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.

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