[Will Shunk]

My guess is that Roger will wield his power and money to transform IMS into an massive entertainment destination on the same vein as Phoenix, Dover, Kansas, and soon to be at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It will include tax incentives for his corporation from the town of Speedway and the state of Indiana to invest upwards of $1 billion to create a destination/resort at IMS including, but limited to, Indoor water park, indoor theme parks for both families and adults, major concert venue, night clubs plural, restaurants plural, Top Golf like copy, shopping/outlet mall, and a casino if legal. He has the influence to crush local, state, and regional influences/desires to get what he deems necessary to be profitable. I am not saying this is bad, I am just saying this is the future of motorsport facilities. The changes are real today and with Penske's leadership, the changes will be swift and stunning.

[PJ Wright]

I don't have a clue about what changes he will make, but it sure is entertaining listening to everyone else speculate!

[ISF]

The reality of my existence in comparison to Penske, or someone like him, makes speculation on my part utterly ludicrous.

What is within our grasp of reality is knowing that Penske and his "people" will need to walk a fine line to fend off any perception of impropriety of decision making within the sanction. Those of us who are of a certain age remember well how Mr. Penske would wield leverage and power to get what he wanted and what was in his personal best interests.

When a high profile, highly successful team owner is also the proprietor of the sanction there may be, justified or not, many a jaundiced eye cast in his direction.

[stoney]

Originally Posted by racefan20 It sits in the middle of a neighborhood so there wont be a 24 hour race there period.

section 8 slum anyway (who-cares)

[Kansasdirtfan]

Originally Posted by ISF The reality of my existence in comparison to Penske, or someone like him, makes speculation on my part utterly ludicrous. What is within our grasp of reality is knowing that Penske and his "people" will need to walk a fine line to fend off any perception of impropriety of decision making within the sanction. Those of us who are of a certain age remember well how Mr. Penske would wield leverage and power to get what he wanted and what was in his personal best interests. When a high profile, highly successful team owner is also the proprietor of the sanction there may be, justified or not, many a jaundiced eye cast in his direction.

That was my first thought too, Kenny, but I’m sure Mr. Penske understands that aspect of the microscope under which he’ll be operating. My second thought was wondering how much influence Doug Boles will have in convincing Penske of the benefits of retaining the BC39. How inclusive will he be toward the dirt short track segment of motorsports? Only time will tell.

[THS]

Just hope he listens to the fans and we don't have "locked in spots" for full time teams. Call me old school but I want the fastest 33. We finally have a bump day again! Don't screw that up!!

[Brickyard]

Apparently a few of you missed the press conference and are still beating the Penske hates dirt racing dead horse.

-Tony George for the first time since the split fully admitted that the family can't take the series and race back to the level it once was. They no longer have the clout they once did, and what clout remained after the first split was totally lost with the "Vision".

-Tony reached out to Penske at Laguna Seca. Why? Because he is the one man with the one organization that has skin in this game that can get what he failed miserably in doing done.

-For me and many others this is finally full admittance that he screwed up in 1996, he may have won a couple of battles when CART owners finally came back and then ChampCar folded, but ultimately he lost the war....a war that never had to be waged. His decisions, and no I don't hold CART owners totally without blame as they could have ended it just as quickly, resulted in him urinating a ton of family money into one of the many IMS men's restroom troughs and alienated what was once of strong fanbase full of people from all walks of the multiple racing genres rather than just one.

Will Roger get rid of the BC39? I highly doubt it. He said in his press conference that one of his visions(and like Mario Andretti stated yesterday, Penske's "Vision" will come with actual real world working actions as opposed to just a word meant to spin up a base) he wants to turn this back into a world class facility. In doing so that means it will be used and not just for one month a year.

Will he ever live to see this fully grow to the levels he dreams of? Statistics say no, but I highly suspect the few of of you that poo poo this and hold a cold heavy heart for anything Penske and CART will stand back and wonder just why the Hell 1996 had to happen to begin with after all is said and done. Had someone not had "vision", we more than likely aren't talking about this today.

All you need to know is the fact that Foyt, Andretti, and Bobby freaking Unser are on board with this. That alone speaks volumes, and with grandson out of the way I suspect words aren't going to be minced. Tons of people lost jobs and money due to those decisions of the early to mid 90's and one of oldest top level racing series in the world that was just as big as NASCAR and could have given Bernie a run for his money was reduced to a cracked and broken shell of it's former self. There is nowhere but up with this decision, and no, Tony isn't going take this money and sock it into USAC.

[rj1]

Roger - always smartest man in the room right? - what was he doing in the early '90s? He started up a Winston Cup team, with Rusty Wallace as his driver.

NASCAR had already passed IndyCar by 1995. Jeff Gordon winning the inaugural 1994 Brickyard 400 was about as poetic a moment as you could ever ask for in motorsports. It demonstrated everything right with NASCAR and everything wrong with CART/USAC/open wheel racing at the time. Frankly I don't think much would have changed if no IRL existed. The series would've done then what it's doing now which is leaving the ovals, NASCAR was still on fire then and took over all that audience, they went to take on Bernie and F1, which let's be honest, was really stupid because the FIA would never let them win - the same organization intentionally killed their own sportscar series multiple times to remove a threat to F1 - and when tobacco sponsorship was killed in the early '00s (Player's, Marlboro, KOOL, Hollywood, sure there's others I'm missing), there went all your sponsorship funding outside of ride buyers. NASCAR was able to replace Winston, Camel, Kodiak, Skoal, etc. Indycar never did, and still hasn't.

I looked at modern racing now and in a way it's really depressing. Money has so completely destroyed the sport. F1 is horrendous to watch. Nothing in the race matters outside of the start, a few laps around the pit stops, and tire management. A team not named Mercedes, Red Bull, or Ferrari have won a race since the 2013 Australian GP (season opener), won by Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus. If you remove the Ferrari intra-team turmoil this year, seriously, what is left to talk about? There's actually good racing in F1...7th on back, so no one cares about it.

NASCAR has likewise devolved into the Indian caste system. Kyle Busch could get in a JTG Daugherty car and is not finishing in the top 15. It's even gotten to the point of you have open factory teams which is something I never thought I would see in NASCAR Cup Racing. Yeah, Hendrick was always the favored Chevy team, but other Chevy teams could race and win. Toyota has 5 cars, period. 4 of them are Gibbs and the 5th car pay a huge amount of money to Gibbs. That's incredibly MotoGP-ish.

There's a lot negative to be said about the Split. Frankly, I don't wish to rehash because it's been done for decades now on the internet and I don't desire to kill my brain cells yelling at a keyboard, but the sport is just whittling away and dying unless you're born rich. Tony George did not cause that, if anything he was a reactionary that was foolishly you could argue trying to stop what racing has become. I love racing, have since I was 5 years old. I'm 37 now and I just don't see much of a future. I have kids and while I'd support them if they wanted to race, in a way the finances of it all scare me, and I have a damn good job compared to most people.

[jdull99]

Originally Posted by Brickyard Apparently a few of you missed the press conference and are still beating the Penske hates dirt racing dead horse. -Tony George for the first time since the split fully admitted that the family can't take the series and race back to the level it once was. They no longer have the clout they once did, and what clout remained after the first split was totally lost with the "Vision". -Tony reached out to Penske at Laguna Seca. Why? Because he is the one man with the one organization that has skin in this game that can get what he failed miserably in doing done. -For me and many others this is finally full admittance that he screwed up in 1996, he may have won a couple of battles when CART owners finally came back and then ChampCar folded, but ultimately he lost the war....a war that never had to be waged. His decisions, and no I don't hold CART owners totally without blame as they could have ended it just as quickly, resulted in him urinating a ton of family money into one of the many IMS men's restroom troughs and alienated what was once of strong fanbase full of people from all walks of the multiple racing genres rather than just one. Will Roger get rid of the BC39? I highly doubt it. He said in his press conference that one of his visions(and like Mario Andretti stated yesterday, Penske's "Vision" will come with actual real world working actions as opposed to just a word meant to spin up a base) he wants to turn this back into a world class facility. In doing so that means it will be used and not just for one month a year. Will he ever live to see this fully grow to the levels he dreams of? Statistics say no, but I highly suspect the few of of you that poo poo this and hold a cold heavy heart for anything Penske and CART will stand back and wonder just why the Hell 1996 had to happen to begin with after all is said and done. Had someone not had "vision", we more than likely aren't talking about this today. All you need to know is the fact that Foyt, Andretti, and Bobby freaking Unser are on board with this. That alone speaks volumes, and with grandson out of the way I suspect words aren't going to be minced. Tons of people lost jobs and money due to those decisions of the early to mid 90's and one of oldest top level racing series in the world that was just as big as NASCAR and could have given Bernie a run for his money was reduced to a cracked and broken shell of it's former self. There is nowhere but up with this decision, and no, Tony isn't going take this money and sock it into USAC.

If Tony had failed as bad as u make it sound, the last few years of the 500 would not have had full grandstands, the series itself would not be on perpetual rise (ratings, attendance at other tracks, car owners, etc), and there would be nothing left to sell...but ya, I didn't really think Tony would "invest" in USAC and I think most of "us" believe the dirt track on the infield is there to say; but I'm afraid Roger won't do much more than drive by the USAC office building...time will tell...

[Tumey's 55]

This will be interesting. I am not a Penske fan at all but maybe this will be good for Indy. A concern is that he doesn’t seem to have a history of success when it comes to owning tracks. They have seemed more like an investment with him waiting for an opportunity to sell in order to turn a profit. Hopefully his passion for Indy will make this different.