Marty Roth has had a temperamental relationship with the IndyCar series. Before reunification, Roth was a necessary evil to keep car counts up, but after CCWS folded into the IRL, Roth’s lack of real talent behind the wheel started to garner him black flags.
The other teams level of ire rose to a crescendo at Belle Isle last year when Roth consumed most of the practice time by spinning his car on five separate occasions. Some have theorized the the IRL had a chat with him at the end of last season and informed him that he would not be allowed to participate any more, though that has never been proven to be the case.
So, when Roth put two cars on this years 500 entry list, I couldn’t help but cringe at the prospect of Marty on the track again. I theorized that Marty would have to be a 2 car effort for May with a veteran driver before he could stand any chance at qualifying. This worked well for him last year when he brought John Andretti on board.
But it looks like that wasn’t Marty’s plan at all. The Indianapolis Star is reporting that Marty will not be driving this year. In fact, he had entirely different motives in bringing his
equipment to the track. Roth is negotiating with an unnamed individual to buy his operation, and he doubts that his equipment will see any track time this May since that person would not be taking delivery of the team until after the race.
So, maybe some parts of our previous story on Gil de Ferran and Takuma Sato have more merit with this additional piece of information. Maybe we wont see Takuma in May, but by Motegi this operation may be well under way.
If de Ferran and Taku are in the 500, I’ll be beside myself with excitement! 😀 This is going to be one of the best 500s ever! The only thing that would be better is if Super Aguri were to field their own ICS team.