Tony George Update - Vision Racing Shuttered

One day after I posted about the problems Tony George has encountered with the Hulman family empire, the Indianapolis Star reported this morning that Tony George has decided to suspend operations of his Vision Racing Indycar team. I am sure that was a tough pill to swallow for the IRL founder, perhaps moreso even than relinquishing some of his other duties at IMS and with the IRL, since he had to let personnel go. This puts Ed Carpenter out ride-hunting and takes away another IRL team, one which had become increasingly competitive on ovals in 2009. Ed ran the race of his life at Kentucky Speedway last summer in earning Vision a best-ever second place finish, losing by inches in a photo finish. Of course I am sure there are folks out there who are gleefully celebrating TG's comeuppance, but I am not one of those. It took courage to create a breakaway series and stay the course through difficult economic times, and now barely two full seasons after getting the Indycar series unified, Tony must watch from the sidelines. For me, anything that hurts the IRL is not good, and losing a team that seemed to be on the verge of really good consistent results is a horrible loss. I for one hope Tony rebounds strongly. If the Speedway is not for sale, maybe the IRL would be, so go get 'em Tony.