Tom Sneva on Wind Tunnel

[Turn13]

I really enjoyed listening to Tom on Wind Tunnel. Seems he's long been a favorite with the members here http://www.trackforum.com/forums/sho...ighlight=Sneva

While I'm sure there were plenty of mutual reasons for Tom's absence from the "official" commentator team, I wouldn't mind having him back again.

btw - in looking at the old thread, "johnk" was ESPN's "rpm2night" host, and the member shown as "Brian Hall" was actually Step33, due to an early edit of the old infopop database.

[Booster]

Did anyone watch this last night? I am curious as to what Tom had to say.

[midtown]

The only part I saw was where Tom thought having the team owners run the sport is not the way to go. Dave implied that Robin said earlier that IndyCar racing would be better off without Tony George and Tom felt the NASCAR model, with one family/individual running things, was better. Then there was some caller from Edmonton rambling about using the "brake to pass", rather than t-boning a guy like happend in the GA race on Saturday. I'm sure there is a full transcript somewhere.

[Bombardier R142]

I can't vouch for anything Tom Sneva said as I was only watching during the comercials for the Fox Sunday line-up. But, Robin Miller did not quite say racing would be better off without Tony George. He said that any OW series needs Indy to be relevant in the US but that TG should get out of the racing series business, make Indy a CCWS race and let the CCWS guys run the racing series "the way it was in the early '90s". The ol' "peace through unconditional surrender" model so popular in France during the late 1930's.

[happyscrappy-t]

Sneva? Get him back in the booth

[Doc Austin]

I missed it but Tom is always fun to listen to.

[Booster]

I can't vouch for anything Tom Sneva said as I was only watching during the comercials for the Fox Sunday line-up. But, Robin Miller did not quite say racing would be better off without Tony George. He said that any OW series needs Indy to be relevant in the US but that TG should get out of the racing series business, make Indy a CCWS race and let the CCWS guys run the racing series "the way it was in the early '90s". The ol' "peace through unconditional surrender" model so popular in France during the late 1930's.

I don't care what Robin said, I was curious about what the Gas Man had to say. I loved it when that guy rolled up on the qualifying line, you knew he was a threat for the pole everytime. He was a classic.

[Doc Austin]

I don't care what Robin said.......

There seems to be alot of that going around.

[mdkiel]

Did anyone notice that Dave actually called Tom on using the "Editorial" (Royal) "we" and actually got him to stop using it for a whole sentence.

I think that was the accomplishment of the night, and Dave should give himself one of his own Bobbleheads.

[Turn13]

Sneva talked a lot about anecdotes that Robin brought up - escapades before, during and after the races; when Tom drove for Penske; when Tom was in the IRL broadcast booth, and when Tom was a spotter for Panther (Miller: "wait a minute - you've got the worst vision of any driver anyone's ever seen - how could you be a spotter?" Sneva - "just by osmosis, I guess" )

Therre was a story about a stolen bus, about a blue dress comment, and about skid marks inside the cockpit.

There was a lot of revealing asides about other drivers and team owners that you really just need to hear in the whole context.

One other good story was about the time Tom wanted a spring change, and Bignotti refused. Behind Bignotti's back, Robin came over and helped jack up the car while Tom made the spring change himself. After qualifying well, Bignotti says "See, Tom, you do the driving and let me be the engineer", or words to that effect

There was also a neat part that Dave alluded to where Tom ackowledged smacking the wall prior to his milestone 200mph-plus record setting, in which Dave conveys both his insider-insight and his regular-fan-respect in a neat blend that makes the show worthwhile most of the time.

Hopefully others will fill in some more here...

[Indycarjunkie]

..... Dave conveys both his insider-insight and his regular-fan-respect in a neat blend that makes the show worthwhile most of the time.

Hopefully others will fill in some more here...

Yes, but Robin's slanted opinions of OW racing has made that show unwatchable for me. I liked Windtunnel before Robin became Speed's certified OW "expert".

[SoDak_IndyFan]

Robin took a couple of licks from Sneva. Apparenly, Sneva was already shaking his head in vigorous diagreement before Miller could even finish his little "let OWRS run IndyCar" comment. IIRC, DeSpain was already starting to chuckle before he threw it to Sneva with an "I take it you disagree with that" comment.

Ol' Tom was pretty blunt, even towards NASCAR, when it came to the quality of racing. Used TX as an example, "our guys are running side-by-side all day long at that track" or something to that effect. More or less, he seemed to make the point that if it were just about the quality of the racing (and most of us here wish it was) IndyCar would be the biggest series in the world.

[stretch51]

Dear ABC -

Please bring back Bob Jenkins with Tom Sneva.

Sincerely, Trackforum.

[Kart29]

I thought it was pure class the way Robin Miller asked Sneva "Who hated you more, Al Unser, Bobby Unser, or AJ Foyt?" Then he also showed so much respect to the guest host when he brought up Sneva getting fired from Penske and getting left behind when the whole Penske team went to visit the Cosworth factory. Then, he had to bring up the reason Sneva got fired from ABC commentating. What a complete jerk!

If I went to be a guest on that show and some jackass made a point of bringing up issues such as who disliked me the most and told the story of how I got fired from all these different jobs I'd tell the creep to shut his big fat sewer pipe or I'm outta there. Why do people even talk to that Miller loser? All he wants to do is tear people down and make them look bad. Maybe Miller thinks he can make himself look better that way. It's disgusting, it really is.

I really like Dave Despain but I really can't stand to watch his show because of all the dung that jerk Miller slings around. What a waste.

[Radny]

I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist, but I'm beginning the think that RM is around because NASCAR wants him around, perhaps to insure OW racing never moves out of the past. Speed is NASCAR TV. If they didn't like him, they could get rid of him.