Bernie Come on Down - to Texas
You gotta love Texas Motor Speedway’s owner Eddie Gossage.
He’s second only to Humpy Wheeler as a promoter of both their own interests at their respective speedways but in the larger sense NASCAR aa a whole. They both hold Master degrees in Race Track Pimpology.
Gossage has looked on from afar and watched F1’s Bernie Ecclestone wax poetic about F1 world championship events held under moonlight and starry evenings in Singapore, Malaysia an Australia.
Well… Bernie’s not been so “poetic” in the Aussie’s case, more like, do it or else.
Anyway, Eddie Gossage never one to sit on the sidelines has decided what the U.S. needs is a night time grand prix event. Or at the very least instruct Bernie how to do it.
Not without experience in such things, TMS held the first starlight IndyCar event in 1997, Gossage said he sent Ecclestone an invitation to attend the night-time oval Indy car race at TMS on June 9.
“I think it would be of great interest to Mr. Ecclestone and his staff to visit Texas Motor Speedway and get an opportunity to witness and evaluate open-wheel cars running at high speeds under the lights,” Gossage told reporters.
“Although a road course would offer different challenges, we could educate them about our lighting system and discuss some of the issues we encountered when we staged the first-ever night-time race in 1997.”
Gossage hastened to add he had yet to receive a reply from Ecclestone. Shocking! No reply as yet, there must be a valid reason.
Maybe Eddie failed to include the required R
I don’t know that any racing venue in the US could afford to pay Bernie’s price for an F1 race.
Other than IMS, I meant…
Hmmmm, F1 + Texas……remind me here marc (you were around in the 80’s, I was but a child). I seem to recalL a fiasco in Dallas, with F1 cars tearing the road up, LITERALLY!.
Paul, Bernie dreams of a Las Vegas event and the money is there. However his attention has been drawn more towards Asia in the last 2-3 years.
Peter, I’ll have to research that the memory is dusty on Texas F1 event.
I was yanking your chain on the old man thing LOL.
It was 83 from recollection & it was that race where Mansell collapsed in the heat pushing his Lotus over the line. The road surface had already been torn apart in qualifying & they had no choice but to race on the pot holes. From memory “home town boy” Cheever (dickhead) got a podium. The whole thing was a bit of a farce, in fact I think there was a multi car bingle on the opening laps.
It was 84, & according to wiki, a disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_Grand_Prix
Keke Rosberg won & I was wrong about Cheever in the Alfa who spun off. Have a read, it’s actually quite a funny story. Everything from Jimmy Carter to Larry Hagman (JR from TV’s Dallas) to Bernie in a rage. LOL
Hate to be the breaker of bad news Peter, but any reference to Jimmy Carter normally makes me either cower in the corner or flee for the nearest hideout.
That date of the event clued me in on why I didn’t remember the race. In July ‘84 I was on Gonzo Station just outside the Arabian Gulf on the U.S.S. Henry B. Wilson.
Oh… what fun. Cutting circles in the ocean for 90 days without benefit of touching land.
And BTW. Sir Stirling was wrong (”I have never shaken hands with a president.”) Carter was a sham.
Oh… and Jacques Laffite showing up in his PJ’s kind of fits the image the name imparts doesn’t it?
Ahh,,, Jimmy The Democrat replaced by Ronnie the Republican. What a strange old Cold War that part of history was. Hmmmm peanut farmers & actors.
Did your Navy travels take you near South Korea back then?
Yep, Pusan and Chinhae.
Ah YES, the vulgarities of Green Street. Dem were the days!