Its not a real surprise, but its now official. Randy Bernard, former CEO of the Professional Bull Riders Inc., recently accepted the position of Chief Executive Officer of the Indy Racing League. The official word from the league is set to come out sometime next week, but if Curt Cavin says its so, that’s certainly good enough for us here at The Paddock. Many have deep reservations about Mr. Bernard’s qualifications as a CEO of the league given that he has no motorsports experience. Not only that, but he’s never…
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IndyCar – …well, crap.
I tried to come up with a better, more professional title to this post than “…well, crap.”, but let’s be honest. Nothing else really works for a day like today unless I allow myself to decend into a explitive-laced tirade about the two major bombs that were dropped today. Let’s get this morning’s news out first… “It is with profound regret & heavy hearts that we share the following update with you all. Despite the team’s best efforts, Vision Racing will be suspending all racing operations. We have an amazing…
Read MoreIndyCar – IZOD Dumps Cash on Advertising
I was pleasantly surprised this weekend to see IZOD IndyCar Series commercials air during both the AFC and NFC league championship games this weekend. Short of the Superbowl, there is hardly any other advertising buy that would attract the attention of more eyes. The commercial used was the same bit that IndyCar fans were treated to all season last year (‘everything gonna be all right’) but ended with an advertisement for the Sao Paulo race and the phrase ‘The Fastest Race on Earth’. While this is the first time I…
Read MoreIndyCar – Belskus is Searching for New IRL Leader
Word is on the street (and in the Indianapolis Star) that the IRL is looking for a new CEO. Jeff Belskus took over for Tony George last year after his mom, his sisters and the consigliori voted him out of his positions of leadership within the family business. At this time, Jeff serves as the CEO of Hulman & Co., IRL, IMS, IMS Productions and the radio network. Busy man, but he is looking for help, especially since Joie Chitwood (IMS CEO) and Charlie Morgan (IMS Productions CEO) left for…
Read MoreIndyCar – New Fuel Probe for 2010
Hopefully a recently announced change to the refueling system for the 2010 IndyCar season will see a reduction in the number of premature drive-offs and fuel spills that lead to the fiery pit-lane incidents that we saw in 2009. Two such incidents stand out in my mind: Meira’s fire at Indianapolis, and Tony “The Torch” Kanaan’s fire in Edmonton. In both of these incidents, fuel was sprayed over the driver and car during a refueling stop and was ignited by the exhaust manifold. These situations are often caused by premature…
Read MoreIndyCar – Ryan Hunter-Reay Livery for 2010
Ryan Hunter-Reay has posted a picture of his 2010 livery on his twitter account. For your pleasure, we have taken the liberty of posting here for you to enjoy. This will probably not be his livery for the entire season since Andretti Autosport has only announced a partial season effort with IZOD as the primary sponsor. No further word has come as to what races he will be contesting, other than Indy. Michael Andretti said that they were still working on making his deal a full season effort and that…
Read MoreIndyCar – Sam Schmidt Motorsports Secures Townsend Bell for the 500
Sam Schmidt Motorsports announced today that it will be returning to the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race in partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing, a relationship that they continue from 2009. Best of all, they’ve secured Townsend Bell to drive the car! Bell has had a great run in the 500 the last couple of years with his best finish coming last year finishing fourth while running for KV Racing. This year he’ll be running the #99 car for SSM and hoping for an even better finish. While there are some who…
Read MoreIndyCar – Interesting Changes for 2010 and THE KNOB IS GONE!
The IZOD IndyCar Series had its annual pre-season safety meeting today at which several changes were announced for the 2010 season. Some of which were already known, some were speculated, and one comes as a bit of a surprise. So Long Fuel Knob! The knob is gone! However, don’t get too elated thinking that we’ll see the end of fuel mileage races. We’ll still have those, but “making fuel” will now be relient on the driver’s skill to finesse their machine and precisely control the throttle. “Teams and drivers can…
Read MoreIndyCar – Tony Cotman Leaves IRL, Kinda
New Zealand native Tony Cotman has left his position with the IndyCar Series as Vice President of Competition to start his own company, NZR Consulting. Tony was second in command behind Brian Barnhart in the IRL and his race weekend responsibilities included race direction of the Indy Lights series. Before joining the IRL in 2008, Tony became widely respected for his role in the Champ Car World Series as Executive Vice President of Operations and Race Director. Tony was instrumental in bringing the cost effective Panoz DP01 program forward in…
Read MoreIndyCar – On Fuel Knobs, Reverse Gear and the Winter Meeting
Next Tuesday is the IRL’s annual winter meeting. This gives the league an opportunity to talk about rules changes with the teams, as well as perform physicals and film segments with the drivers to use for Versus and ESPN’s TV packages. For us here in the Paddock though, it really marks the beginning of the IndyCar season as we come off of a very quiet winter break. Granted, we have already had the first test of the new year with Taglianni, Briscoe and Franchitti taking laps at Homestead. But the…
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