New - Dr. Jack Miller, the Racing Dentist

[Paradise City]

The well-to-do driver that is ho-hum on talent is part of the fabric of sport since the sport kicked off; It's a sport that doesn't run on water and it even adds human-interest pending certain minimum conditions on safety are met.

I don't blame Miller for being Miller and he acquitted himself reasonably [I think]. The rise of Miller for me though is emblematic of a sport that had just committed self-suicide in the most ugly of ways. I'm too familiar with the tragedy, comedy and slow-death of splits in other sports. It's always a mud slinging fiasco that reduces adults to toddlers but I've never seen a bigger case of self suicide and collapse than I have with Indycar.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

There many racing series past/present where drivers have paid their way in or earned their way in through ways other than actual talent behind the wheel so I can understand some of the criticism. Sure, the guy wasn't the greatest or even above average and could be considered a poster child of the IRL's bland and often times, unfair entrants to the 500, but as he alluded to in the article, he started the 500 three times, and no writing or criticism can ever take that away from him.

I can think of a number of drivers in F1 who payed their way and one or two who even bought their own cars and entered as privateers.

I don't think you can take anything away from Dr. Jack, he was a product of his time and he was very good at getting sponsors and certainly had one of the most distinctive liveries of any race car, so he gets my vote for at least having arguably the most esthetic looking Dallara, if such a thing is possible.

[Yannick]

Well, I cannot really comment on Dr Jack Miller since I did not follow the series when he was racing. That took place during a downtime in my interest in US open wheel racing. Only my favourite Dario Franchitti's first Indy 500 victory slowly brought me back to get interested again over the years after I had lost interest in the sport when AGR, Penske, Ganassi and Team Rahal had left CART for the IRL.

But looking at drivers like Dale Coyne or Chip Ganassi who were not so successful at the wheel but have been competing in the series as owners for long time periods, I would guess Dr Jack Miller could have become a good team owner as well, given his talents in business which the article talks about.

If he were a team owner today, I'm pretty certain his performances as a driver would not be talked about much anymore these days.