TOP 100 RACING SITES
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| Power Wins Pole Will Power won the pole for the Indy Racing League’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Power was replaced in one Team Penske car when Hélio Castroneves returned after being acquitted of five of six tax-evasion charges. But he jumped into another and outdueled the former IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti. The rookie Raphael Matos was third. Castroneves, who had not driven a racecar since October, qualified eighth for Sunday’s 23-car field. nytimes.com |
UAW sends Girsky to GM's board Judging from the mail I get, union ownership of General Motors stock may be the only thing most business readers dislike more than government ownership. The common refrain is that pricey union contracts helped get GM into this mess. Letting the United Auto Workers own part of the company will just bring the same largesse to labor back into the picture, the critics say. Then again, maybe not. The situation is far from ideal, but the union has a level-headed representative on GM’s board. The UAW named former Wall Street analyst Stephen Girsky as a GM director. He will represent the interest of the union’s Voluntary Employee Benefits Trust, or VEBA, which will pay retiree medical benefits the same way a pension funds pays retirement benefits. By the way, the union won’t own 17.5% of GM (with warrants worth another 2.5%) the VEBA trust does. And Girsky will represent its interests. All of this is important for two reasons. While Girsky has served as an advisor to the union for several years, and clearly has a soft spot for labor, he’s all too aware of GM’s problems. He was a tough critic of the company when he covered its stock for Morgan Stanley. Girsky also worked at the company as an advisor to former CEO Rick Wagoner, too. Don’t look for him to press CEO Fritz Henderson to give the UAW a contract that would erase some of the concessions that were made prior to bankruptcy. And as I have said before, having GM stock in the VEBA trust is different than having it in the UAW’s hands. Those trustees have a responsibility to invest the assets, grow the value of the trust and pay medical benefits. Since GM stock is a big chunk of the fund’s assets, making the carmaker less profitable—thus dropping the value of the stock—would be foolish. Not only would the trustees be in breach of their fiduciary duty, they could eventually be in the position of cutting healthcare benefits for union members and retirees. So there are check and balances in place. And a guy like Girsky is just the person to make sure everyone stays sane as the new GM rolls out. rss.businessweek.com |
2 Drivers Hurt at Sonoma Team Penske’s No. 3 driver, Will Power, broke two vertebrae in his lower back and sustained a concussion after crashing into Nelson Philippe of Conquest Racing. nytimes.com |
For Force Hood, emotions run high as title fight nears end We had a really difficult and frustrating couple of days in Las Vegas this past weekend and while fans were dressed up as ghosts ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
BMW strikes deal to sell F1 team back to Sauber German carmaker BMW has agreed to sell its Formula One team to previous owner Peter Sauber, provided the team gets a place on ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |