Vision ... Dimmed

The racing world knows by now that Vision Racing ceased operations yesterday.

For a flowing salute on the subject, go to MyNameIsIRL.com immediately. Or check the Indy Star news story from Curty Cavin here or Curt's Q&A from today here. Or Terry Blount's account on ESPN here.

I greatly hope we'll be spared yet another round of "Tony George, Saint or Satan?" treatises. To me that storyline has all the energy and interest of arguing over the Vietnam War (and I'm even a history buff).

It stings a lot of us more because Vision was among the most open, fan-friendly teams out there. And I know Vision PR legends Pat Caporali and Michael Kaletenmark well enough to call them friends.

Under Pat's guidance, Vision pioneered the use of online and social medial like Twitter to engage fans. Pat was very instrumental in organizing the race-day Tweet Ups (face-to-face meetings among Twitterers).

And then there's Lauren George and Ed Carpenter, two very genuine people. Lauren brims with self confidence without being arrogant, and I always get the feeling that Ed knows how fortunate he and any other driver is to be driving an IndyCar. The element of humility is very endearing. I always think if I was an IndyCar driver, I'd be a lot like Ed, a regular guy with his head on straight.

Last night while we were all drinking and Twittering, Lauren (@IamLaurenG) Tweeted that it's not over:

Attention tweeps! Thanks for all the shout outs! Tmrw I am going to be asking for your help with something... Not your $$ just your time!

Here's some motivation, pdog style ...

Comments

[Trick Dickle]

Vision isn't dead. Remember Rahal "suspended operations" at about the same time last year, and ended up putting a Indy 500 deal together.

They will run at least 1 car at Indy. The family lives for the month of May and Indy is quite addicting. They have plenty of equipment ready to go and there are plenty of quality crew folks out there available. Plus they may be able to recoup some cash, by selling/leasing a car during the month to a new team....

And Ed has proven to be quite solid at Indy. He has 4 top 11 finishes (in 6 starts) and has finished in the top 10 the past 2 years. Plus he won the Freedom 100.

Everyone throwing dirt on TG and Vision's grave, might be dancing a bit early.

[Travis R]

P-dog - any word from Lauren George? I thought maybe you could get us some inside scoop on all this, since she's one of your Women of Pressdog...

[pressdog]

I think the wheels are a-turnin', but we're not sure how just yet. Stay tuned.

[Aaron]

There was a tidbit in Curt Cavin's article about Josie George's son Kyle Krisiloff "lacked the funds to keep racing" that kind of perked up my ears as it relates to this story. There may have been tension on a lot of issues around the management of the ICS or IMS, but I could see there being a real family dispute over why family money was being used to directly support one member of the younger generation (Ed Carpenter) while another was left on the sidelines.