J.R. Hildebrand and Panther -- Word came out yesterday that J.R. Hildebrand essentially got “let go” by Panther Racing. He’ll be replaced for the rest of the season by Ryan Briscoe. From what I can read, Hildebrand had a “contract” with Panther until the end of this season.
But, as we’ve learned, “contracts” with drivers in motor sports either 1) have a ton of escape clauses or 2) are ignored at some point by some or all of the parties involved, because this isn’t the first time that a driver who allegedly had a contract through a certain date is shown the door. Cough, cough ... Katherine Legge ... cough.
One of the most strange moments of Panther’s history came in late 2010, Panther’s driver, the late Dan Wheldon, actually sued the team … while still driving for them ... for breach of contract.
Kind of nuts. The allegations from the court filing are here. Among them were failure to purchase the equipment allegedly agreed to in Wheldon’s contract and failure to allegedly pay Wheldon as scheduled. Panther did not respond to the allegations (that I know of) and the suit was settled and Wheldon continued to drive for them until the end of 2010. Then, shockingly*, parted with the team after that. (*Denotes sarcasm.)
JR Hildebrand hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory with Panther. After biffing it in the 2011 Indy 500, he ran over the back of Will Power’s car under yellow at St. Pete this year while distracted by making adjustments on his steering wheel screwing both of them for the race. The icing on the cake was Hildebrand was a lap down and Power was the leader when it happened. Note: Power defended Hildebrand on twitter telling people to stop cranking on JR because we've all had brain fade now and then. Then in the 2013 Indy 500, Hildebrand crashed on lap 4.
So all of that is to say, stuff happens in racing. Bottom line for me is always: you can’t work effectively where you’re not wanted and team owners have the right to hire and fire whatever driver they want (within the legal boundaries of a contract, of course).
I’ve been “let go” from a job before where it just wasn’t working out. It wasn’t that I sucked or the company sucked, it was just that my personality and way of working didn’t fit with the company. Nobody's fault, really. It was like trying to wear a suit that's two sizes too big -- just not working, and it's not you or the suit's fault.
I thought it sucked to be essentially fired at the time, but it turned out to be the best thing to ever happen in my professional life. It’s possible in all these situations that the employee and employer are both ultimately happy to be apart. We don’t know if that is true in the Panther/Hildebrand case, but we also don’t know it isn’t the case. It’s natural to want to know why something like this happens, but I think we should avoid filling the info vacuum with assumptions.
Finally, it’s really just one of them professional racing deals. One driver’s loss is always another driver’s gain. In this case Hildebrand’s lost is Briscoe’s gain. That’s just the way it is in racing, and if you aren’t OK with that then you shouldn’t be a race car driver. Which is why virtually every driver I know accepts that as a fact of life.
Related: Mike Conway is replacing Ana Beatriz at Dale Coyne Racing for Detroit. Pretty sure this was a dollar-and-sense deal. Probably 75% of the drivers in IndyCar "bring funding," that is to say the driver has a sponsor that is committed to them, not the team. In that case as a driver if your cash runs out then the team has to find someone else who has cash, and I assume* that's the source of the Conway-for-Bia swap move here.(*I could be full of shit.)
In the Panther case, it seems clear the sponsor is committed to the team, not the driver.
Detroit Double Dip -- This weekend is the first of IndyCar’s new doubleheader weekends (the others being Houston and Toronto). Very interesting. Lots of questions here, like ...
- How will the teams approach having two races in two days on the same track?
- Will they be conservative in race one to make sure they have equipment for race two?
- Will two street races (which are very physically demanding) kill the divers?
- Will anyone show up in person or on TV to watch both races?
- Will watching two races on what has been the lowest entertainment venue in IndyCar, Belle Isle, AKA Hell Isle, make people suicidal?
Hard to say. At least there has allegedly been major improvement work on the course since last year’s debacle wherein part of the track started to disintegrate taking out James Hinchcliffe's car and causing a massive red flag for street repair. The course has also been reconfigured a bit to try and add another passing zone. Here are Scotty Goodyear’s thoughts on the new layout.
My plan is to tune in on Saturday and let the entertainment factor of that race dictate if I tune in on Sunday. Will probably DVR Sunday at minimum in case a Fast Forward review is warranted.
Here’s the schedule:
IZOD IndyCar Series
Friday, May 31 (all times Eastern)
11:10 a.m. -- Practice (all cars)
3 p.m. -- Race 1 qualifying (standard knockout format, no TV, check IndyCar.com for streaming)
Saturday, June 1
9:15 -- Race 2 qualifying. (30 min, two groups, starting order set by lap times during the sessions, no TV, check IndyCar.com for streaming)
3:30 p.m. -- Race 1 (70 laps/164.22 miles), ABC (Live)
Sunday, June 2
9:30 -- Warmup
3:30 p.m. -- Race 2 (70 laps/164.22 miles), ABC (Live)
Part of the good news here is that ABC/ESPN releases its ratings for sports stuff, so we will get to see how it went over with the viewers. I’ve long since stopped commenting on ratings, but it’s still interesting to see what they are, because I continue to believe they are one (but by no means the only) indicator of the relative health of the series.
Dover Details -- Since I went to Indy this year I’ve been Indy Indy Indy lately. And, honestly, I almost never watch the Coke 600. After a day of Indy 500, and given the fact that the Coke 600 is something like seven hours long (rough estimate!), I just can’t do it. This year I've read that it turned into a Festival of Bizzaro Land with camera cables snapping and injuring spectators and FUBARing the race for a while. Crazy. Couple of red flags, the standard NASCAR twisted sheet metal, some on-track drama involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Danica Patrick.
Ricky allegedly accidentally set off a chain reaction deal that trashed Danica’s car. This happens at every NASCAR race, and to some extent it’s just random luck as to if you are involved or not, so I don’t get bunched up. I haven’t heard anything that indicates it was an intentional take-out by Stenhouse. More of “he got loose and hit (whoever).” But since it involved boyfriend/girlfriend (Stenhouse and Danica) people were all over it and frothed. People, not including me, of course.
ANYWHO, NASCAR races at Dover this weekend. There’s a great fan guide here on NASCAR’s site here. (Note to IndyCar: emulate it.) The details:
SPRINT CUP SERIES (all times Eastern)
Friday, May 31:
Qualifying, 3 p.m. on SPEED
Saturday, June 1:
Practice, 10 a.m. on SPEED
Final practice, 1 p.m. on SPEED
Sunday, May 26:
Race, 1 p.m. on FOX
NATIONWIDE SERIES
Friday, May 31
Practice, 12:30 p.m. on SPEED
Saturday, June 1
Qualifying, 11 a.m. on ESPN2
Race, 2:30 p.m. on ESPN
Have a good one. Thanks always for reading the dog blog.
Miller says that Briscoe is in for Detroit only & will be replaced by Servia after that.
Both Briscoe & Servia are super high-quality drivers while Hildebrand has shown none of the above. Good but not great.
If Panther is struggling to survive and need a WIN, JR ain't gonna do it for them.
Posted by: S0CSeven | May 31, 2013 at 10:40 AM
Dog, really? "Let the entertainment factor" dictate if you'll watch Sunday or not? What race this year has not had a very high "entertainment factor?" Say what you will about Indycar (and people do) but the entertainment factor is (okay--my opinion only, I guess) incredibly high this year. Maybe no one watches on television, and maybe it's spec racing and maybe the new car is ugly and maybe the loss of Danica signaled the beginning of the end of open-wheel racing in America but this racing product has been excellent and highly entertaining this year. I'll bet (not money of course but something I actually have like checkers or rubber bands) that you will be tuned in to Sunday's race. Then they'll be four of us watching...
Posted by: redcar | May 31, 2013 at 11:31 AM
I will be very pleased if Servia and Wilson win races this season in underdog teams.
Posted by: Brian McKay in Florida | May 31, 2013 at 08:23 PM