Bob Jennings

I know. I had my say about CART's problems already. Maybe I should feel guilty for enjoying the difficulty CART is going through. But I don't. I don't like CART. I want it to fail. Watching CART unravel like a ball of twine this season has been enjoyable. 

I dislike CART for two very distinct reasons. The primary reason is that CART nearly destroyed Indy car racing. They took a sport with rich history, wonderful tradition and unlimited possibilities and fashioned it into something that was unrecognizable to many of the people who comprised the core fan base for Indy car racing. Those disaffected looked south to NASCAR and you know the rest of that sad story.

Brock Yates wrote a telling piece that was presented on the Speedvision website on November 7. I don't agree with the sentiments Yates expresses about the Indy Racing League. I don't see CART producing much "dazzling motorsport" either. But I think the Yates characterization of the dilemma facing CART and the reasons why are basically accurate.  

Read what Brock Yates has written.

"CART is dead. It’s a corpse still standing, but no amount of breezy chatter from a toady press or the tub-thumping of Jon Vannini and Co. will keep CART in business beyond 2003.

Caveat: Unless there is a radical turnaround in its fortunes. I hope I’m wrong, because CART is capable of producing dazzling motorsport, as evidenced by the terrific show at Fontana last weekend.

Yeah, I know, I’m nuts. Many of my colleagues in the motoring press will once again label me the whack-job contrarian who doesn’t understand the mystique embodied in mega-buck turbo cars piloted by talented young men with more vowels in their names than can be found in the first 10 pages of Webster’s Unabridged.

Hey, I’ve been wrong before. In 1970 I caught all sorts of hell when I predicted in Car and Driver that Ontario Motor Speedway would go broke in five years. The backers went insane. I nearly engaged in a punch-up with Kirk Douglas at an Indianapolis garden party over the story, and every member of the motoring press, mesmerized by the high-rollers, the hospitality and the hype, said I belonged in an asylum for making such absurd remarks about the lavish facility.

Like I said, I was wrong.

Five years to bankruptcy?

Ontario went broke in three.

I have been skeptical about CART for a decade. Despite its excellent racing and high-quality drivers, the organization was flawed for one elemental reason: It cut the umbilical to the traditional American open-wheel racing fan; the beer-drinking, pickup-driving Joes who follow the World of Outlaws, USAC midgets, California supermodified and east-coast DIRT competition; guys who think of the Kinsers, the Swindells, the Jay Drakes, the Jack Hewitts and the Davey Hamiltons, et. al., as real race drivers, not rich kids from countries they never heard of.

Like it or not, American open-wheel racing is oval-track racing. We all love road racing, but it is – in terms of sheer volume of fans – an acquired taste, like single-malt Scotch. The men who started and ran CART – the Penskes, Ganassis, Haases, Halls, Patricks, etc. – were road racers at heart, and the thrust of their marketing was to develop a series based on their favorite form of the sport. A nice idea, especially when laced with some big ovals like Michigan and, of course, the Indianapolis 500. But when Tony George essentially slammed the door to the Speedway, CART was doomed.

All the seven-figure sponsor dollars, all the masterful public relations hype, all the artful courting of a roll-over press, all the complimentary tickets to fill the stands, can’t make it work. Television ratings seldom reached even the single digits, and a board of directors more beholden to Wall Street than to long-term strategies only sealed CART’s fate.

While this disaster was unfolding, NASCAR went to the bank. Numerous Winston Cup promoters will tell you that masses of their fans are disaffected old USAC buffs who, seeing CART disregard its traditional roots, simply transferred their enthusiasm to the multi-hued taxi cabs that were at least driven by people whose names they could pronounce. A legion of great young drivers who might have otherwise migrated to Indy have gone south with the flow. Latest defectors: Future superstars Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne, with others sure to follow.

Forget the globalization prattle. Forget the talk about the newfound sophistication of the American consumer. Tip O’Neill once observed that all politics is local. So, too, for automobile racing. Local kid makes good. The minor leagues. The farm system. This is the basis for success in NASCAR. Each guy in Winston Cup field brings with him thousands of fans who watched him rise through the ranks. By the time he gets into the field at Daytona or Charlotte, he has a multi-year dossier of competition honed and polished in a thousand bullrings.

As charming and likeable and talented as they may be, CART’s stars – Montoya, Zanardi, Castroneves, de Ferran, da Matta, even Mansell and Villeneuve – have been strangers in a strange land.

CART was, in essence, an international series playing to a local crowd. The Bolshoi ballet trying to make it in a Florence, S.C., Holiday Inn.

Now, with the board of directors driven by acrimony, an uncertain and expensive television deal, no long-term title sponsorship, essentially no engine sources and increasing defections to the IRL, it is about over. Stick a fork in it. CART is almost done.

And Mr. Vannini’s idiotic contention that salvation lies in jacking the already egregious sanctioning fees to $5m – as reported here and in Autoweek – suggests ingesting an excess of exhaust fumes during his Barber Dodge career.

Vannini, Grosfeld and Forsythe may see races in Europe, the Far East and south of the border as escape valves, but that means enlisting an entire new coterie of multi-national sponsors in a very shaky economic climate while facing the potential wrath of Mr. Ecclestone (who, through a maze of inter-locking business cabals, is already in bed with Tony George and, at a distance, Mr. France) and the Formula 1 cartel. The real muscle in international motorsports is aligned against CART on a variety of fronts.

Don’t get me wrong; I am hardly a booster of Tony’s IRL. The cars – cloned chassis from a pair of who-cares European shops – powered by engines from Infiniti and Chevrolet and, next year, Toyota make for a vivid lack of technical variety. The traditional vitality of championship racing lay in a "run what you brung" mindset; the ability for anybody to build a car and enter it, provided it adhered to the rules. The new cookie-cutter regimen of the IRL eliminates that opportunity and the series is the lesser for it.

But Mr. George, love him or hate him, is winning. The Indianapolis 500 is the 1000lb gorilla in open-wheel racing and, in the context of competition in this nation, cannot be end-run.

CART is a valiant effort by well-intentioned sportsmen. But the long-term odds seem insurmountable as I, among a few voices in the wilderness, noted when the IRL formed up.

With CART’s demise, other questions will be raised, not the least of which is the fate of major road racing venues like Long Beach, Road America, Mid-Ohio, Portland, Toronto, etc. who depend on CART as their annual showcase event. Is that a void to be filled by Dr. Panoz or the France's Rolex series, or will Mr. George reach out to embrace a few road races? Or will we see yet another all-new sanctioning body rise up, Phoenix-like, out of the CART ashes to challenge the 1000lb gorilla?

That one I won’t dare predict."

Brock Yates has written a powerful commentary. 

The second reason I find CART so objectionable is the arrogance we who love the Indy Racing League had to put up with over the past six years. If I had more time I'd dig up some of the letters written by CART fans to On Track and Racer magazine during that period of time. Hey CART fans what do you think of the "IRL 500" now? I'd present some of the quotes from CART owners, officials and drivers. I'd love to recall some of Robin Miller's prophecies in The Indianapolis Star. 

But I don't need to do those things because IRL fans are getting the last laugh now. Recently Steve Ballard wrote in The Indianapolis Star that CART has gone from "arrogance to desperation." It's fun to be on the winning side, especially when you find the other side so distasteful.

Have you noticed how much less opinion is expressed in Robin Miller's columns on the ESPN website lately? If you don't see it in his writing, listen to his reports on RPM2night. Robin speaks with a softer voice these days. That razor edge has disappeared because Miller knows his beloved CART is in big trouble. Robin, like some of the CART teams, clings to the hope there will be engines from somewhere with which to race in 2003. 

There's been talk recently Toyota can provide IRL style engines for between 12 to 15 cars in 2003. Both Bobby Rahal and Robin Miller also mention John Judd who claims he can build 3.5 liter normally aspirated engines for 2003. I haven't heard much recently about Ford's offer to supply "spec" turbo V8 Cosworth engines to CART teams for $2.1 million per car per season. Turbo power is majority stock holder Jerry Forsythe's choice for power beyond 2002.

CART CEO Joe Heitzler keeps smiling and mouthing apologies, like the one he had to offer for last Saturday's meeting at California Speedway, where unhappiness and frustration oozed from team owners. Bobby Rahal and Pat Patrick walked out of the meeting in anger and there was the usual discord. 

There has been some positives for CART in recent days however. Bridgestone announced they will be the sole tire supplier for CART next season. FedEx announced they will continue to be the CART series sponsor for "up to four years." The amount of sponsorship wasn't disclosed however. Bobby Rahal announced a multi-year extension of his association with Miller Brewing although we don't know if it's a primary or associate sponsorship.  

But none of it's going to work. People who care, know by now CART is on the ropes. Did you see how empty the grandstands were last Sunday at California Speedway for the 2001 CART season finale? I mean that was CART racing at its best (if there is such a thing) and hardly anybody showed up. Do you want to bet the crowd for the IRL race at California Speedway next March will be larger? 

California has been a good market for CART. In 1999 the stands were packed. I heard something like 92,000 people were at the 1999 race. I watched that race on TV and 92,000 seems reasonable. Last year rain interrupted the "Marlboro 500." But the crowd was still impressive for the start of the race, somewhere in the 70,000 range.       

Who is David Phillips trying to kid? In his "Sunday Fontana Notebook" (11/04/01) on the Speedvision website, Phillips wrote the following:

"The air waves were burning today with pit crews pleading with their drivers to conserve fuel. As a result, the 70,000+ on hand (including a virtually sold-out motor home crowd) and the television viewers on ESPN and, later, ESPN2, saw something of an inverted race. Most of the lead changes resulted not from the second or third place car overtaking the leader so much as the leader slipping back to be overtaken."

Where did Phillips get that crowd number? I watched the Fontana race. There might've been 35,000 or 40,000 people at the race if that. I think Phillips' affection for CART is clouding his reporting or else he needs to get a new pair of glasses. 

You would think the principals in CART would unite while the very survival of the series is at stake but that's wrong. Not only are Carl Haas and Patrick at odds with Chip Ganassi and Bobby Rahal, but Jerry Forsythe is working to put together a stockholder revolt to grab power from other CART teams.

But even among the big shareholders there's no consensus. Jerry Forsythe backs CART CEO Joe Heitzler. Jon Vannini, who holds about eight percent of outstanding CART shares, wants to get rid of Heitzler and replace him with Chris Pook, the impresario of CART's most important event the Long Beach Grand Prix.

Last week Vannini  wrote a letter to the CART board complaining about the rampant conflict of interest exhibited by CART's top players while promoting Pook as CART's guiding force. Where has Jon Vannini been? Conflict of interest has always been CART's first, middle and last name.        

Read what Vannini wrote to the CART board.

"Dear Gentlemen:

As a significant shareholder of Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc. (CART), I am writing to express my deep concern about the present management and governance of the Company. As you are aware, there are currently six racing team owners that are members of the CART Board of Directors. I believe that these directors have actual and potential conflicts of interest with CART and its shareholders.

These actual and potential conflicts include, but are not limited to:

1) Several team owners are also promoters of race events, either directly or in partnership with others.

2) The team owners may have economic relationships with industry suppliers that have interests and objectives that are contrary to those of the Company.

3) Certain team owners are or might become full-time participants in the series sponsored by our direct competitors.

4) Certain team owners have positions on various committees of the Board, which gives them an influence with management that may be contrary to the Company's interests.

5) One team owner sold an enterprise to the Company for over $10 million that was shortly thereafter closed, resulting in a nearly $10 million charge to earnings.

6) Several team owners sold significant stock just prior to the Company's adoption of a new engine package that was universally scorned and immediately precipitated the withdrawal of the remaining two engine suppliers. CART's stock price predictably dropped sharply after the public announcement.

This list is far from exhaustive but illustrates the existence of serious actual and potential conflicts of interest between these directors and CART. This situation is untenable. For that reason, I urge these directors to resign their positions immediately.

Further, I believe that CART critically needs a day-to-day operating manager. There may be flexibility concerning the formal title, but the position should be sufficiently senior and entrusted with the required power to permit the effective management of the Company's operations. I believe that Christopher Pook is the logical candidate for that position. The Board of Directors should immediately consider creating such a position and extending an offer to Mr. Pook.

The above requests, I believe, are prudent, sound and plainly in the best interests of CART, its shareholders and the sport. I look forward to your immediate action on these critical matters."

You have to give old guys like Pat Patrick and Carl Haas credit. Both are very slick operators, even in their advanced years. Patrick made some big dollars by selling Indy Lights to CART and then watching the series go bust two years later. Haas has been making a fortune selling Lolas, Swifts and Lolas again to CART owners for years. Unfortunately Pat Patrick and Carl Haas are guilty of jeopardizing Indy car racing in the pursuit of personal riches. However Patrick and Haas haven't been alone in their greed. Greed has been as much of the CART story as arrogance. 

An official announcement is expected any time by Roger Penske that he's taking Marlboro and his racing team to the Indy Racing League. If it happens, and it looks like it will, Penske's defection is perhaps the biggest blow to CART's future. There's been some hope in the media (actually Robin Miller is the only one who's said it) Penske might run both CART and the IRL next year with single cars in each series, but it appears now there will be a complete break. 

Roger Penske and Pat Patrick created Championship Auto Racing Teams. While Patrick has come and gone over the 23 years of CART's existence, Penske has provided the motivation for the series since it began operation in 1979.

After the split with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1996, Penske's racing effort appeared to flounder however. It was as if Penske lost interest and the white and red Marlboro cars dropped to the middle and sometimes back of the pack. The Penske team was winless in CART during 1996, 1998 and 1999. In 2000, Roger Penske appeared to catch the fever again. He abandoned his own Ilmor Mercedes turbo V8 engine and Penske chassis in favor of Honda and Reynard and began winning races with Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves. Penske also came back to the "Indianapolis 500," sponsoring Jason Leffler in one of Fred Treadway's entries.    

I have mixed emotions about Roger Penske coming to the Indy Racing League. I hold Penske more responsible for the current plight of Indy car racing than anyone else. The only good things I have to say about Roger Penske are that he provided cars for Al Unser (1987) and Al Unser Jr. (1994) to win the "Indianapolis 500" and that he apparently loves the "500" more than he loves CART. l have concerns that Penske will jeopardize the spirit of the IRL. But I also recognize that if Penske moves to the IRL it's the ultimate CART indictment.

Robin Miller wrote late in the 2000 season in The Indianapolis Star if Michael Andretti moved to the IRL CART should close down and declare Tony George the winner. I have news for you Robin, if Roger Penske moves to the IRL the game is over too.

So for that reason alone I'm looking forward to Penske's announcement. No doubt it will change the Indy Racing League in a big way. Much of the innocence, which has been such an attractive aspect of the IRL, will be gone. I'm unhappy about that. But it will generate recognition that so far has eluded the IRL and I'm interested to see what happens.

I honestly expect Chip Ganassi to follow Roger Penske into the IRL full time in 2003 (perhaps with Tony Stewart). Ganassi is too much of a winner to waste his time on CART for too long. I think Bobby Rahal will eventually come too, although not without some denial along the way. The old guys Carl Haas and Pat Patrick may try to hold out, but if they do they'll eventually fade away.

Our old pal, CART apologist David Phillips had an interesting look (but discouraging to Phillips no doubt) into the future of Indy car racing in a commentary posted on the Speedvision Internet site. In a piece entitled "To What End?" Phillips wrote:

"I'd like nothing more than to write about Gil de Ferran and the fact that he joined some illustrious company on Sunday when he became the fourth driver in history to repeat as CART champion. When you consider the names of the other back-to-back CART champs – Rick Mears, Bobby Rahal and Alex Zanardi – you begin to get a sense of what de Ferran has achieved in the past two seasons, with more than a little help from his friends at Marlboro Team Penske.

It couldn't happen to a more deserving man, or a better ambassador for motorsports.

Unfortunately, as has too often been the case in American open-wheel racing, the athletes' accomplishments are overshadowed by the politics of the day. For, as October turns to November, events are moving at such a pace that there can be little doubt we are witnessing the beginning of the end of CART as we have known it since 1979.

Spurred by the Franchise Board's feckless decision to adopt an IRL-like 3.5-liter, normally-aspirated engine formula in 2003 (just 17 months from the start of the season and without a public commitment from a single manufacturer to supply such engines), CART shareholders Jon Vannini and James Grosfeld (with the tacit support of Gerald Forsythe) are making a bid for control of Championship Auto Racing Teams. In the short term, they seek to overturn the engine rules decision in favor of spec 2.65-liter turbos supplied by Cosworth; over the long haul, they apparently hope to take the organization private in order to run it on a business basis with a benevolent dictator (ala F1, NASCAR and the IRL) instead of the profoundly dysfunctional model of a team-owner democracy that has been the basis of CART since its founding.

That their actions are overdue is indisputable. The process by which the 3.5-liter engine rule was arrived at is a metaphor for much that has ailed CART since its inception. As long ago as '95 there was talk of the need for a new engine formula to replace the 2.65-liter turbos, both from a cost standpoint and because increasing manufacturer involvement would inevitably produce dramatic increases in performance that could not long be offset by decreases in turbo boost levels already approaching normal atmospheric pressure.

Although the engine manufacturers ultimately reached an agreement in principle to adopt a 1.8-liter turbo with 80in of boost, it was shuffled to the back burner in order to pursue a stillborn reconciliation with the IRL. Subsequent progress on the engine formula was stymied by the conflicts of interest inherent in an organization run by team owners beholden to their individual engine suppliers who, increasingly, footed the bills.

Sure enough, the cost and speed problems associated with sticking with an overly ripe engine formula mounted amidst a welter of other issues left unattended or unsuccessfully addressed. Mercedes-Benz bailed in late '99, but it was only when it became clear that Toyota and Ford were almost certain to follow suit at the end of '02 that the team owners acted, if not without regard for the consequences, then after so many delays that their options were limited.

As noted, the process by which the 3.5-liter engine formula was arrived at mirrors many of CART's shortcomings, most notably the inability to develop – much less implement – a long-term strategy addressing (among other things) the inherent conflicts associated with a North American-based series fueled largely by domestic sponsorship but with an increasingly significant international component to the schedule.

It is the latter issue, more than esoteric IRL/CART politics, that will likely draw Roger Penske and Marlboro to the IRL, perhaps as soon as next year. Philip Morris learned the hard way at this year's Indy 500 that the Master Settlement Agreement with the states' attorneys general prohibits Marlboro sponsorship of both a CART and an IRL program. Thus one can easily imagine Philip Morris USA comparing the benefits of an IRL program featuring 15 domestic races, including the Indy 500, televised on ABC and ESPN with a like number of domestic CART races televised on CBS and Speed Channel (nee Speedvision), and opting for the IRL.

On the other hand, it is the prohibitive cost of CART that has sent Morris Nunn and Hollywood to the IRL in 2002; a cost unlikely to be much reduced by the 3.5-liter CART engine formula (or even a 2.65-liter spec Cosworth formula at a rumored $2.1m per car, per season), when you consider that most CART teams have been operating in a dream world subsidized by their engine suppliers in recent seasons. In the current economy, finding sponsorship dollars to make up a sizeable portion of that shortfall will not be the matter of a moment.

If you have any doubts on that score, consider how many other CART teams are looking at downsized efforts in '02. In addition to Nunn and probably Penske, Team Rahal is uncertain about a second car, ditto Patrick and PacWest. Arciero/Blair, Sigma and Forsythe Championship Racing lack major sponsors and Dale Coyne's deal with Martin Basso is largely dependent on the strength of CART's yet-to-be finalized Argentinean television package.

And what about 2003? Will KOOL be back with Team Green? If so, and Marlboro Team Penske is in the IRL, where will KOOL be? Motorola? A major component of that program is a B-to-B relationship with, er, Honda. Player's? Barring a reversal in Canadian law, that sponsorship ends after '02. Kmart? Texaco? Heard any more about the Eli Lilly deal with Newman/Haas? I thought not.

Should Vannini, Grosfeld & Co. gain control of CART, it remains to be seen how they can keep it going as much more than an open-wheel version of the ALMS, where you can count the potential winners on one hand and the rest are field-fillers (to meet the 16-car minimum required by CART's sanctioning agreements), making the days when the CART FedEx Championship produced a total of 16 different winners (so far) in the '00 and '01 seasons but a fond memory.

And should they fail, CART will face those same challenges and more, what with upwards of 300 engines in demand for '03 and a continuing dependence on sanctioning fees that are, increasingly, beyond the means of many traditional domestic events. Thus the move to international events which, in the case of Germany, Surfers Paradise and England, offer modest value to most existing sponsors and which, to date, have generated no new sponsorship for CART; just ask Jason Bright, Peter Zakowski, Johnny Herbert, Michael Krumm, Marcel Tiemann and Andreas Leberle.

Don't get me wrong. Certainly the concept of two dozen Cosworth-powered Champ Cars racing at Long Beach, Road America and – with a sensible aerodynamic package – Fontana and Milwaukee is enticing; the concept of two dozen 3.5 liter-powered Champ Cars doing the same only slightly less so. But I think the odds are, sooner than later, we'll be seeing two dozen 3.5 liter-powered IRL cars entered and driven by a preponderance of former CART teams and drivers racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway... and Michigan, Fontana, Kansas and Chicagoland. —"

One person who can expect to profit from CART's demise is Don Panoz. The ALMS, or IMSA as it is called now, will probably gather in some of the disaffected CART fans. If Panoz can find an accommodation with Bill France's Grand Am series, sports car racing may rise to the level it was in the old Can Am days. Places like Road America and Mid Ohio will see some of the disaffected CART fans switch to the sports cars.      

To be honest I don't want the Indy Racing League to become a refuge for homeless CART teams, especially not at the expense of the cast and crew of the IRL to date. In other words, I prefer John Menard, A.J. Foyt, Ron Hemelgarn, Tom Kelley, Gary Pedigo, Fred Treadway and Rick Galles to the guys who gave us CART. With the exception of Penske and Ganassi, I'd rather the others went to IMSA or something. Perhaps even more importantly I don't want to Buddy Lazier, Eddie Cheever, Scott Sharp, Greg Ray, Al Unser Jr., Sam Hornish and Jaques Lazier to be supplanted by Cristiano da Matta, Max Papis, Patrick Carpentier, Christian Fittipaldi (maybe Christian will go away and join the NASCAR circus), Oriol Servia, etc. I'm not one of those who automatically accept the notion CART drivers are superior to the IRL regulars anyway. I recall seeing Robbie Buhl blow by two-time CART champion Gil de Ferran to move into second place with about 40 laps remaining in the 2001 "Indianapolis 500."

Perhaps I can feel the slightest bit of admiration for CART as it clings to life support with what little strength it has left. The fight for life is a natural instinct. At the same time I'm still mad as hell for what CART did to my sport.

So let's close the CART era. CART thought it was Indy car racing but it was just a few chapters in the history book. It's time to let Tony George take the sport to where it deserves to be without any obstruction from a moribund racing series whose time has come and gone.