I wonder which had a bigger crowd, qualifying for the Brickyard 400 or
pole day for the IRL 500? Both looked fairly deserted to me these
days. Oh for the memories of the Indy 500. Pole day during the real
Indy 500 packed the front grandstands. Sad thing is the Indy 500
hasn't been run since 1995 and the IRL 500 is nothing more than a joke
if drivers like Milka can make the race.

Thing is Nascar's 35/8 is turning people off almost as much as 25/8.
Some will never learn.

"Mark" <mblackwell1958 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

You have an interesting point in comparing the IRL's 25/8 and Nascar's 35/8.
I wonder why they're so afraid of just running the fastest 33 or 43?

On Jul 29, 9:21 am, "armpit" <armarmpit... (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:
Its fear. Both were afraid to look people in the eye and say, "IF you
want to be in the race, sponsor a team that will do the job right, get
the right equipment and produce and you won't have a problem missing
the race." The reason for the fear was drastically different. With
the IRL is was protection. IF they had gone with the fastest 33, most
of those 33 would have been CART teams and the IRL would have had a
hard time finding teams. The first year of the IRL, the IRL teams
were running CART spec cars. Tony George was afraid the IRL couldn't
compete in the same equipment. That ended as soon as he could change
the rules to be different so that it was a totally different car.
Well that and they would have been sending a couple of cars home that
were faster than the 33 in the race so they couldn't say they started
the fastest 33;. Well they started the fastest 33, it just took 35
cars to do it.

Nascar its cash or losing it they fear. They use the 35/8 as a
corporate protection. I suspect the first car of the go or go homers
that went home, likely would have qualified mid pack or so which in
racing is just plain wrong.

In both cases the damage is far more than either of them counted on,
and its very long lasting.

"armpit" <armarmpitpit (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in
news:luydnfkb-8MePzHbnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d (AT) giganews (DOT) com:

Well, in the IRL's case it because, when they were just starting,
they were afraid the new & relatively inexperienced teams would
not be able to compete with the more highly funded CART teams.
It was not an unreasonable thing to do, indeed Tony George would
have been quite justified in refusing to let any teams which were
not competing the whole IRL season from running.

You'll note that after a couple of years, when the IRL teams had
established themselves, that the 25/8 rule went away.

John

"John McCoy" <igopogo (AT) ix (DOT) netcom.com> wrote

It went away even quicker than that.

Carey in Manvel

John McCoy wrote:
Almost right. The 25/8 rule was intended to lock out CART participation
and force them to run in the IRL. That rule effectively killed the Indy
500 and open wheel.

Carey Akin wrote:
But it was around long enough to destroy the credibility if the IRL and
the Indy 500. Also lead to the death of open wheel.

"Mark" <mblackwell1958 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

lost its luster.