FTRG Strikes Again

It’s official, FTRG is now a car owner in the IRL. His Vision Racing team was announced yesterday, about a week after rumors had circulated that he would indeed enter into an arrangement that would put Ed Carpenter in a ride for the season. Larry Curry has been signed on as team manager for the effort.
Where do I begin? Let’s start with the name. Vision Racing. Vision as in FTRG’s vision of the IRL. The IRL as an all oval track series that would afford the American midget and sprint car drivers who were escaping to NASCAR an opportunity to shine on motorsports biggest stage, the Indianapolis 500 at a reasonable price. That lasted about two years. Then the foreign element started creeping in and the vision was changed and it was no longer an American only deal. Then came the evil Roger Penske and the vision further changed. Next came the engine leases from Honda and Toyota and the idea of anyone being able to get any equipment started to get fuzzy. Then we get road courses, then street parades. Finally the vision that the car owners were not the best to run the series has been completely tossed out and guess what you have, CART circa 1995.
George is such a fucking mallet head that he just mumbles his way through with no regard for what he says and what ramifications it will have on people. Vision my ass. Lack of vision if you ask me.
I already talked about the hypocrisy of his running a team while also running the series. Conflict of interest? Yes. Does he care? Obviously not.
So he forms a team to make sure Ed Carpenter gets in. Ed is FTRG’s step son. Now I don’t have a problem with him spending money to make sure his step son gets a ride. Then again, I am not convinced that Ed should be in an Indy car. I haven’t seen it and with the IRL powers that be involved with his effort I hope there is no controversy.
Then we come to Larry Curry. Yes, that same walrus looking piece of crap that spent 33 months in a federal pen for embezzling more than $1 million from John Menard. Nice guy! Oh sure Curry has since paid nearly all of it back and he did his time, but is this really the guy you want around you? Besides, other than getting Tony Stewart to the pole at Indy, what has he really done? And God knows, he has been around long enough that he should have a pretty impressive resume.
This whole thing sounds like a bad idea to me. The IRL needs the cars, but it is obvious that no one over at 16th and Georgetown has any real clues as to how to run a racing league.