A Merger Afoot?

IRL/OWRS So Roger wants a truce, a reunification, a merger if you will, with the boys over at OWRS. What’s the matter Roger, haven’t won since the first race of the season so you have to go trolling for other competition? The day before the Indy 500 Penske wrote an op/ed piece in the NY Times saying basically that there needed to be a reunification of the warring open wheel racing factions in this country. To that end Roger orchestrated a meeting between himself and the three powers that be in OWRS, Kevin Kalkoven, Paul Gentilozzi and Jerry Forsythe in Michigan. Apparently Roger left the meeting with a “framework” on how this can happen. I won’t bore you with all of the details of the Autoweek article, but here is my opinion on a couple of items. First of all it appears as though the two sides should both have an equal stake in the venture. In other words, each side would contribute an equal amount of assets. Well that is great, so let’s see, no one puts in anything, is that it? OWRS has no assets and certainly nothing that the IRL can not have if it just waits a year. They are broke, the three powers are subsidizing half the field and attendance is slipping. Why would FTRG ever agree to an outlandish agreement like that? I have no respect for FTRG, but I know he is not stupid enough to sign on to that. Well….. Tony George has the Indy 500. His power grab was no different than what CART did 24 years ago, except their grab was against an inefficient and awful USAC. Other than the fact that CART had gone almost exclusively road course racing, there wasn’t anything really wrong with open wheel racing. Of course some still say the owners running the show was bad, but what makes the owner of the biggest race any more qualified to run open wheel? It doesn’t and no matter what people will tell you, the IRL is a joke. Sure the racing is good, but as a business it sucks. No attendance and horrible TV ratings. How long can THEY sustain? I’ve said it before, the 500 is taking the second biggest hit here, us fans the biggest. The simple solution to all of it is to kill OWRS once and for all, but that is proving to be harder than FTRG thought. If the moron would just raise the purse for the 500 to $30 million and make it so even the bottom third of the teams could make some money on it he would have people beating the doors down to get in. Instead he has made it a race that only the top 5 make any money and anyone on the fence has to make those tough decisions to get in, and lately have chose not to get in. Plus, if he does make it so everyone wants to be at Indy and can logistically afford to do it, OWRS will die a natural death. Marketing FTRG, marketing! If the OWRS triumvirate knows nothing else, they do know how to talk up their game. The second thing that really bothered me was “a combination of schedules.” What the fuck is that? That is what the article says. The only thing OWRS has that I would want is Long Beach, Cleveland, Road America and maybe Mexico (Monterrey). Toronto? Fuck no; Portland, no; Mid Ohio, no; Denver, Vancouver, no, no; Europe, no, and for the love of God, leave the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to the F1 boys. IRL already has Milwaukee, OWRS abandoned California. If we could get (in no particular order) Indy Texas Milwaukee Michigan California Long Beach Cleveland Road America Motegi Mexico (Monterrey) Kentucky (purely selfish reasons on my part) Richmond Las Vegas Phoenix Chicagoland Homestead Then maybe I would throw them a bone and add Mexico City and we keep one of Nashville, Pikes Peak or Kansas. Short of that I don't see where they need to run any more than 4 out of 16 or 5 out of 18 races on road courses. FTRG, the Stooges and Penske are all to blame for this mess and let’s face it, these egos are too big to ever come to an agreement. FTRG has the trump card with the 500, but that is all he has. Penske has the name and that is all he has. OWRS doesn’t have anything that anyone will be able to pick up for a song at next years bankruptcy hearing.