George Walks Away From IRL, IMS
By Andrew Cutler
January 20 2010
Seven months after he stepped down from his post as CEO of Hulman and Co., which owns and manages both the Indy Racing League and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Anton H. "Tony" George has tendered his resignation from the Board of Directors and walked away from the organization completely.
This means that George's only dealings with either IMS or the IRL from now on will be through his roll as owner the Vision Racing squad.
Tony's tenure at the helm of Hulman and Co. ended in late June of last year, after what most assumed was a power struggle with his three sisters, who were reportedly upset over his history of bankrolling the IRL from the IMS' profits.
“As members of his family, we are sorry to see Tony leave,” said Mari Hulman George, Board chairman and Tony's mother. “We are grateful for his service to our company as a board member and of course for formerly serving as CEO and president of our companies. I speak for our whole family in wishing him well. All of us had hoped that Tony would continue to serve on the board, and we made that clear to him. We are disappointed with his decision to step down despite our wishes.”
To many AOWR fans, especially those who remained die-hard CART/CCWS fans & IRL haters until the end, this day came fifteen years too late. George's creation of the IRL in 1995 was the start of a twelve-year 'civil war' that decimated AOWR's fan base at a time when NASCAR was perfectly poised to step in and grab it up.
Others, while mindful of the damage previously done, will at least give Tony credit for doing all that he could to keep the IRL afloat (ie: using the IMS as a piggy bank) and for eventualy reunifying the two series in early 2008, thereby creating a platform for - hopefully - a chance at revitalization for the AOWR scene.
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Quote:subiedude
Within 3 years of the formation of IRL, none of the original premises happened, i.e. reasonable chassis, low cost engines, American only drivers and oval only racing existed.
The IRL was an all oval series until 2005. I don't know the exact costs of the engines/chassis - esp. vs. what CART paid for theirs, but the IRL never had a problem fielding at least 16+ cars as I recall.
Quote:subiedude
The costs escalated with everything being expensive,
These things happened more noticably when Andretti, Penske, Ganassi & Rahal switched sides, raising the bar for everyone else.
As for the foreign drivers and, since '05, the road courses, these are things that Tony clearly didn't anticipate, but at least he had the good sense to 'go with the flow' in order to keep SOME sort of AOWR alive.
Don't get me wrong; back in '96, I would have gladly joined any lynch mob heading for 16th & Georgetown to string Tony up from the Gate 1 entrance - at least in spirit. But that was then & we can only work with what we have today. Whatever bad he's done, Tony proved to be better at keeping a racing series alive than did the CART/CCWS group, and so today it's the IRL or nothing.
All that we can do now is hope that the IRL finds it's financial feet before the IZOD money runs out.
