Indy Car Racing In todays world.

I grew up in the Speedway area. Just around 34th and Georgetown Rd in Indianapolis Indiana. I am going to help sponsor two cars for the Indianapolis great 500 mile race this year with two different products. A very famous writer helped me see the light. So now how is it to be aloud to be a Indy Car owner if you do not have any money to support your team that you suppose to own. All I am saying is can you imagine some major baseball player going up to the Milwaukee Brewers and saying I have four million dollars and can throw a mean fast ball can I play for the team? You can believe the uproar that this would cause in the sports world and the players union. I would love to just go to an Indy car race that all the drivers in the field was placed in the field because of talent not because of what the driver brought to the table. I have had team owners say to me that the driver would need 2 to 3 million for the driver to get the ride just the chance to be in a few races. Can you see this happening in the NFL? No way I could not at all. Now do not get me wrong not all team are that way at all. The big three, but after that it becomes a mess. I know of two drivers that I am going to help and make sure that they will always be in place for a good ride. I had a great lunch at Charlie Browns in Speedway with my friend for many years and watched some YouTube clips of some great 1970 Indy type races. I felt the glory in everything I was watching. I felt so sad that this Indy car racing is just not a sport anymore in my heart. I remember when my parents used to take me to the race track every May for practice and qualification for the race teams to even make the great race. The thrill of just seeing all the new designs and what driver was with who. I love A.J. Foyt, and Al Unser, and yes Dick Simon, plus Poncho Carter, Johnny Parsons back in the day. I kept stats and listened to IMS radio network the whole month long. I think the whole mess is that you should not be aloud to even own a team unless you can place the right driver with the right team and the team owner can actually pay for the driver and teammates for the whole season. A minor league for the drivers then a draft for the big Indy Teams. At this point do we really know who the best drivers are? I don't think so. What we have is people going around and buying rides with team owners that can not afford to run a team in the first place. Even the Indy lights is a bought ride in the majority of cases. So how do you find the best drivers? In todays world is who has the most money? I love Tony George for even having the strengths to start the IRL. All we need to do is like any other sport. Get a solid plan for team franchising and just like any other league get the best talent. Mario, A.J., Mears, Unser, and so many back in the day had real talent and the right team owners came to these great drivers and lets face the best 33 drivers made the field. This is not what we have today, and I am sorry if you do not believe me on this. I was having lunch with a friend that knows my stand on this and he announced to me that all the USAC drivers want to go NASCAR and just don't care that much about Indy any more, and it costs too much to even see if they can be great in Indy stile racing. In NASCAR if a team owner thinks your good they try you out like a real sports team try out. Now wait a minute I am not a fan of NASCAR racing I am just saying they might have something here. I remember when states got behind their drivers, city's and towns. Their could be 40 even 50 teams but only 33 make it at Indy if this was done a little better. I have built a small business in the fact of providing sponsorship for some drivers that just needed a chance, but that is all wrong and I am sorry for that. Sports are a driven talent and the cheering of the fan for that driver. Passion in motor sports all over again. The only way a person should be called a team owner in Indy Car is as if the team owner can afford to be a real team owner, not a manager of funds from a driver to spend money to get a ride. Their are some really great Indy Team Owners that really have their acts together and provide what I am saying. That just might be 5% of the Indy Car Team owners, the rest should not be team owners at all. These so called team owners should be team mangers of drivers money or something like that. I know that Tony George can be the best commissioner for Indy Car type of racing and get the right set of team owner for the sport. I have spent a lot of money in this sport trying to promote products, and convincing companies that this is the right avenue for the product placement and promotions for the USA and South America. When the team owners can pay for their drivers and teammates in the popper fashion we the fans will have the best racing in the world. Drivers need the rights to perform for the best team owners. The best crew members need the best drivers and team owners. Team owners need to express the talent they can provide to keep me and the fans happy. Real sports teams have talent scouts to go and get the right talent on all sides of the spectrum. I love the sport and I am just expressing myself in this matter. Merchandising would be so much better if things got organized a lot better, Tony George and so many collage educated people around him. I hope they can save my favorite sport soon. I know their is real talent out there. The talent just needs the right system in place. Heck if Bud Selig could have been a commissioner of MLB and owned a team at the time(But then sold the team to a great group of people)? Why can't Tony George? He has the knowledge and the know how. I am saying someone fix my favorite sport please. I just want the best 33 drivers every race. I think Tony George can get this done real fast if he focused on this task. I remember when you could not even buy a ticket to the race you had to go to the infield to see the race(then try to not get into trouble with all the infield drama). Now it just dose not even matter at all, I bought so many tickets last year for the race through Freddy Bear a ticket scalper and entertained so many people real cheep. I remember that the month of May for me alone used to cost me personally well over $25,000.00 and it would make me hundreds of thousands back on the investment for my clients. Now it is very sad to even express what you can do profit wise. Me I make money placing product in major stores, not by racing anymore. I will soon, I know Mr. Tony George can fix this problem soon. Or I will have to promote soccer for a while that sport is on the move (right, that hurts me just by saying that). 1978 was my first Indy 500 and I was so excited to walk through the gate at the greatest race in the world at that time. I would like to keep that feeling at every race I spend money on, but it is real hard. Heck I will keep spending the money because I love the sport and that is a fact. When I was a teenager my friends and myself sold news papers just to get into the race for free on race day but you still did not have a seat. I do love the new commercial Take Me Out To The Race Track, that hits home.

Jim Gandolf