Lets face facts….since she has come on the scene, fewer and fewer people are watching. The sport is on some podunk cable network now and there are very few signs of light for the sport.

She is a great money maker for herself and has made a name for herself, out of mediocre racing talent and a miserable attitude. For that, she should be lauded.

But she has done diddly squat for the SPORT. She hasn’t made Indy Car interesting. She hasn’t made it more popular. She hasn’t made it more marketable.

All she is for Andretti’s team, is a check-bringer/sponsor secuer. She is the cashcow for his kid’s team. Just like any other ridebuyer, who funds teams so that the real drivers on the team have better funding.

Enough with her “importance”. If she was that “important” as a “brand”, she’d get hired in NASCAR. NASCAR doesn’t want her, no matter how much she begs them. And NASCAR don’t want you, you are irrelevent in American racing.

Danica said that she was glad to see changes being made, and that the existing process of doing a little here and a little there wasn’t solving the problem. Listening between the lines, I got the distinct impression that Michael has ideas on what needs to be done to bring Andretti Racing back to the front, but that he may not have been getting the support from the other two members of the ownership team. Danica has said that Michael gets things done, implying that Green and Savoree were more inclined to let things drag out, for whatever reasons. Michael himself said in an interview after the split (sorry, I don’t have a reference for it), that he knows what the problem is, but didn’t want to discuss it. That leads to the next thought.

Danica made reference to major changes (plural), rather than a major change, from the top down. That tells me that we are likely to see even more changes within Andretti, possibly changes that could only be made with Green and Savoree out of the picture. I have heard rumors, strictly rumors, that some of the issues revolve around nepotism and friendship within the organization (no, not Marco). If that is the case, it may very well be that certain individuals are occupying decision making positions or involved in critical engineering development who may be less than capable or have been operating under a different agenda. If Michael has identified this as a problem area, his reluctance to discuss it can certainly be understood. If this is in fact more than a rumor, Michael is now in a position to deal with it directly, without resistance.

Did Danica go to Michael and demand changes be made in order for her to return? I don’t think so. Surely Michael knew that if things continued as they have over the past couple of years that Danica would be gone. I can, however, see him meeting privately with Danica, Tony and perhaps Marco, singly or as a group, to discuss the problems as he defined them and seek their opinion. I can also see him assuring his drivers that changes were going to be made, and that the team would once again be a powerhouse organization. Those assurances would certainly give Danica reason to re-assess her position and would lead Tony to feel comfortable in saying that Danica would return. The only demand related to Danica, either made by her or self-imposed by Michael, would be that the changes be put into motion in time for results to be seen and commitment evidenced before her existing contract expired.

The split between Michael and Kim was rumored after a less than acceptable performance in 2008, even though it did not happen. As I recall, that was the year that AGR and Showa went their separate ways, with Showa walking off with all of the engineering and set up data. Was this a critical decision with which Michael did not totally agree? Was he assured by Green and Savoree that this was a decision which, while detrimental in the short term, would reap long term benefits? Has this been a pattern in other areas, and if so how deep does it run?

No conspiracy theories, just ideas and thoughts based on rumor, supposition and reading between the lines. The bottom line, however, is that as of now a new sense of rejuvenation is in play at Andretti Racing. Michael is confident in the future of the team, Danica is confident in the team’s ability to provide her the opportunity to win, and the sponsors appear to be happy with the future.

That’s not the same thing as demanding that AGR break up. It would be outrageous for Danica’s agent to make a demand like that. He’d get laughed out of the room. OTOH, if we take the liberty of assuming that Michael was determined to resign Danica even at a high cost, and that his partners didn’t agree, that would provide all the impetus necessary to start thinking about parting ways.

Who knows. It’s fun to speculate. It’s also pointless. Pointless fun… my favorite kind!

If the tail wags the dog on this team it may have more to do with accomodating Marco.

Going forward, the success of this team seems to hing on whether they will find the test / setup driver they are sorely missing. In Danica they have a driver who can keep her nose clean and get the car to the end. In TK and Marco they have drivers who can take the car as is and get just a smidge more from it within the race. The problem is the “take the car as is” aspect. The “as is” for AGR cars most weekends is pretty mediocre. There is no one on the team who can take an underperforming car, communicate with engineers and bring it up to snuff for the others to exploit.