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INDYCAR: Team Owners Meet in Las Vegas
Written by: Robin Miller   
11/11/2008
Indianapolis, Ind.
 
The action at IndyCar's Championship Celebration was not restricted to handing out awards. ยป More Photos

The Indy Racing League got together last week in Las Vegas for its annual awards banquet but, prior to the gala to honor champion Scott Dixon, the car owners assembled twice privately to discuss their concerns and ideas for 2009 and beyond.

“It wasn’t a revolt and there wasn’t any bad sentiment, it was just kind of a meeting to pull everyone in the same direction,” said Jimmy Vasser, who co-owns KV Racing with Kevin Kalkhoven.

Longtime owner/driver Bobby Rahal said: “We shared our concerns about the economy and our frustrations with certain things, because everyone wants to make sure we keep 26 cars on the grid. But I didn’t hear anything hostile.”

Mike Hull, managing director for Target/Ganassi Racing since the team’s days in CART, said the owners’ recent meetings were nothing like the old days. “I sat in a lot of those CART owners’ meetings and there were always lots of personal agendas, but there was none of that in these meetings.”

The idea to get everyone together came from Dennis Reinbold
and Robbie Buhl, who operate one of IndyCar’s smaller teams.

“Dennis and I were looking at the way the economy is going and we thought it would be a benefit for all of us to get together from a business standpoint and from a cost standpoint,” said Buhl, a former race winner for the Dreyer & Reinbold operation. “We wanted to do something as a group to allow things to grow. But we didn’t want to do anything behind Tony’s (George) back, so we met with him and he agreed.”

George, who started the IRL in 1996 as an alternative to CART, represented his Vision Racing team in both meetings but IndyCar presidents Brian Barnhart (competition) and Terry Angstatdt (commercial division) were not invited.

“We came up with some ideas on what can be done to benefit the series and benefit ourselves,” said Reinbold. “It’s not a situation where we want power, we just wanted to talk through some issues and keep this thing growing.

“Tony seemed to like the discussion and the direction.”

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