The Future of Roth Racing

Roth Racing, in their first full(ish) season were perpetual backmarkers who were saddled by an owner-driver who was out of his league and terrible management decisions regarding driver choices and it appears that the shit is about to hit the fan for this team once and for all. The word on the street, according to Curt Cavin of the Indianapolis Star, is that the IRL told Marty Roth that they would not renew his racing license. The 49 year old Roth (the oldest driver in the IRL this year) was apparantly outraged and has now decided to put his team up for sale. The team is reportedly asking $2 Million dollars for their factory, four cars, and two transporters and have already laid off a number of staff. Regular readers will know my opinion of Roth's driving abilities, but the team had some good people in the backroom who were able to put together some decent cars, especially on the ovals, and they had some good runs in the season, so long as it was the car that Roth himself was not driving and his staff could make a pretty good crew for a potential buyer. There are rumours that one of these Indy-only teams, like Rubicon Racing (owned by actor Jason Priestlay) could be interested and can afford the initial price tag, but can't afford to keep paying the remaining staff until they get some sponsorship ready, and Mad Dog Marty is naturally unwilling to foot a wage bill for a team he no longer owns. This will probably end up with the rest of the assets and staff being acquired individually by the existing teams and Roth Racing ceasing to exist. Although I will be happy to see Marty Roth out of the cockpit, it will be sad not to see what the team can do when not managed by an egotistical buffoon. If someone like Derrick Walker could put something together to buy the team and make it competitive. The issue, as always, is money and while Walker has management skills, he does not have enough money to buy Roth out and pay the staff until he gets the sponsorship to put the team on the ground. Walker would be more likely to buy the cars and transporters only and wait until he gets the necessary cash to build a team, leaving Roth's existing staff to join existing teams, but this scenario would be highly unlikely. Obviously a good solution would also be for Marty to step out of the cockpit and concentrate on management, putting someone like Jay Howard (who Marty is still paying not to drive) in the car, or cars, but with Mr. Roth's ego that could never happen. One less car in the grid will leave Stanton Barrett as probably the league's chief backmarker, unless Milka Duno keeps racing, and will deny a worthy driver (like erm, JAY HOWARD) an opportunity in the IndyCar series. Sad that despite the progress the league has made we still have clowns like Roth making the league look amateurish.