2011: A Year’s Worth of Racing In Review

It’s a cliché but the 2011 racing season featured the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.  The year featured shocking upset wins by Regan Smith, Trevor Bayne, Dan Wheldon, and Ed Carpenter.  At the same time it featured the twin tragedies of Marco Simoncelli and Dan Wheldon’s deaths.  2011 featured the continuation of Dario Franchitti’s Reign of Luck as fortunate race control rulings and random lucky breaks (RE: Beatriz taking Power out on pit road) led to another year of a NASCAR reject winning in Indycar.  NASCAR was more fortunate with Jimmie Johnson’s Reign of Terror being stopped dead in it’s tracks by Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards whose battle went down to the last lap.  Grand Prix Racing (Both in the MotoGP and F1 sense) was fairly dull.  Carlos Checa led his Ducati to the WSBK title despite Ducati’s factory pullout.  AMA Pro racing saw some stability return while Grand Am continued to be Grand Am (as in irrelevant to 99% of fans).ALMS/WEC/ILMC/24 Hours of Le Mans featured continued Audi/Peugeot domination.

Indycar and NASCAR both featured surprise winners.  NASCAR kicked off the season with Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500.  Bayne’s win brought the Wood Brothers back into victory lane.  Latter Regan Smith won Darlington with Furniture Row racing. Smith’s win was especially impressive as he had to hold off Carl Edwards on old tires at Darlington. Marcos Ambrose finally won his road race.  Last and least Paul Menard won the Brickyard 400 on fuel.  Indycar featured two islands of unpredictability in a sea of Red cars and Andretti domination.  The entire Month of May was a feast for fans of the underdogs.  Sam Schmitt Motorsports (and its partner teams that were not Dragon) broke into the Fast 9 qualifying along with Sarah Fisher Racing’s Ed Carpenter.  Tagliani won the pole.  During the race it appeared JR Hildebrand was about to win the 500 until he crashed.  Dan Wheldon managed to clear the wreck and reach the finish line winning for Bryan Herta.  It should be remembered that Sebastian Saadevra left Herta last year for Conquest because Herta didn’t give him enough of a chance to win races.  Fast forward to Kentucky where Ed Carpenter beat Dario Franchitti to get his first career win.  Kentucky has been good to Carpenter and its loss next year will be felt by fans who want to see underdog wins and non processional racing.

NASCAR was generally unpredictable.  Besides the aforementioned underdog wins we also saw the rise of a new star with Brad Keselowski winning 3 races and proving himself as a worthy successor to the Penske #2.  This is even more significant since he’s going to have to help lead the team with Kurt Busch’s departure. Keselowski also had to pay a secret fine to the NASCAR Police State because he dared to say EFI was not relevant, green, and amazing technology.  At least he wasn’t a Busch brother. They had a rough year with extra helpings of controversy.  In the end they’re the most hated drivers in NASCAR.  This is great as long as it doesn’t cost them their rides.  NASCAR would be much poorer for their loss.

Going into 2011 Jimmie Johnson had won 5 Chase’s in a row.  Thankfully he was stopped this year by a team of drivers including Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth.  All of whom deserve credit for helping to end the reign of terror.  Stewart and Edwards took the title fight all the way to Homestead.  In the end Tony Stewart passed over half the field on his way to winning the race.  Carl Edwards finished 2^nd and in fact tied Stewart in the points.  Stewart won on a tiebreaker as he had 5 wins versus Edward’s 1.

In contrast to that the two Grand Prix series (F1 and MotoGP) were fairly dull.  MotoGP featured Casey Stoner Domination while Ducati struggled and Pedrossa, Lorenzo, and Spies injured themselves.  A few good races did appear including Valencia and Mugello to break up the monotony.  Although it wasn’t a good race Ben Spies dominated Assen to get his first career win.  F1 could be summed up with one statistic: 2011 featured a record low of drivers to finish on the podium (7).  The 2011 season saw the return of KERS and the addition of DRS but they failed to improve the racing.  Instead we saw the Red Bull parade become even more processional as Webber rarely challenged Vettel (likely by design).  Fans of “technical” racing, “pure” racing, or boring racing enjoyed it and that’s great for them.  For anyone else 2011 Formula One was hard to watch.

The American Le Mans Series fell off a cliff with no prototypes and no TV.  It was a pretty sad drop off after a fairly interesting 2010 season. While there are some defenders of the ESPN3 deal including ALMS’s CEO, and Triple League Racing co-writer Ross; for many more casual viewers (myself included) the combination of no TV and no prototypes spelled the end for our interest in the ALMS.  With the ALMS no longer on SpeedTV the coverage on SpeedTV.com thankfully continued. However they were more focused on the Grand Sham then ALMS.  The World Endurance Championship continues to hurt them.  Worse the Petit Le Mans is not even on the calendar!  Which means Petit will most likely not see Audi, Toyota, Aston Martin, or Peugeot show up.

WSBK continued to produce exciting racing and featured the resurgence of Ducati despite the official pullout of the factory Ducati team.  Carlos Checa was the only Ducati to win a race.  He also won the most races this year and the title.  Max Biaggi’s destructive personality returned and hurt his title chances.  A late season injury ended it.  Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty were winners with Yamaha.  Sadly the announcement that Yamaha would pull out at the end of this year put a damper on that.  Kawasaki also got a win in the rain!  BMW continues to attempt to win a race and have announced Melandri as a replacement for Troy Corser.  Over in America Josh Hayes won the title against Blake Young.  Young won more races however.  For Hayes 2011 was slightly disappointing as his goal after winning last year was to win the most races and dominate in a Mladin esque fashion.  There is always next year.

In some surprising news Lotus Cars continued to exist throughout the year.  They bought into Renault F1 and expanded that partnership heading into 2012.  The Lotus engine program in Indycar continued.  They signed a few teams and are expected to sign more next year.  While an engine has been built they have not been put into a car and will not be seen on track until January.  Lotus also has some GT car programs and a strange track day F1 style car for track days (if you have multiple millions of dollars).  They made it through this year but will they be here next year?

Austin GP continued in turmoil.  Austin has bounced on and off the schedule while constriction continues to start and stop.  The announcement of the New Jersey Grand Prix for 2013 was another cause for concern.  On the plus side Austin announced a slate of races including a Australian Touring Car race in 2012 and the third US MotoGP in 2013.  Will Austin in the end happen?  We still don’t know.  At least they got the date moved back until November 2012 so that they have more time.  It also means the fans that go to the track won’t get backed by the summer heat in Texas.

Sponsorship struggles plagued all series.  The pullout of Suzuki from MotoGP, Yamaha from WSBK, and the continued withdraw of Renault in F1 (they continue to build engines but sold the team to Lotus) were the most obvious.  NASCAR also saw major sponsorship issues despite strong TV ratings and good attendance.  Their problems appear to be threefold.  NASCAR sponsorships that were made (or renewed) in the 05-07 timeframe were sold at a high priced based on the idea of NASCAR’s continued growth. Since NASCAR has shrunk in the last few years and only started to right the ship this year that cannot be helpful in getting new deals worked out.  NASCAR struggles demographically with younger fans, minority fans, and fans outside the Mid West/South East/Pennsylvania regions and that limits many sponsors (RE: Red Bull).  Finally some of the cannibalization of sponsors as well as smaller deals and Official Sponsorship Of NASCAR may have devalued the market. The combination of these issues has led to contraction at Roush and Childress as well as the complete pullout of Red Bull Racing.  It’s also prevented expansion of teams like Waltrip, Gibbs, and Stewart/Haas.

MotoGP’s struggles were just as worrying.  There were only 17 bikes this year.  Teams high and low cannot sign sponsorship deals.  The Yamaha team went the entire year without a title sponsor and late breaking news is that Petronas left them.  The shocking thing is MotoGP is the 2^nd most watched form of racing (behind F1) yet cannot get sponsorship deals as good as what NASCAR and even Indycar teams manage to sign.  A major push to sign sponsors is a must for next year or else they could be back to just 17 bikes before too long.  CRT’s will help bike count some but without funding they will be horribly uncompetitive. WSBK has many of the same issues although they have a few more sponsors and factories.  It’s not even worth talking about AMA.

Indycar is doing well with sponsorship considering they get .3 ratings.  Still when Newman Haas cannot get sponsorship things are not good.  There are still too many ride buyers and too few real, activating, sponsors.  Track title sponsorship is an especially troubling issue and one of the reasons for the horrific 2012 schedule.  On the other side of open wheel F1 continues to do okay although more and more ride buyers are creeping in.  ALMS is not doing very well.  Without TV what do you expect?  Factory support remains in GT2 and that is vital for them.  Most sponsors in ALMS right now are brought by the driver or the team owner’s business (RE: Muscle Milk).

The leadership in racing continued to make questionable decisions.  Bernie Eccolstone and the FIA’s love of Middle Eastern dictators backfired with the protests in Bahrain.  Despite this they are obsessed with racing in that nation and have scheduled a return in 2012 and nearly went through with a race in 2011.  Randy Bernard opened 2011 with big promises and big idea’s only to end it with the worst schedule in years and a growing number of problems. Brian France continued to say what he wanted to be true rather than what was true.  Dorna’s CEO (owners of MotoGP) recognized what was wrong in GP (only 2 winning teams, 17 bikes).  The problem is his war on the factory teams could make things much worse.  If the factory Ducati, Honda, and Yamaha teams pull out who will pay for the USGP’s and SpeedTV deal?

Sadly a wrap up of 2011 is not complete without discussing the tragedy that struck towards the end of the year.  Dan Wheldon’s death at Vegas shocked the racing community both in America and worldwide.  In the wake of this tragedy Graham Rahal organized the Dan Wheldon Charity Auction for Wheldon’s kid’s and wife.  The amount of participation among drivers worldwide was impressive.  It brought together people from F1, NASCAR, Indycar, and even a few MotoGP riders put stuff into the auction.  The tragedy created some controversy with many people wanting to find someone or something to blame.  Car count, “inexperienced drivers,” ovals, or the Vegas 5 Million Dollar Challenge were popular scapegoats.  In reality his death was due to, as the Vegas accident report said, a “perfect storm” of events.  Still it motivated a group of oval haters that are a combination of F1 and Champcar fans, drivers, and journalists.  Just a week after Wheldon’s death at Vegas another tragedy struck the MotoGP in Malaysia.  Marco Simoncelli was killed after crashing his bike and being hit by oncoming traffic.  Coming so close after Wheldon’s death was especially shocking.  The MotoGP community held a massive celebration of Simoncelli’s life at Valencia which included a “moment of noise” from the Moto2 bikes as a fitting tribute to the “Mad Fro Man.”  In the MotoGP community there was a lot less effort to look for someone to blame and more acceptance of the “perfect storm” view.

As long as there’s not a second economic collapse 2012 is looking like a better year for racing.  Assuming NASCAR is able to figure out the sponsorship crisis 2012 should build on 2011 and prepare for the “new” new car in 2013 that will hopefully produce better racing on the 1.5 mile ovals.  F1 is still boring but maybe revised rules will help?  WSBK should continue along as it is and be some of the best racing in the world.  However MotoGP, Indycar, and ALMS are in a lot more peril.  GP will live and die by what goes on with the CRT’s and factory teams.  Should the factories pull out then who will pay for races and television?  If the CRT’s are awful will anyone want to sponsor them in 2013?  Indycar has a horrific 2012 schedule that has only 15 confirmed races (one of which may disappear).  Indycar will not have a star driver in 2012 with Danica’s move to NASCAR.  What driver does Indycar have that will attract casual fans?  I’m pretty sure 99% of American’s could care less about Dixon or Dario.  The 2012 car is not turning out as expected either.  Hope seems to rest on the potential for Ford or Fiat/Ferrari/Alfa Romeo entering in 2013.  As for ALMS much will depend on who really shows up next year.  Does Robertson’s Ford GT and Risi’s Ferrari return?  Will Newman Haas and Level 5 show up in LMP2?  And will there be more than 3 LMP1 cars?

Positive Thoughts for the 2012 Indycar Season

I get criticized for being to negative on Indycar.  In my personal opinion this negativity is warranted.  Especially considering the struggles of the 2012 car and the 2012 schedule.  However to answer all the critics I’ll write out what I’m looking forward to next season.

First and foremost Brian Barnhardt is gone.  That should improve things;  at the very least they cannot get much worse.

Car count looks good as long as more Newman Haas/De Ferran Dragon incidents don’t happen.  The return of Rahal/Letterman seems like a good thing even if they do end up employing an F1 reject.  Overall it looks like a fair number of good and marketable drivers should have full time rides including Ed Carpenter, Joseph Newgarden, (hopefully at AA in the 7) James Hinchcliffe, JR Hildebrand, Tony Kanaan, Katherine Legge (?), Tony Kanaan, Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball.  Bourdais and Tracy also may have rides.

The road and street race focus should help non-Dario drivers like Will Power win the title.  That’s a positive.  It’s never good when a NASCAR reject wins a string of titles in a row.  Better yet a rough 2012 season would likely push Dario into retirement.

Surely the 2012 Car can't ruin Iowa... right?

If the new car is doesn’t suck on ovals (big if) then the four ovals should be good.  Iowa has been awesome the last few years and Texas usually puts on good races.  Fontana doesn’t produce good NASCAR races but it was always one of the better open wheel tracks.  Again, pending the fact the 2012 car has struggled on ovals; these should be islands of excitement in a sea of parades .  The Indianapolis 500 is a wildcard.  As great as the finish of the 2011 500 was the actual on track racing has been lacking since Hornish and Marco battled for the 2006 Indy 500.  After that’s it’s been a mix of fuel and rain.  I guess there must be some hope that next year it will get better right?  With less ovals the development focus from the main teams will generally be focused on other things so potentially a team like Fisher or Carpenter or Panther could focus on the 4 ovals and do very well.

The new car doesn’t appear to be as good on the road and street courses as expected.  However maybe a miracle will occur and it will at least be better than the current car and able to produce some good racing.  There’s no point in hoping for improvement at Mid Ohio or Barber.  Infineon is supposedly going to try and fix that track so since this is a “positive” article I guess we can hope it actually accomplishes something.  Maybe the tracks at Edmonton and Baltimore will continue to improve and we’ll see better things there.  St. Pete and Sao Paolo should be improved by the new car as well.

Can we hope for a Brawn GP type situation in 2012?

When Champcar went to the DP01 it helped shake things up.  When F1′s technical regulations changed in 2009 Brawn GP and Red Bull became race winners and championship contenders.  When MotoGP switched to the 800cc bikes Ducati came to the forefront.  With a new car there’s the potential that this type of thing could happen in Indycar and the Red Cars may finally be taken down.  Conversely, we could be faced with the possibility that only one engine is any good and that the races become even more predictable than ever before; BUT, this is a POSITIVE article so I guess we won’t talk about that this time.  KV should be strong next year and perhaps with a new car Andretti Autosport will start to regain traction.  Panther also seems to be included in the Chevy testing and may produce some good results.  Ed Carpenter seems to be building something strong as is Sarah Fisher (too bad there aren’t more ovals).

The Hopes and Dreams of 2012 rest on this car

That’s my “positive” take on Indycar and what we have to look forward too. It’s kind of a short piece….  I’d like to make one last point.  A lot of this relies on hope, faith, and luck (parity, 2012 car producing good races, Infineon improving).  Should things break the other way… again, this is a “positive” article but let’s just say it could be rough.

Waiting On Indycar

I sit at work staring aimlessly at a monitor, waiting for 5:30 to come so I can leave and start Holiday Shananigans. I’m thinking about the 2011 season in motorsports and how it was some what unpredictable. From Graham Rahal and Bobby Rahal joining the Gurney’s and Donohue’s as father-son 24 hours of Daytona winners. To Tony Stewart book-ending Jimmie Johnson’s 5 in row.

Anybody who has followed my blogs this year know that I love racing and try to tie it in whenever I can. I want to thank Dylan for his support and for allowing me to join Triple League Racing. It’s been an absolute blast to be able to write the senseless musings that dance around my brain everyday. I also want to thank those I have met through twitter like, Eric Hall (@erock_in_indy), Tony Johns (@sbpopoffvalve), Bill Zahren (@pressdog), Kent Mueller (@muelken), James (@indycar_rebirth) and the others that have helped me along the way. It’s been a great year, although some parts I surely wish never to go through again. I hope 2012 is a banner year for racing. great things are on the horizon.

The other night while at Beef O’Brady’s (shameless sponsor plug), a thought crossed my mind about why Oval tracks have started to disappear from the Indycar schedule. Sure I could become disgruntled, but why? The tracks won’t come back any sooner. So I’ll just write on the internet, ya that’ll show Indycar! I posed a question on twitter if the events at Vegas were a catalyst or a last straw for some of the oval track owners. Dylan brought up the point that Talladega didn’t stop racing after Edwards went into the fence and injured fans. In the same boat, Nascar runs Talladega and it’s one of thier bread and butter tracks. So, cancelling that race is a no go. But, for a series that has no ties to the Nascar sanctioning body or to Bruton Smith’s SMI, saying no to a high risk series (in thier minds) is probable.

My thinking is, stick with me on this, obviously what happened was a freak accident. Could tracks beleave that they weren’t safe enough for Indycar? I think it played a part.

I for one don’t know the inner workings of Indycar track negotiations, as much as say Tony Johns or Bill Zahren. Although I do wonder. The factors I do see though is a track that holds 100,000 has less than 40,000 (I’m sure the number is far less) attending doesn’t look good on TV, and for sure is not a money maker. I’ve seen editorials where the tracks did horrible jobs of promoting the races. If so, why hasn’t Indycar started thier own promotions company? This idea maybe far fetched but what if the uncertainty of the DW12 played a factor? I would like to see ovals comeback but I think it has to be the right ones. Michigan International would be great. Pocono, Pheonix, and for sure Kentucky need to comeback.

As far as the series going to China and Brazil, I like the idea. China right now is a hotbed for the auto industry. GM’s Buick division is huge over there, and Audi just started a R8 LMS Series. Indycar going to China may kick start more manufacture involvment. One interesting thing that I would like to see is Oreca coming to Indycar. They are developing the Toyota LMP-1 car maybe just maybe Toyota may come back to Indy. It’s a stretch but maybe.

Maybe what we are seeing in front of us is an actual resurgence of indycar? Aslong as a non-Honda engine steps up and performs 2012 won’t be as bad. I will say though, now Penske and Ganassi can have even more of a rivalry, with Penske being Chevy and Ganassi with Honda.

Sigh, now we must wait till St. Pete.

Indycar 2012 Schedule Revealed! Bring On the Parades; Or the Birth of GP 2.5

Today Indycar’s 2012 schedule was released.  Today Champcar was reborn.  Today GP 2.5 was formed.  The 2012 schedule does not reflect the “progress”, “growth”, or “momentum” Indycar supposedly had.  Last time I checked 15 (16 with the TBA) races is less than 17.  I believe that is called regression.  It’s definitely not progress.  Considering the struggles of road racing series in the United States it’s hard to understand the desire to turn Indycar into Champcar again; as CART went bankrupt and Champcar died.  Trans Am died.  Can Am died.  The ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, and Grand AM aren’t pictures of health either.  So turning Indycar into a road and street racing series is destined to be a massive success, right?  Especially because Indycar road and street races are awful.  There is almost no passing.  Yes Indycar has a new car but it doesn’t appear to have the speed/torque that was hoped for.  Even if the new car is awesome it doesn’t matter when the tracks suck.  Some of these tracks are so narrow even motorcycle’s struggle to pass on them!   I predict a lot of parades next year out of the Izod Indycar series, or as I may now refer to it, GP 2.5.

Things We Won't See In Indycar Anymore

This is fucking pathetic.  I was concerned when the Motegi switch from oval to road course happened.  I said it set up a concerning precedent and showed Indycar moving farther and farther away from the promised 50-50 split.  I got a lot of critisism for those comments but guess what?  It looks like I was right to voice those concerns.  In fact the 2012 schedule is much worse than I could ever have imagined before this fall.  I am not a person who is known for being too positive but I did have some faith in Bernard holding to his 50-50 commitment.  Worst case scenario we’d have 6 or 7 ovals.  Surely Indycar couldn’t fuck that up.  They’ve been with Kentucky for ages; Loudon has begged for a race for years.  Sadly I underestimated the potential for failure.

Even more laughable is the lack of races.  Remember when Indycar was saying they had a ton of tracks interested and how everyone thought they were overflowing with options?  That is long in the past.  I believe it keeps coming back to the sanctioning fee.  Indycar asks for a higher sanctioning fee than other non NASCAR forms of American racing.  Indycar doesn’t deliver high enough TV ratings or attendance to justify the cost compared to other series.  NASCAR Nationwide and Trucks, Grand Am, ALMS, ARCA, and AMA Pro Racing are able to make decent schedules but Indycar is not.  That suggest some issues with return on investment from Indycar and it’s tracks.  Indycar want’s to turn a profit and that’s understandable but if they destroy the series while trying to do that in the end they’re going to die off anyways.  The track rental at Vegas did not help.  Vegas got a significantly better deal than the other ovals and it appears to have caused a lot of friction with the tracks at Kentucky, Texas, and Loudon.  To me it seems like without the track rental issue Kentucky and Loudon likely would have stayed on board with Indycar.

Izod needs 16 races: Indycar only has 15

Besides it looks like chasing the sanctioning fee may backfire.   Indycar needs 16 races to fulfill their contract with Izod.  Considering the IRL was able to put 17 races together in 07 and Indycar had continued to do so from 08-2011; it’s very likely no one worried about that.  Unfortunetly the disaster that is the 2012 schedule has only 15 races confirmed.  That means tracks can play hardball with the sanctioning fee because Indycar needs them more than they need Indycar.  We don’t know what the deal with Texas was but there’s a reason why it took until now to finalize that race.  While other tracks may not have quite as much power as Texas (the 4th oval) had they still could play rough and probably save some money.  What type of deal will Indycar have to make to get the hypothetical 16th race?  Also what is Izod going to do if Indycar doesn’t make it to 16 races?  It doesn’t seem likely they’d pull out but it’s possible.  More likely they’d ask for a cheaper deal with Indycar.  So in fact the brilliant plan of chasing sanctioning fees may have backfired and end up costing the series more money.  Talk about Indy Failure League.

There’s 15 races on the calendar right now includes Baltimore.  However, there are problems with Baltimore.  Baltimore’s Grand Prix is in massive debt and the issues still have not been resolved.  Should this fall through there will only be 14 races on the schedule.  That would be incredibly bad for Indycar.

Street races; here one minute, gone forever the next

The issues with Baltimore highlight’s one of the major problems with street races.  They aren’t stable and they aren’t cheap.  Even with supposedly great attendance they are not necessarily profitable.   Just like every race they rely on sponsorship for profitability.  However, they also add tax payer money in to try and make it work .  Obviously that’s not super stable.  With all the political things going on with government spending that’s not going to be popular with a lot of people.   Look at all the issues Champcar had in the end with their street races.  Look at the issues Baltimore is having.  Remember if Hurricane Irene had been stronger or hit a week or two latter the Baltimore Grand Prix may not have even got off the ground the first time.  If Indycar builds a series around street races expect Indy Failure League moments every five days.

On attendance it’s worth remembering that the numbers given out by tracks are promoters numbers.  They aren’t a solid count of actual attendance.  At the ovals a journalist can count seats and tell whether they are accurate or not.  At Barber or Baltimore that isn’t as easy and no one knows the actual attendance numbers.  Especially because those tracks will often release 3 day attendance numbers.  Street races will always have an advantage in terms of attendance because they’re in the middle of a city (or on the side of a city, a lot of times).   But does it create a product that fans want to watch on TV?  Remember TV numbers are what matters.  They are what sponsorship is sold on.  Street races may be a lot of fun to go to in person but they are not a lot of fun to watch on TV.

Spread out single file parades: 2012 will feature many of them

Which segways into the next topic.  How horribly boring most Indycar road and street races are.  There’s almost no passing on these tracks.  A new car may help some.  However the 2012 car is not currently producing the speed and torque that was hoped to produce better racing.  Worse, the 2012 tracks are way too narrow and hard to pass on.  Infineon, Mid Ohio, and Barber are motorcycle/club tracks and are either too narrow (Mid Ohio) or simply lack passing zones (Infineon, Barber).  Even if the 2012 car is great (which is unlikely) it’s hard to see how it’ll be able to do much at those tracks.  The street courses tend to be processional because they lack passing zones, are too narrow, and lack run off area’s.  They are just unwatchably boring “races.”  In fact they’re not races.  The Indycar road and street races are parades.

I don’t see how Indycar develops a loyal, large, fanbase around a product that is just not very exciting.  It may be “profitable” for Indycar in the short term.  But long term a racing series makes money by having a large number of fans.  I don’t see how a parade based series grows into something competitive in terms of TV ratings with other sports and other racing series.  I enjoy good road racing.   I could live with a more road racing based series if it was a road race series based on decent race tracks and good racing.  If Indycar ran Road America, Road Atlanta (controversial), Sebring (also controversial), Miller Motorsports Park, Watkins Glen, and Cleveland as the core of the road racing I’d be happier.  Even with a couple crappy tracks like Mid Ohio and Long Beach thrown in it would still create the potential for exciting racing.  Looking at the 2012 schedule with Long Beach, Infineon, Barber, Mid Ohio, Toronto, Edmonton, China, and Baltimore forming the core of the road/street racing schedule that doesn’t suggest the potential for great racing.

Do we really need to try it all over again?

It’s worth repeating; Champcar died and CART went bankrupt.  I fail to see how recreating that is going to get us a different result.  Furthermore American’s have NEVER embraced a road and street racing series long term.  Trans Am is dead, Can Am is dead, Grand Am is Grand Am, AMA Pro Racing is half dead ALMS is withering, and CART/Champcar died.  On top of that F1, MotoGP, and WSBK are niche sports in the US.  Does Indycar really believe it can succeed where those other series have failed?

Taking out the fact that American’s haven’t embraced road racing there’s another problem.  There are a fair number of American road and street racing series already in existence.  ALMS, Grand Sham, and AMA Pro racing as well as F1, MotoGP, and World Superbike, all of which (F1 pending Jersey and Austin)  run in the US and have some sort of TV deal (except for ALMS) in the US.  A road/street based Indycar series is going to have to compete with all of those series.  I seriously doubt it’s going to win that fight.  Add on the potential DTM series and the potential for 2 US GP’s from F1 and 3 US GP’s from MotoGP and it’s a crowded road racing market.  Then factor in the limited market for road and street racing in the US.  So how does Indycar plan to make that work?

What good road racing looks like

Also there are many road racing series in the world, but very few street racing series.  Sports cars, F1, and touring cars run street races, but they don’t base their entire series on parades.   There are probably reasons for this.  The fact they are horrifically unstable and boring, most likely.  So I’ll say it again; how does Indycar plan on doing what no one else has?

A couple other points.  How was it that the dying Champcar series was able to run Road America  and Cleveland but Indycar cannot?  Especially Cleveland.  How was it financially okay to run with Champcar but no longer with Indycar?  How could the IRL in 07 and 08, even in 09 and 2010, manage to run a decent number of ovals but not now?  It seems to come back to sanctioning fee.  That’s feels like Indycar’s #1 mistake.  They over-valued their product compared to what people would pay for it.

Victims of Champcarification.

Another reason why I hate the idea of turning Indycar into a street racing series is look at who it hurts.  It hurts good teams like Panther, Foyt, Fisher and Carpenter.  It hurts good, marketable drivers like Ed Carpenter, Danica Patrick, Buddy Rice, Tomas Sheckter, Pippa Mann, Bryan Clauson, Wade Cunningham and more.  All it helps are failed F1 drivers who want to buy a ride here and are scared of the ovals.  Most American drivers drive ovals.  So turning Indycar into a road/street racing series is only going to lower the number of American drivers.  Considering you need American’s to market a series in America that’s a problem.  I think it’s worth remembering the victims of “Champcarification.”  Especially Ed Carpenter who’s a great oval driver who’s helping to start a new team and bring in a new sponsors. He’s getting the short end of the stick next year.  I was not a fan of Danica jumping over to NASCAR.  After looking at the 2012 schedule I can’t blame her for making the jump anymore.  I’d take Nationwide over Champcar in a heartbeat too.

The final point is I no longer trust Randy Bernard.  That’s not to say I don’t like him.  That doesn’t even mean I’ve given up hope completely for him to turn Indycar around.  But I don’t trust a word he says any more than I trust Bernie Eccolstone or Brian France.  Bernard has promised us many things:  50-50 oval/road courses, aero kits in 2012, 5 drivers running for 5 million dollars in Vegas, and not fining drivers for what they say on twitter.  Guess what?  Bernard went back on every one of those things.  So basically I feel about him how I feel about the Austin Grand Prix; I’ll believe what he says when I see it actually happen.

What’s really sad is Indycar is regressing.  Instead of improving from 2008 (Unification) it’s getting worse.  The schedule is shorter, has less ovals, comes latter in the year, and has more issues than before.  The two good tracks from Champcar are no longer part of the schedule.  Some of the IRL’s best tracks are gone as well.  That’s not progress.  All the supposed positive momentum Indycar had amounted to a schedule that is worse than ever before.  That’s concerning.  I’m also really disappointed that the increased manufacturer participation hasn’t led to more track title sponsorship at good race tracks.  I really thought Chevy would push for MIS where they have a close relationship due to the NASCAR races.  Manufacturer title sponsorships could make financially questionable races like Loudon, Milwaukee, Kentucky and Chicagoland winners for the track owners.  Unfortunetly we’re seeing none of that.  There are some auto maker sponsored races but they’re the worst ones (Edmoton, Barber, Mid Ohio, China? Belle Isle?) on the schedule.  So much for that ray of hope.

Can Ford Save Us?

Will it get better in 2013?  I don’t know.  I can’t say I hold a lot of hope.  I understand that there’s potential for improvement and that may happen if Indycar get’s more realistic about it’s sanctioning fee.  But so far hope and faith hasn’t produced a lot of good for Indycar fans.  Until we see a good schedule out I’m not going to hold my breath for improvement in 2013.   There are a couple other potential things that could save Indycar.  So far manufacturer support hasn’t done a lot for tracks.  But 2012 is the first year for Lotus and Chevy.  If Lotus continues and if Chevy is happy with how things are going they might get more helpful in 2013.  The potential of Fiat/Ferrari and Ford joining Indycar also could bring some good things for the tracks.  With Ford and Chevy together surely MIS would come back, right?  The other thing that could change Indycar’s trajectory could also destroy it.  What would happen if the Hulman family sold Indycar? Would Tony George and a group of investors save it?  Would TG do a better job the 2nd time around?  He would most likely give us more than 4 ovals.  Or would someone else buy it?  Indycar being sold could be a major negative or a major improvement.  But that would be one potential way for Indycar’s schedule to change, for better or for worse.  The last potential area of hope is the NBC Sports re-branding.  If Versus becomes more of a destination TV channel maybe Indycar ratings will rise some even if the product is awful.  If that’s the case then potentially sponsors would be more interested in tracks for 2013.

There’s also a TBA on the 2012 schedule.  According to Robin Miller the TBA could either be Ft. Lauderdale or a Vegas street race.  Because that’s exactly what Indycar needs, another parade… These TBA races are getting ridiculous.  It’s not just this year it’s the 2010 and 2011 schedule as well which had their own TBA issues.  Terry Angstadt is gone but sadly the Angstadt unit of time lives on…

I miss Chicagoland a lot

I get a lot of criticism for being too negative.  I’d like to ask what is there to be positive about in Indycar?  The 2012 car is not living up to excitation and the 2012 schedule is going to bore us to death.  Car count looks good and that’s about it in terms of things to be excited about for 2012.  Oh, and car count is good right now, but there’s always potential for a De Ferran Dragon/Newman Haas situation and teams closing down last minute.   Honestly I wasn’t negative enough about the schedule.  Until this fall my “worst case” scenario would have been a 17 race schedule with about 10 road/street courses, no good road street courses, and 7 ovals.  Not good but it would at least have some fun races.   As I have said before for me Chicagoland and Kentucky were two tracks a fan could rely on to produce good racing.  No matter how awful the season was going (2009) and no matter how boring the summer stretch of races (Edmonton, Mid Ohio, Infineon) had been at least we had those two tracks to rely on for good racing.  We lost Chicagoland last year and Kentucky this year.  There’s another ray of light snuffed out.

What do we have to look forward too next year?  We still have four ovals (Indy, Texas, Iowa, Fontana).  The problem is that the 2012 car at the moment sucks on ovals.  If that isn’t fixed we could be in for COT style parades on the ovals too.  Isn’t that a wonderful thought?  On the road/street side I suppose Sao Paolo (if it’s not rained out) and Edmonton might produce okay racing.   Edmonton’s track layout had potential so with a new car it could be better.  That’s about it.   The 2012 schedule is very likely to bore fans to sleep.  On the plus side perhaps that will help get energy drink sponsors as their products can be used to keep people up through the parades.

This is how I feel about the 2012 Indycar Schedule

It’s pretty sad when the 2007 IRL schedule looks good compared to what we’re getting now.  In my opinion there’s really nothing positive to say.  The new schedule might be “financially good” for Indycar (If Izod doesn’t pull out or give them less money) but it’s not good for the fans.  And in the end a racing series without fans is fucked.  You need fans to make money too.  It would be nice if Indycar would put the fans a little higher on the priority list.  Until they put fans higher on the list I don’t see fans putting Indycar that high on their priority lists either.  Without fans a racing series is a club racing series.  I was under the impression Indycar aspired to more than that but apparently not.  I guess it’s a good day to for Champcar fans, oval haters, drunks who enjoy street parties, and F1 fans.  The losers at Crapwagon.com have no reason not to watch Indycar anymore as it literally has become Champcar!   I’m happy that you guys will enjoy this new shit fest (until it dies like Champcar), but I wish it didn’t have to come at the expense of everyone else’s fucking fun.  Indycar has died and been replaced by Champcar, or as I like to refer to it GP 2.5.  I’d love to leave on a positive note but sadly I can’t think of one.  I guess for bored Indycar fans next year try and check out WSBK, MotoGP, ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, NASCAR, World of Outlaws, USAC, local short tracks, and AMA Pro Flat Track to see some exciting racing and make up for the lack of it in American open wheel.  That’s about all I have for you.

The Best Races of the Year

The 2011 racing season saw a mixed bag of racing.  Formula One was Formula One.  If you enjoy watching one car win a majority of the races than you enjoyed it.  If not then it was incredibly boring.  MotoGP disappointed greatly.  The 800cc bike were never the best and never produced great racing.  However, 2011 saw them drop to a new low.  HRC’s bike was dominate and at the same time Ducati walked off a cliff.  Add onto that the injuries Pedrossa, Spies, and Lorenzo suffered and fans got treated to a fairly predictable and processional season.  Although at least there were a few good moments in GP.  The Indycar road and street raceTV and no prototypes.  AMA Pro Racing produced good racing but wasn’t televised until 2am. If you wanted to see consistently good racing in 2011 then the two places to look were the World Superbike Series and Izod Indycar Oval races.s continued to be processional.  There was a race where the top 5 in qualifying were the same drivers who finished in the exact same order at the race.  NASCAR saw an unpredictable season with some good races.  Sadly they still had way too many fuel mileage contests and overall the COT still doesn’t produce good racing on the larger tracks.  The American Le Mans Series had no TV and no Prototypes.  All was not dark and gloomy in 2011 however;  one just had to look in the right places.  By “right places” I mean in the World Superbike and Indycar Oval races.

In most ways the World Superbikes and Indycar Ovals are polar opposites.  One is an American racing series; the other is an international series.  One is a spec series; the other one of the most diverse racing series in the world.  Indycar runs flat out on most of the ovals; WSBK features lot’s of breaking and accelerating.  World Superbike is one of the “purest” forms of racing; Indycar ovals are often ridiculed as being “fake.”

Not A parade

Despite these differences these two completely separate forms of racing have one thing in common.  Consistently good and consistently close racing.  From Iowa to Monza, from Assen to Indy, from Kentucky to Imola; if someone tuned into a World Superbike or Indycar oval race chances were that they were treated to an exciting and entertaining race.  Wheel to wheel races and last lap passes were regular features of these races.

What makes these series so competitive?  In WSBK it’s the variety of engines and chassis.  Ducati, Aprillia, BMW, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Honda all enter with a distinct bike and engine combinations.  The Aprillia RSV4, for instance, is based off a Superbike that was designed based off a MotoGP bike.  The different handling and power characteristics of the bikes allow a lot of potential for passing.  With a most of the manufactures directly or indirectly helping to push their bikes to the front the racing is competitive.   Some bikes excel on the straights and others in the turns.  All of it adds together to create one of the best forms of racing in the world.

Indycar’s ovals reached competitiveness in almost the exact opposite way.  It’s a spec series with spec Dallara’s chassis and spec Honda engines.  While in many ways the spec chassis and engines have been a negative for Indycar it’s hard to argue that in 2011 they produced some great racing.  For Indycar though the biggest factor is dirty air, or the lack of it.  The big difference in Indycar appears to be the decision in mid 2009 to change the aero rules.  Earlier that season had seen horrific races at Texas, Richmond, Kansas, and Indy with spread out fields and almost no passing. As we’ve seen in NASCAR with the horrible COT the aero rules determine how the racing looks on track.  With a spec series Indycar had more control over exactly what the aero configuration looked like.  There are those who dislike Indycar oval races or who think they’re unsafe.  To those people I would say look at what aero limited racing is like.  Look at the NASCAR COT parades at the 1.5 mile ovals and look at the Indycar parades at Texas and Richmond in 2009.  With those aero packages the racing is awful.  With the package Indycar used this year we saw great racing.

A Rare sight next year

The World Superbike and Indycar ovals put on the more “great” races this year than any other series.  I don’t think there’s a ton of crossover between the fans of the two series.  I would recommend fans of one of these checking out the other.  Especially for Indycar fans who will not be seeing a lot of ovals next year.  I would recommend checking out the WSBK races next year on Speed (usually tape delayed Sunday afternoon).  It’ll make you rethink what a road race can be.    If you get a chance next year check these races out.   I would give the slight  disclaimer that watching WSBK will make it hard to go back to the Indycar road “races.”  WSBK should be on top form again next year.  Sadly the future isn’t so bright for Indycar.

Sarah Fisher Racing Hires Josef Newgarden!

Sarah Fisher Racing, one of only 5 teams to win a race last year, has hired it’s driver for the 2012 season.  With Ed Carpenter leaving for his own team and Dollar General going to do NASCAR, SFR looked to be in some trouble.  However it appears that things are on track for them to continue into 2012 and hopefully build on the momentum they’ve built up over the last season.  In an incredibly rare and refreshing move, SFR hired an American driver to pilot their car!  Better yet, one who’s actually won the Firestone Indy Lights championship!  Josef Newgarden has been hired by Sarah Fisher!

Sarah Fisher Racing also added Wink Hartman on as a partner in the team.   The new name is Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing.  This should hopefully prevent a DeFerran/Dragon or Newman/Haas incident from occurring.  Newgarden is signed to a 3 year deal so that should be a good sign for the future as long as the team and driver both improve. The plan for 2012 is the full season but it has not been decided for sure.  The full press release and video is here.

Triple League Racing Podcast #1 With John Hall of LiveFastRacing.com!

It has finally arrived.  The Triple League Racing Podcast is now live!  We have a very special guest interview with John Hall from LiveFastRacing.com and the LiveFastRacing podcast.  His podcast ran from 2007-2009 and was one of the top racing podcasts around with an eclectic mix of racing series that included NASCAR, Indycar, ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, MotoGP, and World Superbikes.  Personally it was my favorite racing podcast and a major influence on my blogging.  I managed to find John and drag him out of “retirement” and get him back into the podcasting business for my inaugural show.  John may have been out of the game for longer than this blog has been around but he was still on his A game.  As it was my first time podcasting I have a few area’s I need to work on.   So you’ll need to give me that. I think I was okay but hopefully when we do future podcasts I’ll do better.

I hope that readers, whether you like what I say and think or not, give this show a listen.  Especially for fans of the LFR podcast.  It’s nice to get John back out here.  I’m incredibly grateful that John was willing to spend the time over his Thanksgiving break to cut a show with me.  Yes, it was a few weeks ago but most of the information is still relevant.  Due to being awhile ago we didn’t (thankfully) talk about the Kurt Busch incident, so those of you who are angry with me about that should still listen.  Also no mention of the end of Newman Haas or any other recent (since Thanksgiving) news stories.

Topics covered included NASCAR, Indycar, ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, MotoGP and a little WSBK.  Hopefully you guys enjoy it!  I also need to thank Eric Hall (No relation) of Another Indycar Blog for helping edit the show.  Make sure to read his blog and follow him on twitter.   Eric will be a regular co-host on our show although he couldn’t make this one.  We’re also planning to get John back sometime right before the season starts next spring and do a “pre-season breakdown” show.  With a little luck this will be the first of many podcasts out of us!   Thanks again to John Hall for coming on and getting us off to a good start.  We’ll try and get onto Itunes within the next two weeks.  And with luck, a new show next week.

Triple League Racing Podcast #1 FINAL

Kurt Busch Fired (or “Mutually Separated”): The Day The Bad Guys Died

The headline says it all.  Kurt Busch and Penske Racing have “parted ways.”  While many Busch Brother Haters are cheering and dancing this is a dark day for NASCAR.  Why?  Two reasons.  Firstly an unemployed champion is not good.  One of the biggest positives about NASCAR is that it’s winners and champions are employed and competitive.  Unlike say, Indycar or F1.  Not anymore.  Secondly it’s just another blow to personality and bad guys in racing.  Racing needs villains.  Sports in general need bad guys.  They need players and teams for fans to root against.  Without that there is a lot less excitement.  NASCAR has struggled with a lack of personality for years.  It’s about to get much much worse.  If the Busch brothers aren’t allowed to be “bad guy” then who is?

A lot of this comes back to an issue I’ve discussed twice before.  Racing needs a different type of sponsor.  I understand attracting and convincing them isn’t easy.  But just because it is hard doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile.  Racing has got to attract the extreme sports crowd.  That’s where a fairly large amount of people who might get interested in racing are.  It’s where there are some lucrative sponsors.  It’s also includes sponsors that wouldn’t mind an edgier representative.  Kurt Busch really needs to find an energy drink or hard liquior sponsor.   Or do what LCR Honda does and call up Playboy.   That’s my career advice for Kurt Busch.

People much worse than Kurt Busch. Much, much worse

As I’ve said and caused massive amounts of controversy for saying Kurt Busch isn’t even that bad!  Has he committed a felony? No.  He has NO gun charges, assaults, rapes, sexual harassment, hard drug or murder charges.  Has he been a dick?  Yes.  But how many other celebrities fall into that category?  Athlete’s, politicians, “reality” TV stars, actors/actresses, musicians, how many of these people are not the nicest people in the world?  The answer to that would be a lot.  There are people who have built entire careers around being an asshole!  I understand that “just because one person did something doesn’t make it right.”  However my point is Kurt Busch didn’t even do anything that bad! He may have behaved in an unprofessional manner but  it’s much more professional than showing up to an award show drunk or worse, as countless celebrities have done.  Or, say, dog fighting.  Or, I don’t know, actually hitting a journalists?

Could the Intimidator have made it in today's Vanilla Racing World?

Furthermore in the current climate of vanilla, pr clones, how well would most of the famous, great drivers of the past have done?  Would Dale Earnhardt have made it?  Or Cale Yarbrough?  AJ Foyt?  Aryton Senna? Curtis Turner?  Darrell Waltrip?   Or would we have been deprived of them?   People often say racing isn’t as good today as it was in the past.  Perhaps the reason is we aren’t seeing the types of drivers we saw in the past.  There may be a reason why fans are saying that things are worse now…  and it’s not just nostalgia.

Villains and bad guys are needed to keep things interesting.  If it’s just a bunch of non-offensive, vanilla, pr trained clones what’s the fun in that?  As a quick example remember the 2007 Chase for the Sprint Cup.  I’m a huge Jeff Gordon fan.  Even I have to admit that was a fairly dull title fight.  Johnson versus Gordon was way too tame and had no real potential for fireworks.  Contrast that with Stewart and Edwards.  Both drivers who have the potential to be “bad guys.”  Nothing came of it but everyone understood the potential for an explosion existed.   Having villains creates drama; it creates excitement.  The bad guys add storylines to the race.  In my controversial opinion (what’s new?), having villains would draw more interest from younger fans.  Considering NASCAR’s struggles with younger fans that would be a major improvement.

Besides having the villains makes the “good guys” stand out.  When it’s a field full of 43 cardboard cutouts no one cares if Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, or David Ragan are nice guys.  Why does it matter?  They’re no different from  anyone else.  Also how do you know if it’s genuine or just an act if everyone’s being forced to act that way?  Now if there are some real villains than the “good guys” stand out.  Then it actually means something that Jimmie Johnson acts the way he does.  If that happens perhaps he would get more fans and more attention too.  Everyone wins.

Unlike most drivers, he's won a title.

To all the people cheering the firing of Kurt Busch: You have NO right to EVER complain about a lack of personality or bad guys in racing.  None.  You have forfeited that right to complain with cheering the firing of Kurt Busch.  Same with the idiots who threatened to boycott Shell/Pennzoil.  Hate on Kurt Busch all you want.  That’s a great thing.  As Robin Miller has said many times, “Hate Is Good.”   But when you’re cheering his firing or threatening to boycott his sponsors you’ve become part of what’s wrong with racing.  The firing of Kurt Busch should not be looked on as a positive thing.  You think the drivers are boring now, with how hard the Busch brothers have been smacked down, add onto it the Keselowski semi-secret fine, expect double the vanilla, politically correct, public relations trained clones next year.   If you’re into that then you are in luck.  If you are like me and want to see some personality and some “bad guys” in racing, then you’re fucked.  I’d like to end with one final point.  Kurt Busch, if for nothing else, should be thanked for his involvement in ending Jimmie Johnson’s Reign of Terror.    Remember how he beat Johnson at Dover?  Imagine if that  hadn’t happened.  Imagine if Johnson had won Dover and then went on to win, as he did in real life, Kansas.  We may not have seen the great Stewart/Edwards title fight.  We may have been subjected to another year of Johnson boredom.  Kurt Busch did that for us at the least.

Kimi Riakkonen Returns to Lotus/Renault!

The Iceman is back!  While I really wanted to see him in either NASCAR or Indycar, Kimi has returned “home” to F1. It’s always a plus to have recent champions in a ride so this is a good thing.  Hopefully he can help turn the Lotus/Renault (now just Lotus) into something successful, or at least more so than it was this year.

AMA Pro Racing To New Orleans and Homestead?

The AMA Pro Racing series has announced it’s new schedule with a couple surprises.  Road Atlanta also returns to the schedule.  The news (to me at least) is the Homestead Roval and New Orleans race at Nola Motorsport Park.  Nola Motorsports park is  a new racetrack in New Orleans.  Homestead Miami Speedway is the racetrack where NASCAR ends it’s season.  Indycar used to race there too, until it got thrown out.  Obviously the AMA won’t run the oval.  Instead they will run the roval similar to the Grand Am series.

I have honestly never heard of a racetrack in New Orleans or Nola Motorsport Park.  Using the miracle of Google I was able to find it’s website and an old Jalopnik article about it.  It has some interesting potential but it seems like a club track.  Not sure about how an AMA Pro Race will work there.  Alan Wilson, the track designer and husband of former driver Desire Wilson has designed a fair number of tracks including Gingerman (Club track in Michigan), Miller Motorsports Park, and the infamous Barber Motorsports park.  Take from that what you will.  The track layout hasn’t been announced.  Here’s the track map along with the possibilities.  We’ll have to see how the riders feel about the safety and ability to pass when they test there.  New Orleans seems like an interesting place to end the season.  But you have to wonder about a club race track…

Especially as it’ll come right after Homestead.  Rovals and motorcycle road racing is a controversial subject.  There are serious safety concerns about racing a bike on a track with those types of walls and speeds.  Rovals also don’t necessarily produce as good of racing as other tracks.  Homestead didn’t sell out for the Sprint Cup season finale and didn’t do well with the Indycar season finale.  I’d be a bit concerned what it’s going to look like with AMA.

Homestead Roval

This brings the AMA up to eleven races which is an improvement.  It reduces the massive gaps in the schedule that AMA struggles with.  The gaps in the schedule that remain are not as serious.  That said the gaps that do exist still dampen the potential for building casual fan interest.  As always with the AMA, the schedule can change.  Just ask VIR.  Now if only the AMA could get a decent TV deal…