
This is what my last article at you-know-where was. Sadly, that post has been deleted, so I’m starting from scratch. This may in fact have been the tipping point, because of the “stream of thought” format at the beginning. Luckily, I doubt I’ll be fired from my own site, at least I hope.
Anyways, overall, I was disappointed with the 2009 Izod Indycar series. Here’s the good points, and then the bad points,
Good: Justin Wilson’s win, Dayle Coyne’s first, Danica top 5, Toronto, Kentucky, Chicagoland races, Good title fight, Izod Indycar sponsorship, Tony George ousted?, Good track mix, Dario’s success, Helio’s acquittal, Helio’s third Indy500, Danica for 2010? De Ferran and Tagliani for 2010 new teams? Will Power’s win, Indycar blogger’s, Rookie blogger’s George from Oilpressure, Me, at the Unnamed Blog and TripleLeaugeRacing, lots of others, who I don’t know if they’re new or not… ,Vs gives good coverage, F2000 Indycar project, good races in Indy Lights, TV coverage for Indylights, Rise of Dayle Coyne on road courses.
Bad: 2 Team Domination, many poor races, teams downsizing, Tony George ousted? Barber and Brazil? for 2010, too many question marks for the future, Tag’s and DeFerran teams potentially not going to happen, Lack of leadership in IRL and IMS, lose of Milwaukee, Injuries of Nelson Philippe, Will Power, Tony Kannan, and Vitor Meria, Fuel Mileage championship decision, Horrific ratings, down ratings at Indy, loss of Rahal Letterman Racing, no wins by Americans, continued fall of Andretti Green Racing, Poor promotions at Toronto, loss of Vs for Direct TV users, Canadian fans had horrible TV coverage, potential loss of Atlantic series, F2000 Indycar project, Dario leading all laps at Infenion, no PT full time.
Expanding on these thoughts…Good points
Justin Wilson won the race at Watkins Glen, and even more impressively, he and Dayle Coyne Racing also was in contention multiple times, including St. Pete and Mid-Ohio, Dayle Coyne racing really became a force on the Road and Street courses.
We also had good racing at Toronto, Kentucky, and Chicagoland. Toronto showed that passing and excitement can happen in Indycar Road and Street racing. Kentucky and Chicagoland both were slightly controversial, but, they also were exciting, and almost broke the Big Two domination. Indycar showed that sometime making mid season changes to the car can help make the racing watch able again.
Despite the Big Two domination, the points battle was exciting. It came down to three drivers, and the winner of the race won the championship, of course, there were some problems, but, this is the good side…
The TV coverage of Vs. was quite a bit better than on ESPN. Vs. seemed to actually care about Indycar, and the product improved. We were introduced to new people on TV, such as Lindy Thackston, Robbie Buhl, and others who were much better than Jack Arutte and Scott Goodyear.
Finally, of the point that needed to be expanded, I really liked the track mix for 2009. Yes, there were a lot of bad races, but, I’d blame the car design for that. Indycar ran a very diverse schedule, in terms of location and track type, and I’d say I prefer the 2009 schedule to the 2010 schedule.
Izod also became the title sponsor. Izod looks like they will be a good partner. There deal’s a fair amount of money, and they look like they’ll put a good amount of activation in. When things are this dark, you’ll take what you can get.
Bad Points:


Big Two domination was awful this year. The only team that won a race besides Penske and Ganassi was the Dayle Coyne Racing team, and they only won one race. This was a major problem, as very few people want to watch four drivers win every race but two…
A problem that may have made Big Two domination worse was the contraction of many of the mid teams. Even Dayle Coyne went down to running one car. Conquest went to a partial schedule, KV dropped a car, Vision dropped a car, Rahal Letterman disappeared except at Indy, and HVM ran on a completely shoestring budget, according to people who know more than me… (AKA Meesh Beer from www.meesh-beer.com) The contraction, due mainly to the economy, hurt the field count, and likely stunted KV’s development, because they only had the sophomore Mario Moraes running full time. There’s not much to be done about this, because of the economy, and the TV ratings, who would want to sponsor a mid tier team….
Speaking of TV, the ratings sucked. Indycar got way to close to the “perfect zero” too many times. Many of the races on Vs. drew what ESPN Classic drew for Montegi last year! ABC struggled too. Indy drew lower ratings than normal, and Milwaukee was as low rated as most Vs. races. This is despite the fact that NHL, Bull Riding, Tour De France, and Cage fighting all pull decent to good ratings. From what I’ve read, Cage fighting averages about a 1.3 ratings points, when Indycar managed something like .4! It’s not even UFC! And, Vs did a pretty big marketing campaign during these events. I know some people, well, mainly one blogger, say that TV ratings don’t matter, a sponsor who sees these races aren’t going to be that likely to drop the 5 million needed to run a truly completive team, unless they feel the Indy 500 has enough viewers.
Speaking of TV, from what I’ve heard, from Canadian blogger’s, at least, watching Indycar on TV wasn’t easy. That’s not good, because there are a lot of loyal Canadian Indycar fans, whatever my old blog’s owner says.
And, of course, PT didn’t have a full time ride!

Al Unser Jr's 1994 Penske Car, note that more American's won during CART's Hayday then this year!
The fact no American’s won a race makes the “split” seem even more ridiculous. In 1995, 4 American drivers won races, winning 8 times combined. The winners were Al Unser Jr., Robby Gordon, Michael Andretti, and Scott Pruett. Compare this to the ZERO Americans winning this year. Wasn’t the split about getting more American’s winning races?!
Tony George “left” the Speedway and IRL. Although, as the stat’s I just showed clearly show his “vision” has failed, the loss of TG, and his money, has hurt the league. It still, despite Izod, feels very unstable, and it feels like there is no real plan for the future. Things look kinda dark right now…
Too many races were boring, and decided by fuel mileage. I know fuel races happen, but, to have Homestead, and the Championship, decided by fuel mileage sucked. I’m not going to say Dario is an unworthy champion, but, I wish it wasn’t done by fuel mileage! Fans do not want to watch that. An occasional fuel race can be exciting, but, not when it’s the rule instead of the exception. Dario led all of the laps at Infenion, and Mid Ohio, and Edmonton were almost the same. The Indy 500 was not exciting at all, and Richmond and Texas were completely worthless. Next year, Richmond is gone, but, Barber is coming, and a lot of people I respect, feel that this track will be a disaster. If you don’t believe me, listen to the www.livefastracing.com pdocast, particularly the “comeback” show, episode 24, and www.mynameisirl.com go look at the April/March archives to see what I mean.

Competes with the Tilke tracks, Sinapore, Valencia, and many generic street courses, and Fontana for worst track in the world
Finally, I have to say, I was bothered by the amount of injuries in Indycar this year. I am bothered that 4 major injuries happened (Tony Kannan and Vitor Meria at Indy, and Nelson Philippe and Will Power at Infenion). Now, I know that injuries happen, and all of these drivers should make a full recovery, but, so far, 4 major injuries are more than F1 or NASCAR have had. Also of note, the injuries happened not at the “down force” tracks, but, at Indy, which makes some sense, and Infenion, which makes a boring race weekend even worse.
Well, that’s the end of this post. I’ll try and do one for F1 soon. Hopefully I won’t get fired this time for this post. I know I haven’t done the driver breakdown’s in a while, I’ll try and get another one out eventually, but, I can’t promise when.