IndyCar: The currently-brewing toxic Indianapolis 500 situation

By Asher Fair | Dec 7, 2017

ASSEN, NETHERLANDS - SEPTEMBER 02: Tristan Gommendy of France and PKV Racing in action during warm up for the Dutch Champ Car Grand Prix at the TT-Circuit Assen on September 2, 2007 in Assen, Netherlands. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images) /

A toxic situation is currently brewing in the IndyCar world as far as one particular Indianapolis 500 entry goes. How will it play out?

Back in September, it was announced that Schmidt Peterson Motorsports would partner with former Formula One team owner Didier Calmels to field an Indianapolis 500 entry for former Champ Car driver Tristan Gommendy, a 38-year-old Frenchman who last drove in IndyCar in the Champ Car days back in 2007.

UPDATE: The deal is OFFICIALLY OFF. Read more HERE.

Gommendy last drove in IndyCar in the 2007 Champ Car season. He drove in 11 of the 14 races that season and finished in 12th place in the final championship standings after finishing just seven races. His best finish was a 4th place result at Assen, and he recorded another top 5 finish at Las Vegas to go along with three other finishes inside the top 8.

But given the fact that Calmels is a convicted murderer, as he murdered his wife back in 1989 and served prison time for it, the reception that this breaking news got was not positive in any way, shape or form.

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The Schmidt Peterson Motorsports team were scorned for taking money from a murderer, and news outlets everywhere dwelled on the fact that Calmels killed his wife while the actual Indianapolis 500 driver, Tristan Gommendy, seemed to be an afterthought.

Regardless of your opinion on the situation in which the team are in, this is not a good situation. In the day and age we live in where people will boycott almost anything for whatever reasons, there are two ways to look at this and what makes the situation so toxic.

First off, if the deal goes through, you’ll have people who will refuse to watch the race due to the fact that a convicted murderer is a team owner, thus supporting the idea that money is the only thing that matters in racing.

Secondly, if the deal does not go through, you’ll have people who will not be supportive of the decision since it’s ultimately Tristan Gommendy paying for the sins of Calmels. With Gommendy having absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Calmels’s wife, why should he be penalized by losing his Indianapolis 500 ride over it?

Either way you look at it, this is not an optimal situation for IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500 right now.

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Will Schmidt Peterson Motorsports end up partnering with Didier Calmels to field a third Indianapolis 500 entry for Tristan Gommendy, or will another driver end up landing in the #77 Honda? How will fans react to whatever the final decision is? We should know more relatively soon.