By all accounts, Jeff Belskus, the guy who took over for Tony George as the CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and its various holdings, walked into a mess. Belskus is now setting to work trying to fix a myriad of problems and clean up the damage from some business decisions that did not pay off in the past. He’s not a gearhead, and we can’t believe that we’re going to say this, but that may be a good thing.

Racers and enthusiasts tend to make decisions with thier hearts with respect to auto racing. Those types of decisions, while totally commendable and “right” in the cosmic sense, are often awful for the business. Every now and again, there really needs to be someone in charge who is not going to be afraid to kill the sacred cow, or in Belskus’s case, cows.

Some of the stuff being bandied about? The shortening of the practice and qualifying schedule of the Indy 500 by a week, ending the guaranteed check for teams who run the whole IRL series, and ditching some of the ovals on the IRL circut for street courses in large cities.

The Indiana Business Journal has the whole story and really delves into the mess that Belskus is trying to sort out. There are lots of times to throw rocks at the bean counters, but we’re not too proud to admit that every now and again, they are a necessary evil to save a potentially sinking ship.