Several blogger friends have been posting their opinions on Donald Trump. Not Donald Trump the businessman, or Donald Trump the potential Presidential candidate, or even, Donald Trump the reality TV show host, but Donald Trump, Pace Car driver.
Trump the businessman has a record that, for what it's worth, the public has seen over the course of the last generation. He's been, in the words of Sinatra, "A puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king." In his case, he's been the King of New York as well as the King of Bankruptcy Court. His successes and failure have both been massive and very public.
Candidate Trump has shown a willingness to speak his mind in no uncertain terms. He is, at the very least, providing some comic relief to an otherwise boring pre-primary season. Somehow, I can't quite make myself believe that he is serious: He has too many skeletons which would be exposed and exploited the moment he announced a serious candidacy. Then there's the profane tirade he unleashed a week ago which will almost certainly come back to haunt him if he enters the race. True, what he said may be what quite a few folks are thinking; it is, however, quite another thing to present those thoughts so "un-Presidentially."
I'm not normally rumor-conscious, but Mr. Trump has long been alleged to have ties to a group who would like to bring a Trump-esque casino and hotel property to my adopted home, Myrtle Beach. I can't imagine that he would walk away from those plans to seek a job which would involve a substantial pay cut and abandonment of those plans.
In any other year, Trump as Pace Car Driver might be acceptable. This year, this 100th Anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, not so much. There are just too many better options including previous winners, military heroes (after all, it IS Memorial Day Weekend,) or even 911 survivors, (Todd Beamer's widow rings a bell,) just to name a few.
To be sure, when the Speedway announced that Trump would be driving the Pace Car, he had not come out with his stance on President Obama's birth certificate; nor had he let loose the string of f-bombs that he did a week or so ago. At the very least, that tantrum should allow the Speedway to re-think its position. While I personally have not been to the Speedway in the last 24 years, everything that I have seen written and been told by friends indicates that IMS has become much more "family friendly," than it was in the days of the first turn Snakepit.
Considering that and the barrage of criticism from fans and media, maybe it is time that Mari Hulman George stepped up to the mike and said, "Donald, YOU'RE FIRED!"
UPDATE: In what I believe to be a clear case of "handwriting on the wall," Donald Trump fired himself as driver of the Official Pace Car late yesterday. Citing his business concerns and the time required to bring himself up to speed on the task of driving the Chevrolet Camaro Pace Car, Trump removed himself from the controversy. Per Curt Cavin in this morning's Indianapolis Star, conventional wisdom is that four-time Indy winner A. J. Foyt is the leading candidate to replace Trump in the driver's seat.
Foyt, winner of the 1961 50th Anniversary event, as well as in 1964, 1967, and 1977, has always had a deep and abiding respect for the Hulman family and the traditions of Indianapolis. Certainly among fans of the 500, there could be no better choice.
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