Brock Yates Doesn't Get It

[Liz]

Having been out of town for the last CART race, I missed Brock Yates' incredibly insensitive comments regarding Helio's big win - which was just as well, I think. How does this man get away with referring to "Latino Histrionics" and describing Helio as a "Rhesus Monkey on Steroids" in a public forum and not being reprimanded by his employers (Speedvision)?

Besides this insulting and outrageous commentary on what is after all the natural exhubrance of a young man getting his first win, he also completely misses the point of Le Mans (which he seems to believe exists to sell more street Cadillacs to Americans, and his jeering at their LMP Prototypes' teething problems shows he has absolutely no understanding of endurance racing) and generally comes across as not a "curmugeon" but as an ill-mannered, ill-informed, exceedingly backward prat.

Why has this man not even been exposed and reprimanded, far less fired?

[bella]

twit. you'd get sent down for saying anything like that here. look what happened to thingy hoddle, the england manager.

[Liz]

Normally you would also here - which is why I am wondering why only the talk forums are discussing it, and not the media?

[Jim Clark]

...I grow weary of the liberal media trying to ram their propaganda down (and successfully I might add...) unsuspecting sheeps throats....Thought control is out...Freedom of speach should still be in. As long as one does not act on ones bias, let them say what they will. Sticks and stones....but words will never harm thee.....

[Liz]

Tell that to all the gun-wielding teenagers in the States shooting up their classmates for the unrelenting name calling.

But at the very least it is ill mannered and adds nothing to the level of discourse in the world, to call people names and sneer at them for being different from you.

[botsquad]

brock yates greatest accomplishment was selling Cannonball Run to Warner Bros, effectively ending Burt Reynolds career.

[Liz]

So he does have at least one redeeming quality then. I'm glad to hear it.

[Green_man4421]

That guy should get his @rse kicked. HE proberbly has some kinda power/safty to keep him their.

[Jim Clark]

....Re-read the previous posts and tell me what YOU'RE doing to Brock Yates (sneering?)just because HE's different from YOU?
And as for the "gun wielding teenagers"; poor upbringing has nothing to do with freedom of speach.
My, you do sound like quite the liberal. Sanctimonious in your view that YOU know what's best for the rest of us.
Again I repeat, live and let live...as long as one does not act on ones biases, just talks, their power is only what you make of it. Trust me, tho' I differ with your opine, I have no inclination to shoot you as I fear your words not.... Far too much time devoted to this thread......

[KC]

Brock Yates has been around for years spouting the same stuff. Most of you have ever read any of his editorial. On occasion he is right, on occasion he is wrong. But he has his opinion. And that's all he is saying.

As far as what Yates was commenting on about LeMans and General Motors is the fact that they are the ones hyping up their effort. In a sense they put the win before the race. Now that have been back and been trounced, like most everyone else was by Audi, we are supposed to believe that going is a triumph. I think he was just calling out GM on what was truly a weak attempt. The single largest corporation in the world and they are unable to divest of enough money to make their LeMans effort strong enough to go for the win. While Audi, who sells less cars than the smallest branch of GM manufactures, is able to generate the necessary effort to blow everyone else away.

Now I don't agree with Yates remarks about HCN's win it is his opinion, even if he just pulled it out of his ass.

[Liz]

If Helio had been Black, excuse me, African American, and Yates had referred to him as a "monkey" he would have been transferred to Afghanistan before his mouth was closed.

But I guess he's entitled to his opinion about Cadillac. Many other people thought the same about Audi in 1999.

[Heeltoe6]

Yates id DEAD ON about GM's half-a$$ed efforts in sportscar racing; don't even compare then to Audi last year. Audi never acted like they were God on high descending, and that they were the best thing ever to hit the sportscar world. The factory Audis ran the entire ALMS schedule, caddy is doing no such thing in alms or garra (but the dams will be running some fia races?). Audi experimented with open and closed cars to get it right, Caddy seems to think they can just show up and win. Typical GM thinking. Of course, they market it like they've won the freaking race when they were enbarassed. Not to mention, in their stupid commerical with the golf course, they rip-off the sounds from the movie Grand Prix....shameless. GM always puts the cart before th horse (Anyone remeber the Caterra and the little duck they had as its mascot...one gm guru procliamed it would be more recognizable than the Energizer bunny...note the Caterra now longer uses the duck in commercials) and should deservedly be pummled for doing so. Audi made no such blitz last year (or even this year as of yet) becuase they know auto racing is a fickle mistress. But GM thinks if they say the car is good a lot it will be, but it doesn't work that way. I think Andy Wallace said at Sebring the Caddy effort is farther along than Audi at the same point in time at thier development, which may be true, but you don't opromote it as a winner until it wins. Yates's suggestion to promote the Vettes (which are actually doing well) makes a whole lot of more sense, both from a marketting and reality point of view. Bottom line is that Caddy opened the door to bashing when they acted as if they were already champions. Yates, I'm sure, would be far less critical if they hadn't made such a buig PR deal about it.

As for the HCN comments, I thought they were obviously tongue in cheek, and actually good for a laugh.