Originally Posted by sc96 Yes it does take alot of money to move up to Indy car or NASCAR but one of the major road blocks is that it cost alot of money to get a kid that has a ton of talent on a dirt short track onto the pavement. One big advantage to the GC div is a guy can get Speedway experience that is reconized by both series. To go the ARCA direction wil cost around 1 million to get that track time and somebody has to pay that bill. The GC will give you the same experience for less than half that cost. And Bruce has done his home work on what team owners involved in those series are looking for.

No one from the IRL is going to hire a short tracker, that dream died when Tony George sold out the real racers to get back his buddies Penske and Ganassi and those guys hire foreign road racers no one has heard of or cares about and the NASCAR people USE to hire USACer's before they changed the cars because the belief (true in IMHO) was that USAC drivers had car control, USACers win championships and races in NASCAR while the IRL drivers fail to impress. This Gold Crown car is a dead horse, NO ONE watched them as a sideshow to NASCAR races, people would FLOOD out of the grandstands the minute whatever NASCAR deal was done because they didn't care about them. Same with IRL events. The vast majority of USAC fans do not like the car so there goes your fanbase and the fan they want to attract, IRL or NASCAR fans, are not going to watch it even if it's a free ticket. The best bet for the return of champ cars like we know it is to somehow get a Thunder type deal going again on TV, most of the ESPN races had a share over 1 (some, like Winchester races had almost a 2 share, on a weeknight)which is a hell of a lot better than the IRL's .02 ratings.

[miledirt]

Originally Posted by quicktime3 No way does anyone in NASCAR care about what anyone does in the Gold Crown division. Does anyone realize that Kevin Miller actually went to the NASCAR teams and asked them what they thought of the Gold Crown division before he reverted back to the 'real' cars? No one down there cares about them. And I still am skeptical about seeing these cars race on legitimate tracks. Who is going to pay the purse? Yes, they had the support of NASCAR and these tracks when the original idea came about...but that didn't last long and the cars were shelved because of the lack of interest. So what will change this time? Who is actually going to pay the money?

There's no way of knowing if NASCAR owners or ICS for that matter care about what anyone does in the Gold Crown division.
This new car hasn't even hit the track yet. Let them run...let them get 20+ cars out there together at 160+ on a mile and half track, and then we can find out if NASCAR teams care.

I think they will catch the eye of owners and there is a market for fans. Let them run...

[quicktime3]

Originally Posted by miledirt There's no way of knowing if NASCAR owners or ICS for that matter care about what anyone does in the Gold Crown division. This new car hasn't even hit the track yet. Let them run...let them get 20+ cars out there together at 160+ on a mile and half track, and then we can find out if NASCAR teams care. I think they will catch the eye of owners and there is a market for fans. Let them run...

Yes, there is a way of knowing. That's what my last post said. Every team and the organization in NASCAR already said that they didn't care for these cars, or the racing they put on. That's why this series was shelved already!!

And I question the chance of this series even getting off the ground because if no one cares in that arena, then who will pay for them to run their race?

In short, we ALREADY DID THIS. No one liked it. So they shut it down.

[Ovalmeister]

Makes me wonder what might have been, if something like this had been started 25-30 years ago. A series for sprint/midget/silver crown guys which included road course experience. Can it be such a bad thing? I have a lot of respect for Bruce Ashmore for putting his money and a$$ out there, in an attempt to do SOMETHING to help short trackers advance. That takes a lot of guts. It's really easy to do nothing, there is too much of that going on anyway.
I mean, it wasn't that long ago that Roger Penske hired Jason Leffler to run his car in the Indy 500. So hiring a midget guy is not THAT foreign of an idea to Penske. Maybe if Leffler and others had road course experience owners would look harder at "our guys".
If we ever want to see "our guys" at Indy again (and don't we all?) we have to start somewhere. As it stands now, there is no chance. I say we give it a try. If it's not your cup of tea, no one is holding a gun to your head to go see them. A closed mind is a terrible thing to waste.
My humble opinion.
David.


Jason Leffler at Indy for Roger Penske. Yes, hell just froze over.

[usac99]

In 2007 at phoenix, 24 gold crown cars started the race. This year there was only 21 cars that started the race.The gold crown owners are behind this project 100%. Is USAC behind the current silver crown series ? They have already lost Richmond,Phoenix .

Gary B and Leffler in how many years as an Indy car owner??????????? As far as needing road course experience if they didn't run those sad races on streets and in parking lots that draw nothing ratings then you wouldn't need road course experience. Of course they miss the fact Gordon, Stewart and a couple other USACers tear up the raod courses in NASCAR and once upon a time a former USAC sprint car driver won a F1 championship. You hear it time and again from those people that short track drivers can't drive indycars and nothing you're going to do is going to change that unless you find a couple billion dollars, buy IMS and start over with the orginal concept of the IRL. As far as giving this new deal a chance, go for it, again since you have short memories almost NONE of your USAC/dirt champ fan base supported this mess the first time around. When they ran with NASCAR the NASCAR fans would leave the grandstands like the place was on fire as soon as the NASCAR stuff was over. IRL tracks might give it a chance but then again their fanbase for the most part likes road racers and road courses and cars that are higher tech. In fact the road course ideal is kind of a joke for these cars because most road course fans consider the IRL cars to be a horse drawn cart and prefer the high tech ALMS cars. I'm all for advancing our drivers we love to the next level however we WERE doing that before this mess came along, now the flow has slowed some. Good luck to MR. Ashmore and all who run this car but you will probally be in the same place in a year or 2 with this deal as you were last time.

[Ovalmeister]

Originally Posted by Ovalmeister If it's not your cup of tea, no one is holding a gun to your head to go see them.

Just in case anyone missed it the first time.
David.

Originally Posted by Ovalmeister Just in case anyone missed it the first time. David.

Just in case anyone MISSED it, no one did go see the first time, guess you guys backing it MISSED that...... The NASCAR fanbase they wanted to attrct didn't want it, the Indy Car fanbase didn't want it and the dirt champ fanbase you had didn't support it and none of the above will this time, but keep making cute little qoutes, they might come on handy when you say the eulogy for this series IF it ever gets off the ground......

And I like the tea quote, you see that's the problem, most USAC fans are beer and cheeseburgers, cokes and hot dogs, the indy car/road race set are wine and tea and eating little sandwiches....

[Ovalmeister]

You're right, Gold Crown is a dumb idea. We should drop the entire concept and go with your idea. Hopefully your idea involves more than internet sniping? We eagerly await....
David.

[usac99]

Thats funny the nascar fans at darlington stayed and watched one hell of a race , something to the tone of 35,ooo