In years' past we had a poll for voting on who had the best posts on the forum. We never had one for who had the stupidest posts on here, but if we start one for 2016, in my opinion this one just went straight to the top in that category.

[QUOTE=Tumey's 55;447250]The "guys arent as tough, not as good as we were" thing is pretty lame.

I'm not taking any credit away from the winner but compare his accomplishments at his age to AJ's and it won't look as lame.
I remember a kid that ran the Indy Lights series a couple years ago that lived 15 minutes from me and I never had heard of him.. How many youngsters are getting rides today cause Daddy has a fat wallet?

Seems like there are a lot of drivers who come up through sprints and midgets that AJ has passed up for others. If he really meant what he said, it seems he would hire one.

I have heard it said that the American drivers, namely sprint car drivers are at a disadvantage in Indy cars because of their lack of experience in driving rear engine cars. I always wanted to ask an Indy car driver to elaborate on the differences in driving a front engine car, as opposed to a rear engine car, but never had the opportunity to do so. If anyone here can clue me in, I would love to hear it.

Hey, I wonder if he's dating anyone ?
I actually believe some of what AJ says. No way the drivers are as tough as they used to be, used to be common place to see track justice taking place in the pits. It was also way more dangerous even 50 years ago. There was a time not too long ago when half of your buddies would be killed racing.
Lets not confuse tough with being in shape and athletic or even fast and courageous. I'm not even sure why I'm typing this because as far as toughness 95% of the new class of Indy drivers shouldn't and couldn't be associated with the word. They can come hop on a speedwaybike and race my boy he'll weed the tough ones out real quick.
The drivers were better too because they could handle all cars on all surfaces, not one type of car on one type of medium.
Soon due to safety and lawyers the cars will be remote control anyhow. And everyone everywhere can be tough too if they have the money.

If you look at the schedule there is something like 5 oval races. The rest are road course and the street races they always seem to push. What chance does a sprint and midget driver have to secure a ride in a series that is so heavily weighted to the twistys.

On another message board there is a 'club' mentality with some of the members. BC is not worthy, Kyle Larson is not worthy, Rico is not worthy because they have the 'wrong' type of experience.

As for Rossi, I still hardly know anything about the driver and quite frankly with IMW coming up I probably will not even bother to find out.

I completely agree with this 100%! He took the $ when he had his chances to take the best sprint and midget drivers and put them into his cars.

Unfortunately in today's world, in Indy Car more so than NASCAR the driver is expected to bring more than talent to the table. Things like good looks>>>good communication skills>>>Youth>>>and yes the most important thing of any business venture more cash than the other guy applying for the same position can come up with.

Us back woods racers should all thank Jonathan Byrd's Racing for giving guys like BC a chance to compete in what is today an almost Unobtainable Drivers Privilege. They have an excellent restaurant in Indy and the best way to say "Thank You" is with your wallet, that is how they make their money to give guys like BC these great opportunity's.

Thank You Jonathan Byrd's Racing

Honest Dad himself

It seems to me that if USAC did not ban RE sprint cars 40+ years ago, some of our guys could have had a better shot at of transferring from them to Indycar.

I know why USAC banned them, but I'm just kind of thinking what might have been.

I don't know, but I'll speculate that AJ'S drivers bring the money just like so many other indy car drivers. I would like to think if one of our local heroes could gather up the bucks it takes to get in the seat, the Texan would give them a ride. Just my opinion