View Full Version : Another split involving a major open wheel series
And Tony Stewart is involved (http://www.racingone.com/article.asp?artnum=24713)
First there was the split in open wheel racing with Champ Car and the IRL. Now there will be two rival dirt sprint car circuits.
The National Sprint Car League, a new dirt track sprint car series headed by Tony Stewart and the Petty Family which will rival the World of Outlaws, was announced Friday during a press conference at Dover.
The new league has agreements with several top World of Outlaws drivers to run the series beinning next season including Steve Kinser, Danny Lasoski, Jason Meyers, Shane Stewart, Joey Saldana, Paul McMahan, Jason Sides, Brian Paulus, Jason Solwold, Brandon Wimmer, and Tim *******.
Several races will be held at Eldora Speedway, which Stewart purchased from long-time owner Earle Baltes earlier this year.
SurfaceUnits
11-22-05, 10:31 AM
There's always someone who thinks they know and can do it better, because they have money. :shakehead
High Sided
11-22-05, 10:41 AM
There's always someone who thinks they know and can do it better, because they have money. :shakehead
and it always involves a track owner named tony from indy
There's always someone who thinks they know and can do it better, because they have money. :shakehead
The big difference between this and ChampCar/IRL is that the guys driving the startup league have the support of the top drivers and teams.
Methanolandbrats
11-22-05, 10:44 AM
All those tards better be careful. Very few people care about the IRL/CHAMPCAR split and nobody cares about this split. If you listen carefully you can almost hear sponsor checks being torn up and racetracks shutting down.
spinner26
11-22-05, 12:03 PM
and it always involves a track owner named tony from indy
Tony Stewart is not from Indy. The WoO's has been on a decline for a couple years. I'm suprised to see the Petty's getting involved but am Elated that Smoke is a principal. Tony is a true champion in every sense of the word, he also is quit possibly one of the best race car drivers EVER! Hope he came also be a smart business person. :thumbup:
racer2c
11-22-05, 12:44 PM
Has he punched any journalists lately? Wake me up when he wins an F1 title. *yawn*.
Tony Stewart is not from Indy. The WoO's has been on a decline for a couple years. I'm suprised to see the Petty's getting involved but am Elated that Smoke is a principal. Tony is a true champion in every sense of the word, he also is quit possibly one of the best race car drivers EVER! Hope he came also be a smart business person. :thumbup:Yep, the group Stewart is in with bid on WoO when DIRT bought it a couple years ago. They knew then that DIRT spent way too much money for it. From what I've been able to find out, some of the team owners saw DIRT's financial reports and called Stewart and Co. up and urged them to start another series. You know when guys like Kinser are jumping ship that the Titanic must be sinking. Stewart says they are very close to a live TV deal with Speed, something unheard of in dirt track racing. Stewart's group has the clout and the brains to do this thing right, unlike Tony George.
Has he punched any journalists lately? Wake me up when he wins an F1 title. *yawn*.
Stewart has mellowed a bunch this year. Moving back to Columbus, IN was the best move he ever made. I talked to him in September and he was as down to Earth as could be. I was skeptical going in, but came away a huge fan. Kasey Khane on the other hand... :rolleyes:
You will never see Stewart in F1, and that's sad. He is the best American racer of his generation.
Has he punched any journalists lately? Wake me up when he wins an F1 title. *yawn*.
Wake me up when he stops throwing empty batteries at the fans and wins a championship without a couple of debris yellows. Or is that "yallers"?
Dr. Corkski
11-22-05, 03:08 PM
They are going to be dirt tracking in the streets of downtown Indianapolis in a few years.
extramundane
11-22-05, 03:28 PM
You will never see Stewart in F1
because he can't fit his ever-expanding carcass into one of the cars.
AJ really is his idol.
JohnHKart
11-22-05, 09:35 PM
You will never see Stewart in F1, and that's sad. He is the best American racer of his generation.
His fitness is non existant...he would be winded in one of those cars just getting in it. I don't understand how he can be in cup and not work out because you need fitness in Cup as well...obviously not like in F1.
John
Methanolandbrats
11-22-05, 10:14 PM
Stewart is actually a really nice guy. He has a problem with publicity and all the attention and occasionally that does'nt work out so well. How do I know this? I have a friend who is a professional photographer. He has shot F1, GP Bikes and everything else. He got a gig shooting head shots and cars for a NASCAR memoribilia company. He was sitting on the pit wall one day waiting out a delay and a guy sat down and said "how ya doing". He looked up and it was Stewart. They had a nice chat and Stewart was a really nice, regular guy. Lost in conversation, my friend did'nt notice the growing crowd. Finally he looked up and hundreds of people were taking photos, asking for autographs and crowding in. He said it was the weirdest feeling. Stewart said "You never get used to this".
Biggest aholes my friend encountered: Jeff Gordon, Ol' Nige and Eddie Irvine.
Coolest guys: Kenny Schrader, Scott Brayton and Ricky Rudd.
His fitness is non existant...he would be winded in one of those cars just getting in it. I don't understand how he can be in cup and not work out because you need fitness in Cup as well...obviously not like in F1.
JohnI remember Robby Gordon saying once that if all the drivers in NASCAR had a foot race around Bristol, MArk MArtin would win because he would be the only guy to finish. Obviously, fitness is not a real big requirement in NASCAR. If F1 were Stewart's goal, I have no doubt that he could get into the required shape, go over there, and win races. But alas, we will never see that.
And M&B is right about Stewart being a regular guy. Earlier this year he held a 360 Sprint Car race at Eldora, with him and Kasey Khane and Dave Blaney taking on some of the local guys. He treated every one of the local guys with respect and joked that he would need a lot of advice from them because he had such limited experience in a winged Sprint. (For the record, a wheel hub broke on Stewart's car midway through the race and Blaney got taken out in the crash. Darren Long, a local guy, put a nice move on Khane and drove away for the win.) But back to Stewart, after the race he opened up the pits to the general public. Thousands of people came across the track and formed lines in front of their transporters. Blaney left early. Khane was signing autographs, but had a big display of overpriced memoribilia for sale. Stewart just sat and signed until everyone had got through the line, which was nearly 2:00 the next morning. I don't know if Khane stuck around that long. While Stewart sat and signed, he graciously answered questions from a sportswriter from a little 35,000-circulation newspaper he probably had never heard of.
I have a co-worker who is a big Stewart fan. She has followed him since his early days in the IRL and she and her husband met him at Indy in 1996. A couple years ago, her husband passed away. The next summer, she saw Tony again at a function for the Brickyard 400. She said, "You probably don't remember me, but..." and told him about 1996. He said no, but then said, "Oh, didn't your husband have a beard and glasses and was wearing such-and-such." She told him yes and he asked if her husband was there with her. She told him that he had passed away and Stewart said, "I'm so sorry, he seemed like a really nice guy."
Stewart said "You never get used to this".That day at Eldora I mentioned, a woman yelled "Hi Tony" to Stewart as he as walking through the pits and he, of course, said "hi" back. Another woman walked up and said, "Did he just say 'hi' to you?" She said yes and the second woman asked her friend to take a picture of her with the woman that Tony Stewart said "hi" to.
Honest to God true story.
Rocketdoc
11-22-05, 11:56 PM
"he also is quit possibly one of the best race car drivers EVER!"
Sure... right in front of Ayrton Senna, Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, A. J. Foyt, Mark Donohue, Jim Clark, Michael Shoemaker, Ascari, Fangio, Moss, Vulkovich, et al.
My son was one of the guys that helped Tony learn to turn right at the Bondurant School, and got to know him pretty well, and he said that Tony was one of the best drivers he's seen, come in without road racing experience, and run so fast and well.
Of course he won his next NASCAR race, Sears Point, a week or so after the school.
I can't argue that Stewart is one very good driver, and his competitivness is as high as anyone's, but best?
Not really, in my opinion.
Lizzerd
11-23-05, 03:53 AM
...And M&B is right about Stewart being a regular guy. Earlier this year he held a 360 Sprint Car race at Eldora, with him and Kasey Khane and Dave Blaney taking on some of the local guys. He treated every one of the local guys with respect and joked that he would need a lot of advice from them because he had such limited experience in a winged Sprint...
This is interesting. A buddy of mine raced USAC midgets locally several years ago at the same time that Stewart was getting good at the craft and winning a lot. He told me that whenever Stewart showed up at a regional race, he was the biggest prick and prima dona in the paddock. I've never liked him since he told me that. And that's even though Stewart is from the town I grew up in (Columbus, IN).
I guess those anger management sessions are working?
This is interesting. A buddy of mine raced USAC midgets locally several years ago at the same time that Stewart was getting good at the craft and winning a lot. He told me that whenever Stewart showed up at a regional race, he was the biggest prick and prima dona in the paddock. I've never liked him since he told me that. And that's even though Stewart is from the town I grew up in (Columbus, IN).
I guess those anger management sessions are working?
Maybe he's just finally growing up and maturing.
Lizzerd
11-24-05, 12:30 AM
Maybe he's just finally growing up and maturing.
I guess so...
pkvracing12
11-24-05, 12:29 PM
That day at Eldora I mentioned, a woman yelled "Hi Tony" to Stewart as he as walking through the pits and he, of course, said "hi" back. Another woman walked up and said, "Did he just say 'hi' to you?" She said yes and the second woman asked her friend to take a picture of her with the woman that Tony Stewart said "hi" to.
Honest to God true story.
Welcome to Rossburg Ohio been to eldora several times my grandparents live down the road from there people there are drunkin hicks
oddlycalm
11-24-05, 03:41 PM
Yep, the group Stewart is in with bid on WoO when DIRT bought it a couple years ago. They knew then that DIRT spent way too much money for it.
- snip -
Stewart's group has the clout and the brains to do this thing right, unlike Tony George. Right, they are making the move because something significant changed for the worse with WoO, and they know the business inside and out. Couldn't be more different from TG, but the net result could still be a disaster for the sport.
Regardless of the outcome, this is very likely to be a disaster for many small town tracks. If DIRT folds because it can't meet it's financial oblications, there are a lot of tracks in small towns that will lose a lot of races, probably for good. Same if the opposite result happens, just different tracks on the losing end. The very last thing in the world these tracks and towns need is to lose their only big race. Who else is going to come way the hell out here and run at places like Grey's Harbor or Cottage Grove? Same with the Northeast if DIRT goes mammaries skyward. The worst outcome is the EARL/CCWS result where both survive as a faint echo of what once was and the sport slowly sinks into the tar pit.
oc
FLASH; NSL collapses! It's over, done, kaput! If those rebels aren't "welcomed" back I'd take off the damn wings and go USAC-ing!...Pete Pistone, www.Racingone.com
Wow! Talk about a lot of talk about nothing in the end. Wonder what the real story is behind this break up. The Petty's bailed first. Someone wondered elsewhere if they had had problems getting tracks to work with them.
Steve99
12-05-05, 07:38 PM
Wow, didn't see that one coming. I wish all splits could end that quick.
Promises of a national sponsor, live television contract and a schedule were never met and on Friday the NSL officially ceased operations.
So was the NSL all talk? A lot of people should have egg on their face over this, Tony Stewart being one of them.
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