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An Interview with Tony George |
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May 25. Speedway, IN. The best way to set the stage for our interview
with Tony George, below, is to include a quick flash back: 
On February 9, 2005, Indianapolis Motor Speedway President and CEO and Indy Racing League
CEO, Tony George, added another job to his resume. At a noon press
conference that day at the Phoenix International Raceway, during the
IRL “Test in the West,” Tony spoke about the latest entry into the
IRL. “Today, I’m here to announce the formation of Vision
Racing. The principals you see sitting next to me are Ed
[Carpenter] as the driver in the IndyCar Series, Larry Curry as
the team manager, and Jay Drake as the driver of the Pro Series car.”
The team, which was formed from the team assets of Tom Kelly’s Kelly
Racing, is personally owned by Tony and Laura George.
Tony went on to explain that day, “As the off-season wound down, it
became obvious that we needed a car count. We were going to be needing
to keep all that equipment that Tom had for sale in the system.
There were a lot of teams that were looking at acquiring bits and
pieces of it. But I felt that the best opportunity was to try and
keep it together for someone to take advantage of.” Tony had also
remarked that he had originally had a personal role in getting Tom
Kelly to become an IRL car owner in the first place, and appreciated
Tom’s
contributions.
(Above: Tony in the Vision Racing pits)
Tony went on to say that, “This is something I’m fully committed to and
will help get off the ground. The length of my involvement is yet
to be determined, but I’m committed now. It may be an opportunity
for Ed [Carpenter, his stepson] down the road or somebody else that may
be there when I’m ready to move on to another challenge.”
He also added, “the day-to-day responsibility lies with these
guys. They’re going to work as a team to operate it. I’m
involved obviously on the front office side of setting the thing
up. That’s where my responsibility is going to lie.
Certainly I’m there to support …. [but] I obviously have other things I
have to attend to, as well.”
We should mention that in his younger years, Tony was also a race
driver and team owner and also that Larry Curry is also the Team
Manger for Jon Herb’s Racing Professionals Pro team.
Given Tony George’s role as the owner of the newest Pro Series team, we
wanted to get his comments and thoughts about the Pro Series as the
time approaches for the Futaba Freedom 100. Tony was kind enough
to talk with
us after a team meeting one evening during the first week of IndyCar
practice this May.
What was the general idea behind your starting the Pro Series as a feeder series?
"I want to say as early as 2000 I’d been approached by a couple of car
manufacturers that were interested in building a development series
car….At that time we had our hands full with the IRL itself, trying to
get it established on a development track. But about three years
ago we decided that the series was going better [and] what we needed
was a ladder system more focused on preparing young drivers to run on
ovals at high speed and in close quarters and in a [separate] series,
and so a pilot….was designed to do that.
So Dallara took, I believe, the Spanish Formula 3 car that was running
with a Nissan engine and developed it to run over here on ovals.
They made some minor modifications to it and it has proven to be a good
car. It has given us a series with lower horsepower that provides
a fairly substantial race speed condition that allows a lot of drivers
to get a sense for what it’s like racing that close as they do in the
IndyCar Series. Again there really wasn’t a series that prepared
drivers, whether they come from sprints or midgets or from other forms
of formula racing, for the type of racing action that’s taking place in
the Indy Racing League."
Everybody thinks your recent move to put the Pro races on the same day as most of the IndyCar races is brilliant.
"We've tried to do that when possible. I don’t know that it’s
brilliant, but it’s something, you know, that we felt was important to
do. A lot of the race tracks had thought it important to have [the Pro
race] on a Saturday, trying to develop it as another ticket that can be
sold. But I don’t think that the Series is at that level in its
development at this point. We hope it will be when there are more
fans at the race track on Saturday or Friday, as the case may be; maybe
when our field is full with 22 or 24 cars. But at this point
we’re still trying to get to 20 cars. It’s good exposure [for the
Pro Series] with our biggest crowds being on race day. We’re
trying to get them to run on the same day with the IndyCars.
There will, though, be instances when we’ll have to run on a
preliminary day."
How did you put the deal together with Formula One for the
incredible venue having the Pro cars running on the road course before
their race? Then with the Pro oval run before the 500 you’re on top of
the mountain peak it seems.
"Well, we’ll see. I think our cars performed pretty well down at
St. Petersburg. I think they’ll put on a pretty good show on this
[IMS road] track. You know, we hope to see our highest car count
hopefully by then. Every year we go through with All
Sport management and Formula One and look at what our
support racing calendar or schedule will look like, and we asked if
there would be an opportunity for us to run the Pro Series first and
they agreed. So we’re going to give it a try."
That’s a great venue for the drivers.
"I think so. It should show case some of the drivers. Obviously,
right off the bat it attracted Marco Andretti. So we’ll add him
to the field. I think the more we have him running with us the
more it will help us develop the stature of this development series for
future drivers wanting to come up into the open wheel ring. So
we’re looking forward to both the May and June races here at
Indianapolis."
We were at the Phoenix press conference when you announced Vision
Racing and introduced the guys. Now you’re a few races into being a Pro
team owner. How is that experience going in terms of meeting your
expectations of what you were hoping to find as an owner?
"Obviously we’d like to see better results. We knew going into it
we didn’t have the timing opportunity to put the team together
right. But Jay [Drake] had a good run [4th], in his only [Pro
car] run, in 2004 here at the Speedway, and he had expressed interest
to continue to pursue an opportunity if there was one in the open wheel
ranks. I’m all for giving the guy a shot. He’s a great
competitor and a great champion [2004 USAC National Sprint Champion]….
Its been kind of slow so far this year. We have these long gaps
[between races] and it would be nice to give him some more seat time,
but he’s doing a great job and I think before the season’s out, maybe
as early as a couple of weeks from now, you’ll see him really starting
to hit his stride as the team starts to get into stride.
So although things haven’t been absolutely smooth for us this year as a
start up, that’s for sure, but, you know, Larry is a professional and
Jay’s a professional. I think they are not bothered by
that. I think they look forward to it getting out there in a few
weeks and getting on with it."
You’ve got Jon Herb, another talented driver, as part of your extended Vision Pro family.
"Yeah. He obviously started off the season well. Had a good
finish at Miami [3rd] and then won Phoenix. So, he seems to be
very solid and steady. Larry’s been able to manage both of their
races [Jon’s and Jay’s] from that standpoint. But, you know, the
season’s still pretty young, so we’ll see what happens."
fromthetrack.com's thanks to Tony George.
We will be following with feature stories on Jay Drake and Larry Curry.
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