The Indy 500 remains a great event; I've attended every race since 1984 and will continue to attend as long as I'm able. However, the race no longer has the allure it once had. source: IndyStar.com -Jon D. Kindred Oddly, neither of Phillip Wilson's articles in the May 16 Star mentioned one of the major reasons for the decline: It was not the CART/ IRL split, per se, that damaged the race, it was the way it was done. Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George's decision to reserve the first 25 positions in the 1996 starting grid for teams that had signed up for his fledgling Indy Racing League was one of the greatest blunders in the history of American sport. By that rule, as long as the IRL cars achieved an arbitrarily determined minimum speed, they were in the field. Non-IRL cars, if any, regardless of how fast they might have run, would be relegated to the back of the field. Sadly and predictably, this rule severed the 500's connection with much of its history and tradition. The mystique of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" has been on life-support ever since. Time was, once a year at the Speedway the best drivers in the fastest cars in the world competed to make the field. George's 1996 "rule of 25" showed nothing but contempt for the courage and achievements of all the drivers who had gone before. I can imagine our friends in Louisville who run the Kentucky Derby, hearing of Tony George's 1996 decision, saying to themselves, "What was he thinking?" The answer, of course, is that he wasn't.
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