Clown, Goat Rodeo Officials Mull Complaint Against Indy Racing League

Officials with the International Order of Circus Clowns and American Goat Rodeo Association may file formal complaints against the IndyCar Series, according to insiders.

"For our part, it's a case of uncompensated overtime," said an official with the circus clown union who asked not to be named. "There have been so many pit circuses and so much clown music blaring this year that we're running low on small clown vehicles. Plus, packing 19 clowns into a tiny car and sending them out to throw rubber chickens around in the pits takes a physical toll on the clowns involved."

Clown leaders said the Watkins Glenn "Triple Yellow" was "the straw that broke the colorfully costumed camel's back. You had a full-course yellow, then two cars got tangled up on the yellow laps to make it double-yellow, then TWO MORE got tangled up later. Triple yellow. We contend if we have to have triple circus music moments, we should get triple-time pay."

Besides being a physical drain, the clown officials said having so many circus moments in every race is causing the clowns to get dispirited. "You run out of gags. You can only throw rubber chickens so many times before it gets old. After the second time, flailing away at each other with full-course yellow flags just loses its appeal, for both the audience and performer. Our guys are running out of stuff to do. We just need a break."

The clown complaint would ask the league to do whatever it can to restore sanity and decorum to racing, and limit clown moments to "two, at maximum" for each race.

The American Goat Rodeo Association's complaint stems primarily from the race at Edmonton. "Clearly, that was a Goat Rodeo, and as the national sanctioning body for Goat Rodeos, we feel we should have been consulted," said an AGRA spokesman. "We want to make sure the goats are humanely treated, make sure everyone is getting the right wage and proper rest periods, make sure all OSHA guidelines are adhered to, etc. For example, OSHA guidelines clearly state that after you spear your teammate out of the race you should wash your hands thoroughly. That's the kind of stuff we look out for."

Officials were initially distressed that AGR may stand for Another Goat Rodeo, but were later relieved to find it stands for Andretti Green Racing. "Still, that team has a lot of goat wranglers on it, so we'd really like to speak to someone in charge there, so we've got a message in with Danica Patrick to do just that."

All parties said they hoped to keep things informal and not have to take the step of filing complaints. IndyCar officials said they hadn't heard about the complaints and were willing to sit down with the clowns and goat rodeo people to talk about issues.

"We're not sure where this is coming from," said a well dressed member of the IndyCar PR staff. "We've got pigs, sure, but goats? Not that I know of."

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Comments

[Mike Rice]

Are we sure that the AGRA has jurisdiction in Edmonton? They may be overstepping their bounds...
I hear that the Association actually tried to recruit Marco after the race...
Good stuff as always, P'dog.

[ramblinman]

I can hear the clowns singing to the tune of "Jim Dandy"......Paul Tracy To The Rescue....

[pressdog]

ah ha! The American Goat Rodeo Association has no jurisdiction in Canada. They skirted the law by sneaking across the border to do it.