Sports Roundup by Various Sports Writers

By Bill Center

Tony George was a visionary.

And like many visionaries, there were two flaws to his modus operandi. One, he sometimes lost sight of the bottom line. Two, camps in his sphere of influence divided into love him/hate him groups.

Also, like many visionaries, his reign was, in the end, much shorter than he thought it would be.

George was fired Tuesday as the CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and his family's Indiana-based businesses. George then stepped down as CEO of the Indy Racing League - although he will continue to run an IndyCar team that has stepson Ed Carpenter as one of its two drivers.

Pulling the plug on George was his mother, Mari Hulman George, chairman of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway board of directors, and other members of the family that has run the world's most famous racing facility for 60 years.

Tony George controlled IMS for the past 14 years, during which he made sweeping changes that altered the face of American racing.

Some of his changes were brilliant.

Through 1994, IMS hosted only one race annually, the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day weekend. George brought NASCAR and the Brickyard 400 to the track - the race becoming NASCAR's most-attended race annually and eclipsing the Indy 500 in some years.

Some of his other ideas, however, were not so rewarding.

In 1995, slighted by the fact that he had no say in the operation of the IndyCar Series despite hosting the tour's greatest annual event, George formed the Indy Racing League, triggering a 12-year, ruinous uncivil war for control of open-wheel racing in America.

By the time the Champ Car World Series collapsed into the IRL early last year, both sides were almost bankrupt and open-wheel racing had lost many of its fans, sponsors and drivers to NASCAR.

During the struggle, George bankrolled the IRL with profits from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At the same time, George was overseeing what some have estimated to be $150 million in improvements to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including the construction of a road course, garages and suites for a Formula One race that was last run in 2007.

George apparently was on shaky ground in May, although he survived an apparent family coup the week following the Indy 500. This time he was not so lucky.

The 25th anniversary of one of the more important races in NASCAR history will be celebrated Saturday with the running of the annual July 4 weekend Sprint Cup race at Daytona Motor Speedway. On July 4, 1984, Richard Petty scored the record 200th — and final — win of his career before a crowd that included President Ronald Reagan. It was the first time that a sitting president witnessed a NASCAR race live.

The picture of Air Force One landing at Daytona Beach's airport (just behind the backstretch grandstands) as Petty's car was headed down the backstretch became one of the lasting images during NASCAR's growth.

Bill Center writes about motor sports for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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