IndyCar Teams Supporting Tony George Amid Family Dispute
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George And His Mother Deny Reports He
Has Been Ousted From Family Business |
All 12 full-time IndyCar Series teams "came out Saturday night in support” of IRL & Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George, according to Dave Kallmann of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. The statement read, "We, the IndyCar team owners, want to express our full support to Tony. As an innovator and leader of our sport, he continually strives to help and improve IndyCar racing, and for that we are exceptionally grateful." George last week was ordered by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corp. (IMSC) BOD to devise a plan that will see George focus on a single entity under the track’s corporate umbrella. However, both George and his mother, IMSC Chair Mari Hulman-George, denied a report that George had been ousted from the family business (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 5/31). ESPN.com’s John Oreovicz wrote left unsaid by the statement is that George -- and by extension, Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- is the "primary source of funding" for the IRL. Oreovicz: “It's ironic that the team owners who -- collectively as CART -- fought George so bitterly in the past are now publicly embracing him. But as individual business owners, they need him. And George needs them in what is shaping up as a power struggle within the Hulman-George family” (ESPN.com, 5/31).
IRL KEY TO LONG-TERM VIABILITY: In Indianapolis, Bob Kravitz wrote the "ultimate health of the IRL is key to the long-term viability" of the IMSC, and the IRL "needs full-time attention." IMSC's BOD are tiring of George’s "spendthrift ways when it comes to propping up the IRL." Over the years, George has "spent hundreds of millions of family cash to bankroll other teams, purses, buy equipment, do whatever was necessary to help his baby grow." That money, "of course, has come from the family coffers and the Speedway." But if someone else were to control IMSC's "purse strings ... what happens to the league?" Kravitz: "If the IRL is suffering, or even ceases operations down the road, what becomes of the Indianapolis 500? Without a league to support the event, does it still matter? Beyond that, what happens to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 5/31).
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