Bad Timing

Sam Schmidt announced that he was forming a new Indy car team to compete in the 2001 IRL season. Schmidt, who was injured in a testing accident at Walt Disney World a little more than a year ago, has not announced the driver or sponsor, but indicated that the team would be fielding a car at Phoenix in March.

Speaking of testing accidents, Buzz Calkins hit the outside wall in turn four at Miami-Homestead and was taken to the hospital for examination. There were no serious injuries and Calkins was released, according to Dr. Henry Bock, IRL Medical Director. Turn four is the same area where earlier in testing Greg Ray was injured. Ray has now been cleared to drive and in fact recorded the best time and highest speed in the testing at Phoenix this week.

In news of another team formation, Eddie Cheever, Jr., and Scott Goodyear have announced that Goodyear will be driving for Cheever during the upcoming season. While Cheever already had a team, the addition of Goodyear should help make for more competitive racing among fans.

Now, if I may, I'd like to make a little opinionated statement. The Indy Northern Light Racing Series will hold a media day in Phoenix on Thursday, February 15 to kick-off the 2001 season. Why did the powers that be (read Tony George) choose February 15 to have a media event? This just happens to be the day that NASCAR runs the Twin 125's at Daytona and all of the major medial that covers motorsports will be on hand for that.

From the sound of things I've been hearing, everyone is enamored with the new Dodge for the Daytona 500, so there may not be anyone show up for an IRL press conference in Phoenix. In other sports, the upper levels of management coordinate their activities, especially where they are competing for the same audience, however the IRL appears to have ignored the fact that there are only so many racing press, and they will all, naturally want to be there covering a real, live race, rather than a media event.

Let's hope that the IRL makes better public relations decisions in the future. Indy racing is growing in stature, and to put it's media showcase against the most important stock car race in the world seems rather foolhardy. The IRL needs all of the media hype it can get and it's never going to get it when they're in the deserts of Arizona and the press is on the beach in Florida. If a team had pit stops that were this badly coordinated, they'd never win a race, so why expect that the IRL will win the race for fans that can only come from media coverage.

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