What's It Going to Take to Bury USF1 Online?

I was talking to someone about the new United States Grand Prix set for Austin in 2012 and I said I would send him a link so he could see the proposed track design.  Guess what popped up at the top of the page when I googled "US F1?"Yup: www.usgpe.com
 I was working at Phoenix International Raceway when Dale Earnhardt was killed at Daytona.  On the Tuesday that followed track president Buddy Jobe was walking through the garages and noticed, perhaps for the very first time, that the oversized Coke machine just outside the infield media center featured a backlit, translucent plastic front with a life size photo of the Intimidator himself, dressed in his GM Goodwrench drivers suit, smiling at the camera and holding a can of Coca Cola.Buddy yelled to one of track workers nearby, "Get that damn thing out of here" and within minutes it was gone, then replaced by the local bottler with a machine that just had the Coca Cola logo on the front.No one likes painful reminders.  That's exactly what I got when I was looking for info about the new United States Grand Prix in Austin and rediscovered  "www.usgpe.com" The USF1 team debacle, sadly orchestrated to failure by Ken Anderson and Peter Windsor may be one of the blackest eyes Uncle Sam has ever suffered on the international motorsports stage.We (and yes, I have to say 'we' because the effort was representative of me, my fellow Americans and my country regardless of my personal un-involvement) stepped on it big time with the USF1 clusterflub.  We invoked history and heritage and rekindled fond memories of Dan Gurney and Roger Penske and even Vels Parnelli Jones trying to compete with the world's best in the best racing series in the world.We said all the right things and dropped the right names and confidently boasted that all systems were go ... right up until we hit the brick wall.  Then we were exposed.  The car wasn't ready, people hadn't been paid, there were rumors of rampant dysfunctionality among the principals, their dogs ate their homework, etc.This story should have ended along with the team.Yet the USF1 website is still active.  There are still pictures of Anderson, Windsor and uber rich PayPal wiz Chad Hurley looking very professional and trustworthy and ready to kick butt and take names in Grand Prix racing.  The blogs and YouTube videos and lobby pics and engineering drawings, it's all still there.  The painful evidence of a massive, well-intentioned sell job in 2009, the grandiose plans to be racing in 2010, with our own, made-in-the-USA chassis are still with us.It's downright painful to peruse.  And it shouldn't be available any more.Does someone owe the webmaster money?  Is the failed USF1 website still active out of spite somehow?  I hope not.  And I also hope that sometime soon I'll go back to www.usgpe.com and find a cannot open this page message.Because it's still too painful and downright embarrassing.
-Bill
Read more of Bill Tybur's thoughts on fantasy racing at FMFL

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