GM Turns Tail

What a bunch of Pansies! Detroit is throwing in the towel, and turning its back on Asian competition in the IRL. General Motors announced that the 2005 season would be it's last to supply Chevy engines for the IRL.

This past season, Honda engines won 14 events, and Toyota won the other two. Don't be surprised if Toyota joins Chevy and opts out too! I imagine it costs the engine manufacturers a ton of money for research and development, let along the actual production and support for their racing power plants.

Their excuse for opting out? Poor TV ratings for the IRL events? GM claims that the ratings were down close to 20% from their peak in 2003. Gm failed to mention that their engine couldn't compete with the Asian engines. If you folks remember, the IRL changed engine sizes this past season. They changed the specs from 3.5 liter to 3.0 liter in an attempt to reduce speeds. They also made some aerodynamic changes to the bodies of the racecars that seemed to work as planned, slowing the cars down from the high speeds they were running in 2003.

The change went into affect after the third race, before the running of the Indy 500. That gave the engine manufacturers plenty of time to come up with a solid engine package in time for the month long practice and time trials for the Indy event. Chevy just didn't get the job done, so instead of bracing up their program, they turned tail and gave up to the Asian manufacturers.

Actually, the way things turned out, Toyota didn't do much of a job designing a 3.0 engine either. Honda ran away with the marbles in 2004. Chevy didn't even win a pole; at least Toyota can say they won a couple. Lets hope Toyota will use the off season time to bolster their engine program so that they can compete with Honda in 2005. You can rest assured that Chevy won't be doing anything useful in 2005, due to their "lame duck" status.

The sad part of it is, General Motors has been involved with the IRL since 1997, fielding its Oldsmobile engine until the model was discontinued in 2002. Under the Oldsmobile banner, GM has 66 IRL wins, six of those in the Indy 500. GM has also won six IRL Championships in the time frame of a little more than eight years.

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