Tony Cicale interviewed by Kirby for blog.

[pchall]

Rememberane of a series past (http://www.gordonkirby.com/categories/columns/theway/2009/the_way_it_is_no215.html)

Worth a read even if Kirby is as smug as Murphy the Stuffed Animal.


Cicale spent more than thirty years in the sport, first as a driver and Can-Am car builder, then as an Indy car engineer with Newman/Haas, Patrick Racing, Porsche's short-lived Indy car team, Galles/Kraco, Players/Forsythe, Team Kool Green and Andretti-Green. Cicale is a rigorous engineering disciplinarian and a student of the much more nebulous art of race engineering. He also has a quiet, dry sense of humor and occasionally lets his sardonic wit fly.

"It doesn't even come close today," Cicale remarks. "I try to watch the IRL races and I can't. They're just so terrible. I watched the races this year, but I can't think of one that stood out as an even acceptable race. It has very little meaning to me, which is sad. From the start I thought the whole IRL business was ridiculous and it's very sad to see the results of all that power squabbling and politics. It was a dreadful period for racing."

[Gnam]

The sad result is very different from the vision originally foisted on the public and swallowed by some in the media. After fifteen years of bitter squabbling Tony George's failed revolution, aimed at taking control of Indy car racing from CART's team owners, has been a calamitous failure...

Where was this insight 10 years ago?
Where was it 5 years ago?
:shakehead :gomer:

[Elmo T]

The sad result is very different from the vision originally foisted on the public and swallowed by some in the media.

Had TG immediately gotten what he wanted in 1996, had CART capitulated - would the end result have been any different? :shakehead

For all the could have, would have, should have; all the hand-wringing; the name calling; the poor decisions made by many involved - there is a single catalyst, the single patient zero (the index case): :tony:.


As an aside, I looked up the index case to make sure my use fit - and it works for me...

The index case or primary case is the initial patient in the population of an epidemiological investigation. The index case may indicate the source of the disease, the possible spread, and what reservoir holds the disease in between outbreaks. The index case is the first patient that indicates the existence of an outbreak.

[oddlycalm]

But almost inevitably a generation...arrives riven by a preening kind of fecklessness and in their hands...
...in their hand it all turns to organic fertilizer, which brings us to where we are now. Just plucked.

My biggest regret is that high definition video didn't arrive until long after CART, Can Am, Trans Am, IMSA and F5000 were gone. I'd kill to own high quality video of all those races.

oc

[datachicane]

May not all be high quality, but the, umm, Toothed Resource helps with the jonesin'.

[Sean Malone]

Blah blah blah. Too little too late. It's like when Yoko Ono talks about how much she liked the Beatles. :thumdown: