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MILLER: A Tough Week At 16th And Georgetown
Written by: Robin Miller   
05/30/2009
Indianapolis, IN
 
Tony George didn’t lie Wednesday following my report he’d been voted out of power at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He stated I wasn’t in the board meeting and he’s still the CEO of the Speedway.

Correct and correct.

Learning that Tony’s sisters (Josie, Nancy and Kathy) had used the board of directors voting process to oust their brother was certainly big news, yet hardly a startling revelation since we’d been hearing about the feuding for years. And my information came from the same people who'd informed me that the girls had given Laura George (Tony's wife) the boot from her IMS job a few weeks before.
After a flurry of reporting earlier in the week, things have settled down at IMS. (LAT) ยป More Photos
My sources are very good and they’re also unnamed, which seems to bother a few people, but let’s try and remember there was no Watergate without Deep Throat.

People were also skeptical and when I wrote that R.J. Reynolds was leaving NASCAR, that Goodyear was getting out of IndyCar racing, that Brian France was replacing his father, that Tony Stewart was running Indy for Chip Ganassi in 2001 and that Tony George had made peace with Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe to unify open wheel racing last year.

My story triggered a bit of chaos at 16th & Georgetown and, I’m only guessing here, a plan was quickly formulated to make the transition look as friendly and professional as possible.

There’s no doubt in my mind that TG is going to retain his IMS title for as long as necessary, or until a successor is named, but he’s not controlling the family purse strings anymore.

The IMS press release certainly didn’t dispel my story and, if anything, that first paragraph pretty much confirmed change is in the air.

But, even though George hasn’t been hands-on in the day-to-day business affairs of the IRL or at IMS for the past two years (except for his major role in unifying open wheel) because he's chosen to spend his time on Vision Racing team, his vacancy will leave one looming and very important question:

What happens to the Indy Racing League?

The IRL is Tony’s baby. He founded it, nurtured it and funded it, which is where the ****storm started with his three sisters. The estimate of $600 million spent in 13 years could be low or high but it’s supposedly been a gigantic drain on the family fortune. Jeff Belskus, chief financial officer at IMS, and general counsel Kurt Brighton certainly know the total figure, as do the IMS board of directors.

Counting purses, personnel, marketing, cars, engines, airplanes, promotion and the annual TEAM payout, it’s got to be a staggering number. Hence, the concern from Tony’s three siblings about their nest egg.

In his impromptu statements to some reporters Wednesday, George said of the Speedway, “This place wakes up every morning and eats money. We spend a lot of money keeping it in the condition we do.”

As for the IRL, he remarked, “Certainly the Indy Racing League has,
in the past, required a lot of capital to keep it going when there was two competing series. And a lot of money was spent last year trying to unify.”

It’s pretty easy to see that the Speedway, as a stand alone entity, remains a major moneymaker. Take a conservative estimate of 225,000 people last Sunday at Indy with an average ticket price of $80. That’s a cool $18 million not counting concessions.

The Brickyard 400 has always been a three-day cash cow and although it may be a challenge to draw 100,000 this July because of last year’s tire fiasco, it would still turn a profit. And replacing Formula One with Moto GP appears to be a financially sound switch.

Gene Cottingham, the former chief financial officer of Champ Car, is currently engaged in a review of all the IMS/IRL properties, ostensibly to give TG a report of the good, bad and ugly.

Of course it doesn’t take Cottingham, or anybody who can count, to add up the numbers and deduce that the big loser in the Hulman/George portfolio is the IndyCar series.

Which presents an interesting dichotomy: does the Speedway need the IRL more than the series needs the Indy 500?

During the past three days several IRL owners and drivers have inquired as to what this changing of the guard means to the series Tony started in 1996. They don’t know how much Hulman/George money has been spent keeping the circuit and their teams up and running, but they know it’s a boatload.

At least one of the sisters supposedly wants IMS out of the racing series business and wants to return to the ‘80s and early ‘90s when a series like CART controlled the racing except for May, when it competed at Indianapolis. And that’s certainly not an unreasonable thought, butt for figuring out who else would be willing to step up and either buy or finance IndyCar, given its current balance sheet?

Maybe in a few years, if the economy turns and IndyCar ever gets sensible budgets and leadership, the Speedway could return to merely being the richest, greatest race on the IndyCar schedule.

But for the time being, it has to keep the IRL’s heart beating.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.

Robin Miller became an Indy-car junkie in late 1950s and stooged for his hero, Jim Hurtubise, at the 1968 Indy 500. He went on to work as a vent man and board man on Indy pit crews from 1971-77. Miller bought a Formula Ford from Andy Granatelli in 1972 and raced it in SCCA until 1974 when he purchased a midget from Gary Bettenhausen, competing in the USAC midget series from 1975-82.

Robin flunked out of Ball State College in 1968 and began working at The Indianapolis Star sports department in 1969, covered motorsports there from 1969-2000.

In addition to his broadcast work. Miller's also covered IndyCar racing for Autoweek, Autosport, Car & Driver and On Track magazines over the past 35 years.
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