George “distracted” by partnership with God

Posted by Iannucci | 4/29/2008 | 7 comments »
Bookmark and Share


The intrepid Curt Cavin dutifully reports that Kingdom Racing’s Davey Hamilton is expected to be partnering his Indy 500 entry this year with Tony George’s Vision Racing – the same team that helped Hamilton to his 9th place finish at the famed circuit last year.

As popular as the return of the IMS Radio stalwart is, Cavin reports George has his concerns about working with Hamilton and The Almighty.

George also said he feels an obligation to field a third car alongside Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV.

But George is afraid the extra car will negatively impact his ever-improving team. Prior to committing to a third car, George said he "would have been disappointed" not to put a car on the front row.

Now he has doubts.

"I'm afraid we're going to be distracted," he said.

(MORE from IndyStar)
Elsewhere, God has yet to comment on the matter.

7 comments

  1. Fred Hurley // April 29, 2008 2:22 PM  

    I didn't get from the article that it was the God part that TG thought would be distracting - just the sheer number of cars. Did I miss something?

  2. Nancy // April 29, 2008 5:25 PM  

    Didn't I read somewhere (maybe here) that TG would be fielding PT at Indy if he didn't find another ride?

  3. Anonymous // April 29, 2008 6:39 PM  

    Nancy,

    The BIG problem, as I understand it, is Gerry Forsythe is intent on making Paul Tracy's separation from Team Forsythe as drawn out and ugly as possible.

    Think of a divorce, sans wedding china and visitation rights. If you're a car owner and want to sign Paul, it looks like you'd need to fight Gerry's lawyers to get him.

  4. Nancy // April 29, 2008 8:14 PM  

    Mmack,

    That Forsythe is a miserable bitter bastard is a given...but really, I think he wants the china too. Sadly for Mr. Tracy, I think things have turned out that his excitement factor was not as required as it was anticipated to be. I don’t really care about PT either way. Actually, I was looking for a sanity check that I might have read (or hallucinated) that there was a rumor out there that Vision was considering putting PT in a car for Indy. Hell maybe it was Panther…those former 2nd tier and backmarker teams are all starting to meld together for me now.

  5. The American Mutt // April 29, 2008 9:14 PM  

    I'm going to point it out again, but only because such a big deal was made of it by some. PDVSA(Viso's sponsor)=Citgo.

  6. Anonymous // April 30, 2008 5:59 AM  

    Nancy,

    First off, I liked your line about Forsythe and the wedding china.

    Secondly, you are correct that Vision Racing was one of the teams rumored to be looking at hiring Paul Tracy. From a Yahoo Sports story on 4/8/2008:

    Tony George, the IRL founder and now owner of Vision Racing, said earlier Tuesday that Tracy’s business manager called Monday seeking help in finding Tracy a ride this season.

    “I’d like to see Paul here at Indy,” George said. “If it would be with Vision Racing, that would be great. If it’s with another team, that would be great. It is kind of unfortunate, some would say a travesty that he’s not here today.”

    Tracy said he and George have spoken several times by telephone and that George has repeatedly told him how much he’d like to see him racing in an IndyCar.

    “I very much appreciate everything he’s been trying to do since this merger,” Tracy said. “A lot of people have painted Tony to be the bad guy over the years. But it’s water over the dam now.

    “I haven’t leaned on him for anything yet, but he has extended me an olive branch and I’d love to be part of what’s going on. But, once this contract thing is settled, I’m obviously going to try to find a ride in open-wheel or try to do some races in NASCAR.”


    Finding anything solid after early April of this year on where Paul is going gets murky.

  7. Anonymous // April 30, 2008 10:46 AM  

    This is another example of Tony George playing his favorites, to the chagrin of Champ Car, Canadian, and Paul Tracy fans. What honestly does Davey Hamilton bring to the table? He has no future in the sport. Tracy is at least the biggest name Champ Car had, not to mention a well known commodity and media news item. Tracy was fairly clear in stating at Long Beach that he and Forsythe were done and he is FREE to drive for anyone he wants.