Breaking News: the Champcarification of Indycar Continues! Twin Ring Motegi Race Moved to Road Course.
The Indycar race at Twin Ring Motegi is back on. However due to damage to the oval it will be run on the Motorcycle race course. Because that’s just what Indycar needs, more motorcycle road courses. With 10 road/street courses (no good road courses, though) and 7 oval, this is starting to look a lot like Champcar. While I understand there’s a sentiment that we need to “show support” for Japan, I don’t see how an Indycar race is going to have much of an impact there. F1, MotoGP, FIFA Soccer, yes, I see how those would have an impact. But Indycar… no, it doesn’t. All it does is give us another “race” on a motorcycle road course.
Speaking of MotoGP, they’re race is scheduled for October 2nd. But… they still are considering pulling out due to safety concerns. The riders have been especially vocal that they are concerned about radiation levels around Motegi. Let’s do a little math. October 2nd is after September 17th. September 17th is when the Indycar race is scheduled. If there’s concerns over safety in October, surely, a race in September is a bad idea!
I don’t see how an Indycar race there shows “support” for Japan. First off outside of the 500, an Indycar race doesn’t have a huge economic impact on the places it goes to. It’s not like F1 or FIFA who have massive fanbases in Japan. I don’t see how this is going to make anyone’s life better or anything. Whether they run an Indycar race or not is going to do nothing to show people that Japan is back to normal, because unfortunetly, Indycar doesn’t get much worldwide press, or even American press.
How will Motegi race? On the plus side it’s a little longer than the typical Indycar road/street course. On the minus, it’s another Motorcycle road course. Would it kill Indycar to run a real road course? So think Infineon, Barber, or Mid Ohio. It will be processional. The only hope is that double file restarts cause enough wrecks that a few of the underdogs can run up front. Just like Barber, very little passing except on starts and restarts, along with drivers who stay out too long on the soft tires. Add in the fact that the race is held around 2AM, and you end up with a cure for insomnia.
Thing's you won't see at Motegi... oval or road course.
Any alternative would have been better. A second race at Texas, Fontana, Chicagoland, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, anything. If there is an NFL lockout, that is potentially an opportunity for Indycar that should not be wasted by running a race at 2AM. A race at Texas is usually a good race and Eddie Gossange seemed interested in hosting a second race there. A win-win for everyone!
This may clinch the championship for Will Power. 10 road and street courses Vs. 7 ovals? It will take a massive, Indy 500 style meltdown from Penske for Power to not be the champion.
Having 10 road and street courses puts Indycar uncomfortably close to being Champcar, especially when you add in the team owners and drivers trying to run the series. 7 ovals and 10 road and street courses should only be for one season. But the 2012 rumors have multiple street courses being added, no good road courses, and only a few ovals (Phoenix and Chicagoland). Randy Bernard has said he’d keep an 50-50 balance, and I like/trust him a lot. The fact is he’s failing, miserably, to keep said balance. I almost see something like the scene from 300 where the Spartan kicks the Persian into a well. Except this time, it’s a guy in an orange and black fire-suit kicking Bernard and George into a well and yelling “THIS IS CHAMPCAR!!!” If Indycar has to become a road racing series, at least copy the ALMS calendar and go to some good circuits.
Replace the word Sparta with Champcar.
I’m all for helping Japan. The With You Japan program, along side some of the other earthquake relief programs are great. That is how to show support for Japan. All running a race at 2AM does is hurt Indycar. Having only 7 ovals in the 17 race season… that looks like Champcar. Last time I checked… that died twice. I’m all for having a 50-50 split in Indycar. But give us some good road courses and don’t take away our ovals! Some have said a race, even on the road course, is better than no race. All I have to say is if a race is run at 2AM and nobody watches it, did it really happen???
Posted on June 3, 2011, in Indycar and tagged Champcar 2.0, Epic Fail, Indy Failure League, Twin Ring Motegi, Twin Rings of Bordem, Twin Rings of Boredom. Bookmark the permalink. 28 Comments.
Well, the good news is that the Motegi road course most likely won’t be coming back to the schedule ever again, unlike Sears Point.
Sadly there are rumors of Houston, Porto Alegro, Belle Isle, and Quebec
While I support the Houston event for selfish reasons, I really doubt more than 2 of those 4 ever happen, much less next season.
In any event, I don’t at all prefer the Motegi road course to any of the options aside from having no race. But it won’t be back ever, so I’m not struggling too much with it.
Bernard has made a good faith effort to add ovals to the schedule (taking a risk with Milwaukee he would not take with a road/street circuit), and I expect he will continue to strive for balance. But to really have a balanced and successful schedule, Bernard really needs some more oval promoters to step up to plate and match these pie-in-the-sky street course shillers. Here’s hoping.
Can’t use oval, so use road course. It doesn’t really matter, because it’s a one-off to fulfill the commitment to Honda. And also show some support for the earthquake victims. And they’re smart by not going back to Japan, so it’s cool.
As for rumors of future street/road races. I will take Randy Bernard as his word that this series is meant to be 50/50.
(And I assume–hope and pray– that doesn’t mean Indy, four “twin races” at ovals and 9 street/road tracks.)
A race at 2AM is never good
The “support” your’e talking about is probably several things: 1) potential for IndyCar teams/drivers/whoever to do things for earthquake/tsunami victims while they’re over there, including shooting footage to remind the rest of the world that everything didn’t just magically fix itself overnight there, 2) appearing in their region is a statement that “we’re not trying to avoid you” and a declaration to the world that “we’re still here for you”, and 3) a potential source for momentary distraction from cleaning up wreckage for those affected.
I’m not convinced that any of those U.S. oval tracks were ever viable options, given their greatly shrunken timeframes to promote and sell tickets. In that case, the option is literally “go to Motegi, run road course” or “no race”. I’m glad they went with “race”. Bad time slot, near 0.0 TV rating, whatever, I will choose “race” over “no race” just about every time.
Last, you’re missing a fundamental difference between Barber, Sears Point and Mid-Ohio (which aren’t great, but don’t race nearly as badly as you say they do) and Motegi: the layout should actually be really good for passing. Turn 1: tight corner after long straight. Turn 3: tight-ish corner after long straight. Turn 5: tight corner after long straight. Turn 9: tight-ish corner after short straight preceeded by medium speed corner. Turn 10: tight corner after short-ish straight. Turn 11: really tight corner after very long straight with a downhill approach that’ll suck in unwary drivers. Remember Turn 5 at Barber? This track has 4 or 5 Turn 5s.
I know, I know, motorcycle track, blah, blah. You just have to look at these things on a case-by-case basis, not on a blanket “if it wasn’t designed for IndyCars, it’ll be terrible!” basis.
So where’s the race in Joplin? Motegi is long and that’s good, and it has some interesting turns, but it’s incredibly narrow. I really doubt Indycar’s going to put on a great race. Maybe with double file restarts there will be enough carnage to get a race like Barber or Long Beach, where at least a few underdogs get up front.
I agree 100% that Indycar does not need to be in Japan currently. Indycar does need to establish a bigger name back home before they expand too far out. The 2:00am time slot doesn’t help any either.
However, the road course is extremely interesting and makes for great races. It’s not JUST a motorcycle track as you describe. The typical motorcycle track is short, very twisty, and not a wide surface (think Laguna Seca)…this is the exact opposite of this track. the Motegi road course is 3 miles long with 14 turns with an extremely long straight followed by a tight turn, then 3 other great passing zones exist. This track is very fun for GT and sports car racing, along with the motorcycle races that run there as well…Also, Indycar has proven that a “typical” motorcycle track can still put on great openwheel races (Alabama). But, this road course does not even compare in terms of length and width of the track.
I think you are very oval biased and if you want a more oval-heavy series, stick to NASCAR
I’m not oval biased. I love MotoGP and WSBK. But I am baised towards exiting events, and Indycar road/street races tend to be processional. Or wreckfests. Motegi is long but… it’s kind of narrow.
I would think it was a relatively straightforward thought process:
There is a contract to run a race, logistics and sponsors and promotion are all lined up, but now the oval is broken. Option 1: Move to the road course. Impact on all that stuff: basically nil. Plus, profits from concessions, merchandise, personal appearances, etc, can be donated to help out the people in Japan.
Option 2: Run another oval in North America. Impact: There are contracts to get out of (including payment?), another venue to line up, prepare, and promote in a very limited time.
Option 3: Cancel race altogether. Impact: Contracts to get out of, plus rabid Indycar fans are deprived of another championship round to watch (on DVR), analyze, dissect, talk about, and complain about on the internet.
Motegi was never a positive event on the calendar for Indycar or its American fans. It was a necessary evil to get support from Honda. It won’t be missed, but we might as well try to enjoy the race as long as we’re stuck with it.
Option 2 all the way.
By selecting Option 2 of Rick’s options, you have ignored all of the collateral that goes with it (buying out of existing contracts, finding a different venue that is willing to pay the sanction fee with less than 50% of the regular amount of time to promote a race and then sell the tickets that will allow that venue to break even). There is no magic wand that you can wave where one can just ignore standing contracts and there is no magic wand that you can wave where Fontana or Texas or wherever can just find a sponsor who will be happy to front the cash for the race while getting far less than the regular return on investment because of the decreased ticket sales and the decreased time in the public conscience. That’s why we’re going back to Motegi: there is a contract in place to do a race there.
Har de har har on the Joplin comment. Look, you wanted to know what “going to show support” meant. I explained it to you. If you don’t want to embrace what that stuff I said actually means, that’s your choice, I guess. If you don’t want to understand that Motegi’s road course (at 12-15 m wide, aka about 40-45 feet) is no less narrow than Road America (about 30 feet wide, according to the track’s own website) or Road Atlanta (around 40 feet wide, according to a quick Google I just did) or understand that the fundamental track layout could make for a less than terrible race, I guess that’s your choice, too. In that case, go ahead and feel free to throw weekly Motegi-based conniptions.
Eddie sounded pretty interested. And the earthquake, not to mention the oval being broken, likely gave Indycar an out in the contract. Everything I’ve ever seen out of Motegi suggest it won’t be that great. The start/stop nature won’t go well with the lack of power in an Honda under-powered Dallara. I guess we’ll find out in September, assuming we’re still awake. Sorry I’m not super excited about a 7/10 split of ovals and road courses. It just makes me a little uncomfortable. if we didn’t have Bernards promise of 50-50 I’d be completely freaked out, but I sort of trust him, so…
My whole point was that options 2 and 3 come with a lot of difficult baggage that option 1 does not.
Without knowing the terms of the contract, it’s impossible to say what the out options are. But the Motegi Race as an entity in and of itself is a business, one that has protected itself with a legal contract. It won’t allow itself to be cast aside so quickly, especially when a viable work-around option is available. Is it ideal? Maybe not. But it’s the least bad option on the table.
The big difference between Motegi and Joplin is that Indycar has actually raced for several years in Motegi and did have a race scheduled there. Also, one of Indycar’s most important backers is located in Japan. Not Missouri.
So your comment didn’t make much sense.
We could always have gone to Gateway in St. Louis. That would also have been an awful race, but if we want to show support…
Honda also is tired of Motegi, as it’s not been renued for 2012. Because of that I don’t see that sticking with it for this year is that important. It’s not like we need to keep a good relationship with the track moving forward.
Thank you for your comments, Speedgeek. Unfortunately, trying to provide logic and reason to Dylan is like talking to a wall-except the wall has a value to society.
Dylan is a myopic individual, and anything that doesn’t jive with his narrow-minded, bigoted, simplistic, my way is the best, right and ONLY way, point of view is either ignored, dismissed or responded to with lame propagnda. These are the tools of someone who is clearly incapable of being more than he is. I appreciate your willingness to try to talk sense into this cretin, dullard, idiot, moron. But the only thing we can do is what we do now, immobilize him, quarantine him and when he tries to get out and spread his stupidity to the masses, respond and show the world how he “thinks” and how few thinks he has.
Because someone who calls himself the “Smartestguyintheroom” really has room to criticize others, right?
I 100% agree with Thesmartestguyintheroom about Dylan while agreeing with Dylan that it is a lame name. But anybdy who responds to the points made with a Joplin comment is a “myopic individual, and anything that doesn’t jive with his narrow-minded, bigoted, simplistic, my way is the best, right and ONLY way, point of view is either ignored, dismissed or responded to with lame propagnda.”
I thought it was a legitimate question. If we should run one race to show support for Japan, surely we should run one to support people in our own country?
Dylan, you’re missing all kinds of points here. There is no contract in place to run at Gateway (in part, because the track has been closed). If there were, I’m sure that IndyCar would honor it in an effort to show support to the people of Missouri, unless the track has been irreparably damaged. Your devil’s advocate theory that we should run a race at Gateway is ignoring the same thing that I’ve tried to tell you (for whatever reason I do these things over and over again) about three times now: it is really, really hard to put together an event the size and scale of an IndyCar race in the course of 4-5 short months. There isn’t enough time to promote the event. There isn’t enough time to find a title sponsor to defray the cost of the sanction fee, and to boot, if you could find a sponsor, they would only be getting 3-4 months of exposure out of the run up to the race as opposed to the 10-12 months that other title sponsors usually get (meaning that the sponsor gets reduced ROI, so they’ll either pay too little or just not do it in the first place). There is an ocean of difference between “Eddie Gossage is interested in having a second date at Texas” and “we’ve got everything signed and in place! Yeehaa!” It’s possible that Eddie was interested, but couldn’t line up a sonosor, or that Bruton Smith shut him down on the idea because he didn’t want to steal away potential Cup ticket sales. Who knows? All I know is that there’s almost never been a race put together starting in April and May for a September race date. It’s not enough time. Meanwhile, I’m sure that IndyCar has cashed the checks for the trip to Motegi and long since spent that dough (maybe on that snazzy driver intro stage that they got, which I do like). It would be extremely bad form to just say, “well, thanks for the perfectly plausible alternative that you’ve offered us, but no thanks. We’re just going to stay home. Have fun cleaning up your decimated towns.” How’s that look? Do the forum dwellers throw a tantrum about that one?
I’ve got two more things:
1) Dylan, you do a lot of flipping out about rumors. I’ve seen you spaz out a bunch of times about rumored street course races now, and I just don’t understand why. They’re rumors. Trackforum rumors have like less than a 50% hit rate, don’t they? Why get all up in arms, then? Houston, Quebec City, wherever, do the guys you hear throwing those rumors around have any track record of being right? Meanwhile, Randy Bernard, who has held to probably 80-90% of the stuff that he’s hoped to do since taking office, he’s promising a 50/50 balanced schedule, because he sees that diversity as one of the Series’ core calling cards. Sorry, but I’m inclined to believe that guy over some dudes throwing whatever against the wall at Trackforum or wherever, who are most likely just stirring up crap whenever they can.
2) Smartguyintheroom, come on, man. We don’t have to go down that road. Are we not all human beings on the other end of the IP addresses? Easy does it on the epithets, OK?
I guess…. still not excited about having only 7 ovals on the schedule. Or running the Motegi road course.
As for the rumors, I’ll be honest, I haven’t followed the 2012 rumors quite as closely as I followed last year. Really haven’t looked at the Trackforum rumors, because as you said, they aren’t super accurate. I trust Bernard, as I said in an earlier comment. It’s just 7/10… that makes me uncomfortable.
Look out Dylan. Looks like the sad butthurt champcar fans from that awful hate site of theirs have found your blog.
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