Turbo gets it done for the Indy 500

Turbo the movie, a cartoon based around a snail and the Indy 500, may not have been a box office hit, but it certainly delivered exposure to the Indy 500, exposure it could not get anywhere else.

So far the movie has grossed over $173 million worldwide and has been seen by over 17 million people. It is just now launching in the UK October 18th.

Some say the Hulman George family really only care about the Indy 500 and not the rest of the series. This may explain why the Turbo movie gave zero exposure to the IndyCar series, just the Indy 500. It may also explain why they don't care about growing the series (hence sticking with miniscule TV ratings on NBC Sports Network) as long as the Indy 500 is on ABC. For them, the Indy 500 is everything.

After all, isn't that really why Tony George destroyed the sport? CART was getting too big and popular and the Indy 500 wasn't all the CART brass cared about. They wanted to run more races in May and not have May consumed 100% by Indy. They wanted to shorten the Indy 500 to two weeks and the Hulman George family felt threatened.

So by starting the IRL and taking the Indy 500 and the term "IndyCar" away from CART, Tony managed to destroy the hugely successful CART, and the entire sport of IndyCar Racing with it, to the point where it is today. It will be his legacy.