OK, what about the 5 Amigos?

[ChrisB]

Here's Yet Another merger/unification/oneseries/whatever idea... (and crosspost again to the usual places)

There's no doubt now that Don Panoz is a Player in the Indy/Champ thing. And TG still holds the Indy 500.

How about if the Amigos sell 40% of the ownership of their series to Don Panoz and TG? 20% ownership to each. 5 Amigos. 5 headed monster. Fab 5.

Don Panoz gets 100% of the chassis biz (a single supply spec chassis is IMO the best way to go, but that's another discussion) and more races move to his natural road circuits.

The concessions to TG are:
-the month of May is left open on the schedule.
-the series licenses the "IndyCar" name from IMS.
-some kind of clause to become 50/50 oval-road.

Ownership of the Speedway is not even a consideration here.. that's still all TG's property.. just as Panoz owns his tracks, and Forsythe owns whatever is his seprately. TG gets a nice reliable check every year for the "IndyCar" name... and he gets the month of May to do whatever he thinks is best for the sport. (I would hope that he would make it more like Daytona Speedweeks... but that's another discussion too) He becomes 1/5 of the vote with 4 other guys who are quite reasonable.


There it is. Comments?

[Hardscrabble]

Can you say Funked Up Five?

BTW, why would PG get 20% of anything. The other four, whether you like them or not, have sunk a ton of $$$ and time into racing.

PG...not so much.

[Chris Paff]

the three amigos have no bussiness owning any part of the Indycar series.. if they want to join they can buy some cars and run the series.. these johnny come latelys can stay up the creek..

[AdamM]

Wondering what Don Panoz have to do with anything? His only involvement is as a supplier and there are plenty of other companies that could build a Champcar or IRL chassis. He has his own series anyway that is struggling.

[SamC]

There it is. Comments?

Same as always.

- What do the operators of the other series bring to the table? Fans? No. Sponsors? No. Car makes? No. TV deals? No. Since they bring nothing to the table, why merge with them?

- What guarentee is there, once the IRL bridges are burned behind Mr. George, that the operators of the other series will not double-cross him and reinstitue the system that existed just before he created the IRL, that system being the reason that creating the IRL was so necessary.

- What evidence is there that a combined IRL/other series is more than the sum of its parts? The "Indy Car" you propose would, IMHO, get a lower total public interest factor than the IRL of today.

[logjammer]

Other than a team, what has PG brought to CCWS?

[Jim Wilke]

Other than a team, what has PG brought to CCWS?

Elegance, class and style.

[ptistheboss]

Can't you guys talk about something else besides unification.

[Z28]

TG gets a nice reliable check every year for the "IndyCar" name... and he gets the month of May to do whatever he thinks is best for the sport.

So presently without the check that's what he's doing now. YES a thousand times over there are people who disagree with him on what's best. But the major flaws in your proposal are the same two that other people insist on, you're curing all the problems people see by a) bringing all the parties that disagree so vehemently into one company as partners and b) having people spend their money in ways they have shown no interest in doing.

[bkeske]

Panoz has his own series to keep him busy. Not a chance in....h

[Cygni]

A series where TG or PG have some type of management role is instantly not a good idea, imho.

[indycool]

PG only owned 10 percent of OWRS when it started. From his silence on behalf of the CC series the past 10 months or so, I wonder if the other Amigos have silently bought him out. He's certainly propped up some way to keep his race team running. Why would anybody project him owning TWENTY percent of a new deal?

And, if the Amigos were to sell 40 percent of their series to TG and Panoz, how much would be the asking price? Certainly more than it's worth.

And that would also give FIVE people equal value in decisions on the series, three of them from CC. A) You can't get two people who own 50 percent of something to agree, and B) You'd certainly have five people with problems all the time so it'd go nowhere.

All academic. The IRL is worth a lot more now than CC is with the Indianapolis 500 alone so this has no chance of flying in any form.

And Z28, your post is better and simpler than mine.

[F1 fanru]

Has it all become the IRL vs CCWS Death Match?

[ChrisB]

Thanks guys. Here's 2 posts from OC and TF which say pretty much the same thing from opposite POV's:

CCWS fan POV: As long as TG is around, he will demand he owns it all, if he's close to losing, he'll probably agree to some sort of partnership, get his **** back in order and start his attempt to control everything again. History shows this.

IRL fan POV: What guarentee is there, once the IRL bridges are burned behind Mr. George, that the operators of the other series will not double-cross him and reinstitue the system that existed just before he created the IRL, that system being the reason that creating the IRL was so necessary.

In other words, there's lots of mistrust on *both sides* that if this were put together, sooner or later one side would try to assert excessive control over the other. Tough situation. Assuming they can never get together, I have 3 more ideas I'm curious what fans on *both sides* think...

1. In order to try to disassociate itself from any history that could be construed as Indy centric, should CCWS drop all ovals and the name "Champ car" and change it to something like "Formula A" which was the predecessor name of SCCA F-5000? What do you CCWS fans think of this? What do you IRL fans think of this?

2. In order to try to disassociate itself from the "formula car" world, should the IRL drop RE formula cars and adopt some kind of non-aero "Modern roadster" or a revival of the USAC stock car series, using cars similar to Nascar? The point is to use cars which are closer to the experience held by sprint-car oval drivers. Again, what do you IRL fans think of this? What do you CCWS fans think of this?

3. And finally, should CCWS seriously consider running a race on Memorial Sunday, maybe even if it overlaps with the Indy 500 time slot? Once again, what do you CCWS fans think of this? What do you IRL fans think of this?

[stockblock]

Pipedream !
You can't put humpty dumpty together again.