rec.autos.simulators

You want to know the greatest racers in the world. Besides the ones you
mentioned. Alex Zanardi, Jimmy Vasser, Paul Tracy, and Christian
Fittipaldi are great drivers. Bryan Herta, Mo Gugelmin, Andre Ribeiro, and
Adrian Fernandez are almost great drivers. Only Luyendyk, Goodyear,
Lazier, Robby Gordon, Tony Stewart, and maybe Robbie Buhl stood a chance
of winning the race the other day. Jeff Ward may also be a find.

I would also like to see some of the formula one drivers trying to get in
the race. Sure level the playing field, but lets see who is the best.

????
--
Bruce
----
"To be or not to be?  Well, I'd rather 'be', if you don't mind!"

: I would also like to see some of the formula one drivers trying to get in
: the race. Sure level the playing field, but lets see who is the best.

In the real old days they used to.  But I think the rules for F1
prohibit them from entering "competing" racing body's races.  Otherwise
they would lose their license to drive in F1.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The real point is this: the IRL is not drawing fans and that means
it's losing money at the gate. If it can't make budget, the IRL won't
be around too long.

The first qualifying day at Indy this year drew only 35,000 fans --
that's way down from the pre-IRL years. Granted the race went off two
days late, on Tuesday, but the attendance was only 100,000. If you're
wondering, IMS holds 300,000 and the crowd on Sunday (rain or no) was
well below capacity, too. That was never the case in the days before
the Indy Racing League.

The fans aren't coming because Tony George's "vision" for open-wheel
racing is not what they want. Ultimately, the fans will decide if the
IRL makes it.

Which will explain why they aren't at Indy but are racing in F1.

world).
A touch of envy creeping through, perhaps?
--
Bruce
----
"To be or not to be?  Well, I'd rather 'be', if you don't mind!"

Amen to that and it cant happen soon enough. Indy has always been about
speed and catch me if you can. Its not about 25 oldSLOWbile smallblocks

<<regarding the Indy 500.  After trying to watch the race for the last

Couldn't agree more. And the real tragedy, as we saw last year, is that
it's a DANGEROUS joke. I don't care one way or the other about Tony
George, IMS, IRL vs. CART, or whether Roger Penske owns the other half
of the world that Disney doesn't. What's scary is letting a bunch of
inexperienced wall fodder into cars and tracks capable of WAY over
200mph.

Nobody can convince me that the lower rungs of IRL aren't populated with
teams whose only function is to make the fields bigger. CART has its
share of gomers, too, but their numbers are probably a tenth of IRLs.

<<Tony's idea of giving the low budget racer a chance to win is a
farce.>>

Exactly. This ain't 1968 (unfortunately); drivers are specialists in
this day and age, and teams are, too. Mr. George's nostalgia for the
days of "Dirt Track To Glory" is worse than an anachronism, it's a
recipe for ongoing disaster. Sure, there used to be a time (or so we'd
like to think) when Mickey Rooney could fire up the old "Fish Carburetor
Special", held together by baling wire, chewing gum, and Good Old
American Guts, and go out and snatch victory from the fiery jaws of
defeat. Those days are LOOOOONG gone. And good riddance, when you look
at the results of some of the races in those days -- Eddie Sachs, Dave
MacDonald... what a waste.

The truth of top of the line speedway racing today is that it takes a
level of professionalism and experience, from the drivers, to the
designers, mechanics, race officials, and, yes, even turn marshals, that
has only been diluted by the split. And for what? To prove that Joe
Nobody is quicker than Bill Nobody. No offense to those people driving
in IRL, but this is just like the Olympics before they allowed
professional athletes to compete. Olympic basketball? Everybody, even
people who (like me) knew absolutely nothing about hoops knew damned
well that the greatest Olympic b-ball team in history would get
absolutely whomped by the lowest-scoring team in the NBA. Imagine if
they tried it with American Football?

The IRL (except for the very few real professionals who went with them)
is amateur hour, pure and simple. The real difference between amateur
basketball and amateur speedway racing is hitting a concrete wall nose
on at 200mph. And that's a killer difference.

Bart Brown

Hmmm... was it CART or IRL that had the first lap melee at the BogUS 500
last year?

What does this IRL vs CART ***have to do with this newsgroup. You people
aren't driving in CART or the IRL. You probably can't even drive the
simulation. If you want to talk about this stuff go to Irace they have a
whole chat group to talk about this stuff. It's getting pretty old in
here.

---Jim