. But it looks as though the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car Series will finally merge.
This has been a long time coming for open-wheel racing fans--the precious few of us who are now left. ESPN's John Oreovics wrote a thorough review of the issue just last month. The primary culprit was Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, but his motives weren't bad--he was looking for a way to control the costs of running racing teams, which could only be done by controlling the cost of the cars. A bunch of car owners didn't like the idea of running identical engine/chassis combinations, and so the two split. The Champ Car series remained the premier series for a while, but Tony George had the Indianapolis 500, which was all that made his new Indy Racing League at all credible in its first years, given it absolute paucity of quality drivers.
But the split happened at a very inopportune time. Clearly George was only looking at the extant open wheel racing market, and failed to look around at the U.S. racing market. Because around the same time NASCAR was developing a phenomenally successful marketing program that moved them from a southern redneck racing league that was routinely dominated by the big boys (A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti) from open-wheel whenever they ventured south, to a dominant behemoth that regularly takes in the best drivers in the country. With that happening, there just wasn't enough market for two open-wheel circuits, and the Indy Racing League has become little better than a developmental league for the giant matchbox cars.
I respect NASCAR. They've been brilliant. But I hate their product. The cars run at a crawl compared to Indy cars; they don't look like real racecars (if it looks like I could drive it to work, it's not a real racecar); and drivers get to bump each other to win, rather than having to drive. That's the reason no NASCAR driver has ever successfully jumped to open-wheel. But there's no doubt they have the better drivers these days.
But if the reconciliation in open-wheel is successful; if the IRL can increase it's schedule from a measly high-school level 16 races (NASCAR runs about 38); if they can figure out how to market themselves as well as the matchbox series (here's a tip--show an ad with an Indy Car racing a stock car); if, if if, then they might recover the magic before the Indy 500 becomes even more of a joke than it currently is. I remember as a kid in Indiana reading the sports section in April and seeing that they already had over 100 entries for Indy qualifying. Now they barely can scrape up 33, so basically anyone who shows up gets in. I remember when bump day mattered--guys who had put all their money into their machines trying to get it up to enough speed to qualify 33rd, a backyard mechanics ultimate dream. Now there's nobody to bump. Tony George, owner of the world's most famous race, has made it an afterthought on Memorial Day weekend, when the real race is NASCAR's Coca Cola 600.
A decade of damage. I wonder how long it will take to recover, or if the even can.
This has been a long time coming for open-wheel racing fans--the precious few of us who are now left. ESPN's John Oreovics wrote a thorough review of the issue just last month. The primary culprit was Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, but his motives weren't bad--he was looking for a way to control the costs of running racing teams, which could only be done by controlling the cost of the cars. A bunch of car owners didn't like the idea of running identical engine/chassis combinations, and so the two split. The Champ Car series remained the premier series for a while, but Tony George had the Indianapolis 500, which was all that made his new Indy Racing League at all credible in its first years, given it absolute paucity of quality drivers.
But the split happened at a very inopportune time. Clearly George was only looking at the extant open wheel racing market, and failed to look around at the U.S. racing market. Because around the same time NASCAR was developing a phenomenally successful marketing program that moved them from a southern redneck racing league that was routinely dominated by the big boys (A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti) from open-wheel whenever they ventured south, to a dominant behemoth that regularly takes in the best drivers in the country. With that happening, there just wasn't enough market for two open-wheel circuits, and the Indy Racing League has become little better than a developmental league for the giant matchbox cars.
I respect NASCAR. They've been brilliant. But I hate their product. The cars run at a crawl compared to Indy cars; they don't look like real racecars (if it looks like I could drive it to work, it's not a real racecar); and drivers get to bump each other to win, rather than having to drive. That's the reason no NASCAR driver has ever successfully jumped to open-wheel. But there's no doubt they have the better drivers these days.
But if the reconciliation in open-wheel is successful; if the IRL can increase it's schedule from a measly high-school level 16 races (NASCAR runs about 38); if they can figure out how to market themselves as well as the matchbox series (here's a tip--show an ad with an Indy Car racing a stock car); if, if if, then they might recover the magic before the Indy 500 becomes even more of a joke than it currently is. I remember as a kid in Indiana reading the sports section in April and seeing that they already had over 100 entries for Indy qualifying. Now they barely can scrape up 33, so basically anyone who shows up gets in. I remember when bump day mattered--guys who had put all their money into their machines trying to get it up to enough speed to qualify 33rd, a backyard mechanics ultimate dream. Now there's nobody to bump. Tony George, owner of the world's most famous race, has made it an afterthought on Memorial Day weekend, when the real race is NASCAR's Coca Cola 600.
A decade of damage. I wonder how long it will take to recover, or if the even can.
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