Roger Bailey, his own words

[mountainstar]

Anyone who knows open wheel racing in the USA knows who Roger Bailey is, so he needs no introduction, but he's been booted by Rodeo Randy or rather given the option to gracefully resign.

Gordon Kirby interviews him about his career and his views of the current state of the "sport".

http://gordonkirby.com/categories/co..._is_no330.html

Excerpt:

Bailey also believes IndyCar has seriously lost its way.

"I look at the cars today and they're all the same. George Bignotti said to me last year, 'In my day Roger we used to look forward to the first of May. You wanted to get to the Speedway to see what Wally and Lujie and I had built. There was excitement in the air. Now you come to see what color they've painted them.' And he's right. Apart from a smaller engine with a turbo they all look the same and they're all running pretty much the same. All they've done in my opinion is duplicate what we had for the last seven years.

"All we've done is replace a seven-year old car with a different-looking car that's not necessarily better and done it at great expense to everyone. It's got a different sound, a little bit of a different exhaust note with the turbo and that's good. But it's cost everyone a pile of money and what have we done? We've got the same thing. In my opinion we missed a great opportunity to bring some interest back into Indy car racing and what did we do? We created another Dallara garden party.

"I'm also a firm believer that we should have gone with multiple chassis and introduced some competition. People say competition costs money but when a company's got a captive market they can charge what they want because they know you've got to pay them for it. How does that save money?

"And the other thing is they've driven the American racing industry--guys like Chris Paulsen and C&R Racing--out of the Indy car business. We've alienated a lot of people in the industry. The American racing industry has been driven away from Indy car racing and I think that's a very sad and very damaging thing. We've gone badly wrong, but nobody will listen.

Roger Bailey's era has come to an end. The sport has been passed into less experienced hands with different goals and agendas. But it's a serious mistake not to listen to the advice and wisdom of men like Bailey. As we all know, those who ignore the lessons of times past are doomed to failure.

[fredd1]

No, I didn't know who Roger Bailey was (is).
Thanks for pointing him out. Gordon Kirby's article was extremely interesting - what a wealth of knowledge and racing experience there is wrapped up in Roger.

Like his thoughts on what the IRL's done as opposed to what could be as well.

Rodeo Randy's stacking the chairs. He needs to after his baby, the last season Vegas finale, backfired on him hugely. For the life of me I can't figure why he wasn't indicted.

[Paradise City]

Well, I don't believe the mantra, encouraged by some chasis-makers, that you can't have a cheap multi-chasis formula. The Dallara deal was very sweet for Dallara, it kinda works for now with smart racing but when the teams have this car cracked and solved will the racing still be as good?

It's not to knock Bernard but I never bought into the sassy corporate logic about Indycar needing a 'non-racing guy' as CEO. Someone who knows the stakeholders, has a business brain and has the constitution to tough it out with them was what needed.

[Purist]

The trouble is, I don't think anybody with a "new school" business brain is competent for the job anyway.

The "old school" fellows are what we need, but they aren't the sort to go for blood to climb today's executive ladders in current business circles. Also, a lot of these "old school" gentlemen don't have that much more time before they kick the bucket.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by fredd1

For the life of me I can't figure why he wasn't indicted.

On what grounds?

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

Well, I don't believe the mantra, encouraged by some chasis-makers, that you can't have a cheap multi-chasis formula.

You can have a cheap multi-chassis formula, but only if it's lower-scale. Even international Formula 3 which has hundreds of customers is a spec chassis at the top end now. There's nothing stopping anyone from making a base F3 chassis, but no does because no one is going to be spending that amount of money just to be ensured you're losing. If you're going to spend $750k for an F3 program, aren't you going to demand you're in the best car? That's true even in sportscars kind of. If you want to win Le Mans and are only going to field a car if you think you can win, why would ever buy something like a Lola?

You see multiple chassis in something like USAC for example where you can have 5 or 6 in a 20-car race, but that's a lower technical requirement to build a car than an Indycar and far less cost as well (plus a larger potential customer base). If you want more people building cars, you cheapen the cost required to build the car and "dumb down" the technology while increasing their customers. I don't know of many companies in the world that can make a profit building a high-quality chassis capable of winning races only having 4 or 5 customers unless they're just doing racing because it's a heavy marketing vehicle: Audi at Le Mans, F1 teams, but Random Indycar Chassis Builder is not going to get the money or publicity those do. We live in a world where mass production rules the day because it is cheaper to make 1000 of a product than to make 10 because you can amortize costs required for production (overhead, employees, tooling, testing) over a larger number of items.

I actually considered this at one point building an aerokit. I'm a regular guy, I'm not rich, but I'm an engineer, and I've done a bit of racecar design before for a guy before. So after I pour my life savings into this and work hard with my own limitations, someone like Dennis Reinbold or Kevin Kalkhoven is going to come take a chance on my chassis that may be a complete failure? Which does not only hurt me, but hurts them in the future getting capable drivers and sponsors which if they don't have either the team could cease to exist? This is what is happening with the Lotus engine in Indycar right now.

It's not to knock Bernard but I never bought into the sassy corporate logic about Indycar needing a 'non-racing guy' as CEO.

They needed someone that wasn't connected to anyone in the series, be it Indycar leadership or any of the owners.

Someone who knows the stakeholders, has a business brain and has the constitution to tough it out with them was what needed.

Bernard's been the best guy in charge of a major open wheel racing series in the U.S. since prior to the USAC-CART split in 1979. And it's really not even much of a debate on that point. CART's CEOs were notoriously out of depth (Heitzler et al), bought off to influence only a couple owners (Andrew Craig et al), or just outright failures (Paul Gentilozzi et al), and for the IRL pre-Bernard you have Tony George.

[Flyin Ryan]

Originally Posted by Purist

The trouble is, I don't think anybody with a "new school" business brain is competent for the job anyway.

The "old school" fellows are what we need, but they aren't the sort to go for blood to climb today's executive ladders in current business circles. Also, a lot of these "old school" gentlemen don't have that much more time before they kick the bucket.

I guess the only person in the world that knows the past of this sport other than me is Robin Miller considering the "old school fellows" are what sent the sport off a cliff over the past 30 years.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-both-barrels/

August 31st, 2010:

Indy car owners….. a few are innovative heroes like Dan Gurney, lifers like Derrick Walker, hucksters like Ron Hemelgarn or game changers like Roger Penske. But there should be a bounty on the majority of them because of the way they’ve behaved over the past couple decades.

When Gurney penned his white paper in 1978 and attempted to force feed common sense into USAC, it was timely, sensible, necessary and long overdue.

The Big Eagle’s voice of reason became the impetus for CART – and some of the last lucid thoughts from that sector.

They’ve spent the better part of the last 30 years showing us they might know how to make jack, but they don’t know jack about running auto racing.

Controlling, self-serving, arrogant and greedy, the boys in CART managed to overcome their bad habits long enough to become the “it series” in the ‘90s before dissolving into a pile of Tony George apologists by 2003.

They either never chose the right guy to be in charge or didn’t give him enough power, or both. We had corporate biggies, foreigners, lawyers, mechanics, profilers and at least a couple of professional liars in charge of steering the ship before it ran aground.

Champ Car made similar mistakes in management.

Then George, who by the way is also a car owner, tried on the Dictator’s Hat but it didn’t fit either.

So Josie George basically took matters into her own hands and hired a guy who had NEVER seen an auto race to be the leader. We laughed, shook our heads and predicted the bull rider wouldn’t stay in the saddle very long.

But Randy Bernard has been hanging in there for six months and has a pretty good grip on the realities of this snake-infested paddock.

Right away, he realized he inherited one of the worst TV deals of all time, a series that was nearly broke, some major deadwood from the last regime and a schedule sprinkled with arsenic.

Oh yeah, he also had to come up with new rules for a new car and engine that would be cheaper, faster and sexier. In his first FIVE months on the job.

He listened to people with passion, returned phone calls, answered emails, asked lots of questions, attended Donald Davidson’s Indy 500 history classes, read Carl Hungness yearbooks and tried to gauge who he could trust and what was important.

He understood the new car/engine package was paramount and that he certainly wasn’t equipped to make the call so he formed a committee of racers to sort out the best package.

In between riding herd on his ICONIC panel, Bernard flew to Florida to see the head of Audi, visited with John Menard in Wisconsin, made trips to VERSUS to discuss their partnership, met with people at The Milwaukee Mile, hoofed it to Detroit to meet with Ford and General Motors, checked out USAC sprint cars at Kokomo, flew to Las Vegas to talk about the future, drove to Rossburg, Ohio to pitch running Indy to Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne and Jimmie Johnson, had lunch with McLaren’s Ron Dennis to discuss the new car aero package, flew to New York to see the IZOD folks, went to LA to see FOX’s David Hill about specialty programming and broke bread with Bruton Smith on three occasions to discuss his $20 million May doubleheader and other venues.

His average work day starts at 7 am and ends at 2 am.

That’s why it sickened me when I heard a couple of owners were badmouthing Bernard because they said he didn’t know anything about racing, he screwed up the new car and wasn’t up to the job. And IndyCar needed Tony George to come back and run things.

Really? He’s not as savvy as Joe Heitzler, Steve Johnson or Bill Stokkan? Not as quick on his feet as Andrew Craig or Leo Mehl? Can’t communicate like John Frasco or Jack Long? He screwed up the new car because it wasn’t the Delta Wing? He knows nothing about racing or people because he hasn’t fired Brian Barnhart?

It’s sad enough to think they held a new car revolt meeting at Sonoma without inviting Bernard and it’s insulting to hear supposedly intelligent racers lead a witch hunt after six months.

Let’s see, the owner’s biggest ***** was cost so the new car/engine is going to be roughly 40 percent cheaper to purchase. Everyone agreed Barnhart wasn’t the guy to write the rules or dictate prices to Dallara so Randy hired Tony Cotman, the popular and best choice for the job.

The ISC ovals may have close racing but attendance sucks just like the promotion and purses so Bernard is phasing those tracks out. He’s trying to get better partners and sanction fees. He’s fighting to keep the TEAM money. The fans and drivers are clamoring to return to Milwaukee and he’s getting closer and closer to making that happen. He’s working on a program to get a USAC champion back to the Indy 500. He knows American drivers/heroes are a key to turning things around.

Right now he’s in Italy with Tony Purnell and Gil de Ferran meeting with Ferrari and Maserati before stopping by Renault-Nissan, McLaren, Williams and Lotus. There’s no guarantee any of them will supply engines or aero kits but at least they’re interested enough to talk about Indy cars again.

Bernard couldn’t have picked a worse time to take over this madness but he seems to revel in the challenge. He knows he should have had the rules in place before announcing the new car/engine and admitted he probably should have done a better job of communicating with some of the owners.

But he’s a smart, stand-up guy with a brain for business who is LISTENING TO THE FANS and is respected by a lot of big hitters in this country. His biggest faults may be his optimism and the fact he hasn’t learned how to lie.

Yet to think he busts his ass and may not have the owners’ unanimous support is as ignorant as it is maddening. Just remember this: he’s trying to clean up the mess you’ve helped make of open wheel racing.

And six months ain’t nearly enough time to find a big enough mop.

Robin Miller became an Indy-car junkie in late 1950s and stooged for his hero, Jim Hurtubise, at the 1968 Indy 500. He went on to work as a vent man and board man on Indy pit crews from 1971-77. Miller bought a Formula Ford from Andy Granatelli in 1972 and raced it in SCCA until 1974 when he purchased a midget from Gary Bettenhausen, competing in the USAC midget series from 1975-82.

Robin flunked out of Ball State College in 1968 and began working at The Indianapolis Star sports department in 1969, covered motorsports there from 1969-2000.

In addition to his broadcast work. Miller's also covered IndyCar racing for Autoweek, Autosport, Car & Driver and On Track magazines over the past 35 years.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Flyin Ryan

I guess the only person in the world that knows the past of this sport other than me is Robin Miller considering the "old school fellows" are what sent the sport off a cliff over the past 30 years.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-both-barrels/

A very interesting article; thanks for posting it.