Friday, May 6, 2011

I love Twitter

It wasn't 30 seconds after the Indianapolis Motor Speedway made the announcement yesterday when the first angry posts hit the twittersphere.


Five hours later, he was 'fired.'

Fiasco avoided.

I have just one question...

What they hell were they thinking?


In what world is inviting Donald Trump to drive the pace car for the 100th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing a good idea? The Hulman's have made a lot of stupid decisions over the years – bringing Formula 1 to the track, building that god-awful pagoda that destroyed the sight lines from so many vantage points, and forcing the split with CART that almost killed the sport – but this ranks right up there. Here's how they explained it.

"Trump is the very definition of the American success story. He has set new standards of excellence while expanding his interests nationally and internationally, with personal involvement in every one of his ventures."

Forget for a moment that Trump is a self-important, blowhard who's been bankrupt more times than he's been divorced. He has nothing, let me repeat NOTHING, to do with racing.

It's an insult to the great drivers who risked their lives circling the track over the past 100 years that they would even consider putting this man behind the wheel. Reading his quote in the press release almost made me ill.

“The Indianapolis 500 has been the gold standard of motorsports for a century, and I can’t wait to get behind the wheel of the Camaro and bring the famous field of 33 drivers to the green flag." Classy.

Selecting The Donald and the dead animal that rides atop his head to drive the pace car for the 100th anniversary of The Indy 500 shows why the race has lost its relevance over the years. It's clear the people running the event have no respect for its history and are out of touch with those who love the sport.

That gasbag had no business on Gasoline Alley.

Thanks to Twitter and #BumpTrump, he won't be.

3 comments:

  1. Entirely unrelated, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on Movado's new commercial:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12diZbLck8&feature=related

    Personally, I saw it and cringed. After years of respect for their classy designs and brand I think they blew everything by adding tasteless color to their designs.

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  2. I'm not a watch guy. I stopped wearing them back in '83, so I don't have the awareness of Movado's brand language. Making drastic changes to product design is a tricky business. If your brand needs revitalization as Apple did in the '90s, it can signal that something has changed and give people a reason to reevaluate you. But if things are going well and you're just trying to create a bigger tent to draw more people in, you run the risk of alienating your core customers (as Movado has done with you). The question is, is there a greater future in the new people who are drawn in, or by focusing on those who love you now?

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  3. Putting that douchebag anywhere near the Indy 500 would have been a sacrilege and an insult to race fans worldwide. This creep needs to confine his brand of sleaze to bogus real estate "deals" and faux celebrity events. Hooray for you, Peter and everyone else who called this clown out.

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