posted June 28, 2005 at 16:19 EST in NASCAR Betting Trends

F1 personnel not steering the sport too well

Are you kidding me? The day was last Sunday. The sport was Formula One racing. The place was the Indianapolis Speedway. It was set. This was going to be F1’s big coming out party, the event that would finally cement them as a player in the American motorsports market. Attendance was up from last year and over 120,000 fans were ready for speed of epic proportions. All of the sport’s biggest names were there and raring to go. You had the incomparable Michael Schumacher and his iconic Ferrari team, you had the Finnish sensation Kimmi Raikkonen and you had the young stud Fernando Alonso. Indeed, this could have been a very special event.

But, it never even stood a chance. Citing safety concerns, tiremaker Michelin advised seven F1 racing teams not to take part in the race. Due to the new rule stipulating you are not allowed to change tires, there was really nothing anyone could do. Only six cars raced and basically only six fans watched. It was a publicity nightmare of legendary status. People are calling on F1 to be banned in the U.S. Thousands of angry racing fans are demanding their money back.

The truth is, the governing body and the teams tried to come to an agreement. They talked and talked about it in the 48 hours leading up to the race. The fact that they couldn’t come up with a way to have everyone participate was deplorable. The teams that did race didn’t want the others to receive special treatment and circumvent the rules. However, for the sake of the sport and the growth of F1 racing, something should have been done.