Team Meeting; Weekend in Review: The New Triple League Racing Edition!

Blog Update:  Things are changing at Triple League Racing.  We now have 6 writers and are continuing to look for more.  We’ve got a new “magazine” style layout and are continuing to work out new ideas for our readers.  With new writers and multiple perspectives I hope that even those of you who don’t like/agree with me will at least give our new writers a chance; you may find that their opinions are more inline with your own.  We’re planning on doing a roundtable feature currently titled Pre Weekend Roundtable and may do some Point/Counterpoint style articles on occasion.  Any feedback on the recent changes is welcome.

Also being considered is a separate Triple League Racing twitter account.  I’m leaning towards calling it @Triple_L_Racing but suggestions would be welcome.  That might cause me to change my current twitter name because having @TrpLeagueRacing and @Triple_L_Racing could be confusing.  Any comments/suggestions about this are welcome.

As always, anyone interested in writing for Triple League Racing, please contact me!

Indycar:   The Least Interesting Driver in the World lucked into another win at Milwaukee and, true to form, continued to cry about various issues.  The race was initially dominated by Dario but Kanaan and Castroneves had passed him and appeared ready to battle for the lead until Helio punctured a tire and Kanaan hit the wall.  This gifted another win to the Least Interesting Driver in the World.  So it was a typical Dario win.  But it get’s worse.  He made contact with Will Power’s tire in Power’s pit box, but due to the insane way Indycar is officiated (heard the rumors out of the Lights field?) Dario didn’t get penalized.  You can’t make this stuff up.  The Least Interesting Driver has won both his 500′s under yellow and/or on fuel mileage, two championships after his rival’s ran out of fuel and the third after his rival wrecked.  He didn’t just luck into them, but still, he’s benefited from some insanely good luck.   If Jimmie Johnson has a Golden Horseshoe shoved up his ass (according to Kevin Harvick) then I would hate to see where Dario’s is.  Someone needs to find it, take it out, clean it and give it to a non Red Car.

Dario winning would not have been quite as bad if he had not followed up with more post race whining, this time about Helio, not to mention continued shots at Texas all weekend long.  This guy’s won a race the last two weekends and yet spends most of his TV time complaining about how unfair everything is to him.  Will Power, you’ve got to prevent The Least Interesting Driver in the World from winning the championship.  Because I can’t think of a worse champion than Dario, and to get him 3 times in a row is almost unthinkable.

What’s even sadder, do you know who finished 2nd?  Rahal!  Imagine him winning!  That would have been much better for Indycar than some boring, NASCAR reject, whining Scottish douche.  Or how about Danica in 5th?  That would bump the ratings up at Iowa.  Power in 4th would have been a huge recovery story and Servia winning with Newman Haas would have been cool.  As would a Kanaan win, which he almost had in the bag.  Sadly, it was just another Red car.

In more bad news… Simona De Silvestro suffered her THIRD serious wreck in a year.  This time she crashed during qualifying, bounced from the outside to inside wall, and had to go to the hospital.   Thankfully Simona was okay and she did make the start of the race.  The car, having just been rebuilt was not very good and they parked it pretty shortly after the race started.   For whatever reason, Simona Haters have appeared and now are saying that Simona is not that good and cannot drive on ovals.  Strange… I seem to remember her making the Indy 500 field on Pole day the last two years, something Ryan Hunter Reay, Mike Conway, and Paul Tracy can’t say.   So if Simona can’t drive on an oval, how did she qualify in during the “most competitive field in years” injured, in an old, slow car?  She’s not Dario, she doesn’t have that kind of luck.

Pippa Mann has a ride now with Rahal/Letterman for Loudon, Kentucky, and Vegas.

The Firestone Indy Lights is having issues with teams failing tech inspection but not getting publicly penalized.  And when they are penalized, according to many, all they get is a small, secret fine.  These issues have caused 02 Racing Technology to pull out until these issues are resolved.  Which has dropped the field down to an incredibly small number of cars.

Miwuakee’s return was great and the racing was good, but it was not a good weekend for Indycar.  Attendance was bad, ratings (.9 overnight) weren’t that good, and there were a lot of horror stories about how the track was handling fans over the weekend.  Throw in questionable officiating in both Lights and Indycar, and it felt like the Indy Failure League was in full affect.

Schedule Watch: 2012

Things aren’t going well for Phoenix.  Bernard and the track president do not get along.  Yet, I did read a tweet from someone with inside information saying an Indycar race could still happen.  Izod want’s to return to Chicagoland (Yes!), Road America is in play, as is Fontana.  Milwaukee is a maybe.  There are some potentially good things on the horizion, but I do worry some about the lack of ovals.

Another street course has popped up, this time in Ft Lauderdale of all places.  This race supporters want it to be run in fall of 2013.  I tend to think this is BS and just dreaming, but if it makes it, does that could put the schedule in double digit street races, and that sounds pretty processional to me.  Whether it’s real or not, there are street course rumor galore in Indycar yet relatively few real track rumors, road course or oval.

NASCAR:  Denny Hamlin shut the haters up and won his first race of the season.  Gibbs however is in trouble for an unapproved oil pan that was caught during practice.  NASCAR is strange and while most series simply tell teams with illegal parts in practice to take them off, NASCAR sometimes fines them.  Or not.  They’re Barnhardt like in this regard.

A cup driver won the Nationwide race.  Again.

The biggest NASCAR news this week is the potential Red Bull pullout for 2012.  Reasons are unclear, but it appears Red Bull is done unless someone else steps in.  That is a huge loss for many reasons.  Red Bull is a huge company and it’s the edgier, younger demographic company that NASCAR desperation needs to capture new fans attention.  They have a ton of money and if they pull out it’s going to look bad to any potential sponsor planning on entering.   Oh, and they run a fully funded 2 car team, something NASCAR needs.  This is a pretty big disaster for NASCAR, despite the fact that their TV ratings seem to have stabilized.

The rumor of an Andretti Autosport NASCAR team keeps being floated by Robin Miller.  He also claims this team will not be involved with Danica.  I don’t really understand how an Andretti NASCAR team makes sense, I wonder if they’re planning on buying out Red Bull?  One thought has been that they’ll be involved with Roush and Ford, preparing for a 2013 entery into Indycar for Ford.  That’s based just on guesswork, but it’s the only way I see this making any sense.  Otherwise, you’ve got one struggling Indycar team and almost certainty one struggling NASCAR team and that won’t make anyone happy long term.

F1: Austin may be moved back into the fall because no one thinks a race in June is a good idea.  But the race continues to have funding issues between the government and race promoters.  Not to get too political, but this race could get derailed by the infamous “Tea Party” movement, which is especially strong in a state like Texas.  Getting even more political, that might be the only positive thing to EVER come out of that group.

MotoGP:  In the upcoming Grand Prix at Assen, Valentino Rossi will ride the 2012 Ducati MotoGP chassis with a 2011 engine in it to attempt to catch up to the Honda’s.  This had been discussed for awhile but many considered the logistics of fitting a different engine into the new chassis (current engine is 800cc, new engines will be 1000cc) too much.  But Ducati really need Rossi to win a few races, and this appears to be their best shot.

Dani Pedrossa will sit out Assen and will be replaced by Aoyama.  Aoyama’s current bike will be ridden by the Honda Test Rider, who’s name escapes me.

WSBK:  Carlos Checa’s domination came crashing to an end this weekend at Argon.  Literally.  He crashed out in race 1, which was won by a late race pass that Marco Melandri put on Max Biaggi.  Race two was won by Biaggi, who forced Melandri into an error and with Checa finishing 3rd.  With the next few tracks potentially being difficult for the Ducati superbike, the 2011 WSBK championship may be heating up.

Conor Daly’s 2011 Plans: GP3+5 Indy Lights Races

Between the Tony George story and the Daytona qualifying race Conor Daly’s announcement of his plans for the upcoming season got covered up.  For those who missed it Daly was confirmed for 5 road races with Sam Schmitt Motorsports in Firestone Indy Lights, and the full season of GP3 with Carlin.  These announcements are not a surprise, as at the Indycar State of the Sport, it was announced that Daly would run some of the road races with the same team that Bryan Clauson is going to run the ovals with.  As for GP3, that’s been rumored for a while, as it’s what he and his father, Derek Daly, were aiming for; he also tested with Carlin at the post season test last year.

This time last year, no one thought we'd see Daly in one of these

While some Indycar fans will be disappointed that he’s focusing his attention on Europe we’re lucky he’s going to be running Lights at all.  After all, before the Mazda Road To Indy plan was made, it was very clear that Conor Daly and his family were focusing on getting him a ride in Europe and eventually F1.  Indycar, and Indy Lights, wasn’t on their radar.  But with the Mazda Road To Indy scholarship he had a free ride that at least  get’s him into the series for a few races.  Outside of Alexander Rossi, Conor Daly is the only American driver who has a shot at F1, and the only way for him to really get noticed in Europe is to head over to Europe and run one of the major development series for Formula One.  Graham and Marco were at one point considered possible F1 drivers, but their Indycar careers have stalled, and with that, any real hope of going to F1 has most likely died.  Daly didn’t want that to happen, and thus, he had to make GP3 the priority.

Although I do question why the Road To Indy sponsorship have Clauson in Lights for ovals and Daly in Lights for road courses.  Yes, that’s what they’re good at, but, isn’t the point of Lights learning what they don’t know?  Clauson could probably qualify his way into Indy this year, and run respectably; at St Pete, though, he’d be in trouble.  Daly could probably take a car to St. Pete and not embarrass himself, but if he tried to qualify for Indy, it wouldn’t end well.  So why is Clauson running the ovals in Lights and Daly the road courses?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  I understand that for Daly getting the maximum amount of seat time on road/street races is his goal; he want’s to be an F1 driver.  But a couple Lights races on ovals would reduce the learning curve even more  should he end up in Indycar latter in his career.

GP3, Two steps away from F1

Daly is focused on F1 at the moment, but that doesn’t mean Indycar fans have seen the last of him.  As much as I want to see more Americans in Indycar an American has not won an F1 race since Mario Andretti, and it would be really nice to see that changed.  We’ve got a number of American drivers who could win in Indycar, in Formula One, the only two drivers making a serious effort to get into F1 are Daly and Rossi.  Besides a lot of F1 development drivers have jumped over to Indycar when they couldn’t find F1 or GP2 rides, so we may see Rossi or Daly over here a bit sooner than they would like.  And for Daly, at least, he’s already spent a bit of time in Indy Lights if that ever happens.  Daly will be competing with two strong teams, Carlin and Sam Schmitt.  He won’t be making a run for the Lights championship, but he is running the first 3 races, and could conceivably be in the points lead, or at least up towards the front, at the end of those races.  With Carlin, he’s going for the full season of GP3, and will get to race at tracks such as Istanbul, Silverstone, Spa, and Monza.  While many would like to have seen Daly stay here and commit to Lights full time, this time last year no one thought we’d ever see him in Indy Lights, as he was fully focused on F1.  The Mazda Road To Indy Scholarship has put him into a Lights car, and by doing that, has already had it’s first major success.

Team Meeting; Weekend in Review: Tony Stewart Edition

Indycar:

The reaction to double file restarts on ovals was pretty negative from drivers. I’m glad Indycar drivers, unlike NASCAR drivers, are allowed to express their opinions, but it seems like the drivers just want things to stay the same; spread out, single file, with a bunch of lap cars in the way.  Also, the complaining of the Indycar drivers reinforces every negative stereotype of Indycar drivers (they’re not as tough or as talented) that any NASCAR writer has ever tried to portray!

According to Curt Cavin, Andy Soucek, the 2009 Formula 2 champion, is now the most likely candidate for the 4^th Andretti Autosport ride.  Of course, there have been numerous “most likely” candidates, so there’s a good chance this won’t happen.  Still, if it does, that’s not good news for Wheldon, or Andretti.  Because if that happens, then Andretti Autosport will be 2 driver who should be veterans but aren’t, 1 veteran, and a rookie who’s never seen an oval.  That’s not exactly a recipe for success, where as with Wheldon, they’d have had 2 veterans.   Looks like Penske’s theft of AA sponsors has hurt them pretty badly, as they’ve been reduced to random International Ride Buyers.  As for Wheldon, DDR, Conquest, and KV all have been mentioned, as well as Andretti.  Some have speculated Lotus would want him, but since Lotus Cars is Malaysian, I’m not sure they care about having a British driver.  That said, KV needs some decent drivers, and Wheldon would be a huge step up.

Simona De Silvestro’s major sponsorship announcement is coming up on the 24^th.  It will take place in Baltimore, which leads to speculation that it may be from a company that is based in, or has a major presence in, Baltimore.  A quick search of the internet shows 3 major companies that potentially would sponsor a race team, Fila sportswear, Under Armor Sportswear, and McCormick foods.  As well, some have speculated it could be Nuclear Energy, which was supposed to sponsor Jonathan Summerton in 2010, may be the sponsor.  Also no word on who will be the 2^nd driver at HVM, but with Plowman, Vernay, Wheldon, Tracy, Soucek, Rosier, Howard, Sheckter, Saadevra, Pippa, Katherine Legge and more all rumored to have a ride, there are plenty of options.

NASCAR:

Tony Stewart was involved in an altercation in Australia with a dirt track owner that ended with him being questioned by police, but not charged with anything.  Not surprisingly, the “official” NASCAR websites have been pretty quiet about this story…

Sam Hornish Junior has lost his Sprint Cup ride.  He won’t even get to run the Daytona 500.  He will have at least a partial ride in Nationwide.  Whether or not he’ll run the Indy 500 is unknown.   I don’t understand what’s going on at Penske.  I cannot see a 2 car Dodge team, who are the only Dodge team, being successful.  I can understand why they would want to dump Hornish, and I support that decision, but they’ve spent a lot of time and money on that team, and now they’re throwing it away.  It would have made more sense to kill the Nationwide team, bring those sponsors up to Cup, try and get Izod and Meijer’s to come over to Cup for a couple of races, and just make up the difference, and either use Allgier or hire a cheap driver like Almirola or Riggs.

To add insult to injury, Steven Wallace will use the owner’s points from the 77 to make his Sprint Cup debut at Daytona.  Steven Wallace is winless in Nationwide, and is mainly remembered for crashing a lot at the start of his career a few years ago.

F1:

The Korean GP chief was fired, and may sue.  Surprisingly, he had won the “Best Promoter” award out of all of the race tracks in 2010 Formula One.  Uh… the best promoter is the one who’s track was completed about a week before the race, that’s facilities were still unfinished, and that was run in the middle of nowhere on another boring Tilke track.  Austin might just win it in 2012!

Renault/Lotus will be listed as a British team, despite being powered by Renault (French), and having funding from both Russia and Malaysia (Lotus Cars, IE Proton).

A new racing series, called the A10 World series is being launched.  So far, no races, drivers, teams, cars, or sponsors have been announced, but they claim it will use 600HP V10 engines and run 20 races in  10 countries, everywhere, and I do mean everywhere (Europe, Asia, Middle East, South America, Central America, Oceana, and Africa) , except the US and Canada!  Of course, that’s assuming it actually exists, and that’s unlikely.  Can you say Vaporware?

Poll of the Week: Who’s the Real Lotus?
The Lotus Civil War continues, as Team Lotus and Group Lotus (the cars) battle each other over who’s the “real” Lotus.  To make things even more complicated, both are Malaysian owned, and in F1, both will be powered by Renault!  Overall, I consider Group Lotus (the car company) to be the “real” Lotus, and they’re the ones who currently have the support of the Chapman family.  After all, Group Lotus does produce cars that are badged Lotus.  Team Lotus… fails to score a single point over a full season of F1, with points expanded to the top 10…

Team Meeting; Weekend in Review: Audi Edition

This is getting difficult, not a whole lot of news that I haven’t covered yet… Indycar made another significant announcement, and the FIA released some interesting rule changes while NASCAR has had a lawsuit or two filed and the AMA released an incomplete schedule. Okay, I lied, there’s been a ton of news this week.  With Christmas coming up, I’m not sure if there will be enough news to really maintain this feature of my blog or not… but I’ll try and keep Poll of the Week going.

Indycar:

The main news in the last week is that Mazda will sponsor a scholarship from USF2000 to Star Mazda, Star Mazda to Indy Lights, and Indy Lights to Indycar, along with the USAC to Lights scholarship, in an attempt to make the Road To Indy matter.  With the lack of advancement in recent years out of Indy Lights, and the general weakness of that series, this is a major step in the right direction.

Which brings up a question, with Mazda dropping a fair amount of money Indycar’s development league, will they soon enter the main series?  Currently there are no plans, but if the Road To Indy thing works out well, it would make sense for Mazda to run in Indycar, especially as their ALMS plans are very unclear.  They weren’t thrilled with the 2012 decision, but it would certainly be their highest profile racing involvement if they get involved with Indycar.

The Next Indy Lights Champ?

So will Conor Daly run Indy Lights?  He’s won the scholarship, and he probably has enough connections to money to finance a full season in Lights.  But, if his dream is F1, will he go to F3/F Renault/GP3 or will he attempt to move up into Indycar?  It’s been speculated he’d run the full GP3 season and a partial Lights season, which would hedge his bets.  Many of the newer Indycar drivers have come from F3/GP2/F Renault, so even if Daly leaves for Europe, he could easily be back over here in a few years.  And since Daly seems like one of the most talented American open wheelers since Allmindigner (outside Hildebrand and Edwards), that would be a very good thing.

JK Vernay hasn’t been involved in Silly Season much, but now he has the Mazda money, and before last season ended, he claimed he would be in Indycar for the 2011 season, the question is where?  His best bet would be Coyne, DDR, or KV, and all of those teams would readily accept someone with money.  AA says they’ll have four cars, and they need some financing too.  Question is, how much money does he have?  If it’s not a lot, he’ll be reduced to Conquest or possibly Coyne; out of which, I’d hope he gets Coyne.  Still, if I were to bet on it, I’d bet he will either end up very well positioned at Andretti Autosport (IE: He finds a large sum of money) or he’ll take a lesser amount of money to Conquest.  I have nothing to base that on other than gut feeling and guesswork, though.

Nothing’s been announced about Vegas, but according to Miller and Cavin, it’s a done deal, and will be promoted directly by Indycar in conjunction with Vegas itself.  Also according to Cavin, Indycar is planning to make a big deal out of the season finale and do a lot of interesting things with Vegas.

NASCAR:

Victim of the Beachfront Mafia

Big news was that Verizon was driven out of NASCAR by the exclusivity Sprint has, to the point they gave up on Trucks/Nationwide.  Also, NASCAR threatened to park the 12 if Fox superimposed Verizon logos on the interior.  NASCAR=Beachfront Mafia.

Johanna Long won the Snowball derby. She won the pole for the Derby last year, and this year won the race, which I accidently missed in the last Team Meeting feature.  Nothings set yet for her in the Truck series, but she’s hoping to get a full season (and she deserves it).

Scott Speed filed a lawsuit against Red Bull for 6.5 Million dollars in a breach of contract lawsuit.  Rumor also has it that he will be at Kyle Busch Motorsports next season (wonder who predicted that?) but nothings confirmed, and he has said he’d be willing to consider Indycar or ALMS/Grand AM.  So there’s still hope.  I somehow can see him at Andretti Autosport or KV; again, that’s pure hope/guesswork/speculation.

NASCAR has changed its infamously strict garage dress code to allow sandals, shorts, and sleeveless shirts.  Welcome to the 21^st century.

Keyed Up Motorsports is planning on returning (after they shut down earlier this year) for the first five races with Scott Riggs.  Last year, they struggled horribly with Mears, but improved with Riggs.  However, it was too late, and they had no way to get into the top 35, and thus, couldn’t get any sponsors.

Robby Gordon is also suing Extenze for not getting paid.  (Insert joke here)

F1:

New rule changes were announced, with the most significant being team orders are allowed, or rather, the Team Orders rule is gone.  However, teams were warned that team orders could still be punished if they bring “Disrepute” to the sport.  Very NASCAR esque.  Did Mike Helton write that?   Basically, you can do team orders, but you may or may not get hit with an “Actions detrimental to Grand Prix racing” penalty, depending on who you are and who you’re helping/hurting.  Which, instead of making things simpler, in fact complicates it more, and will make any ruling (or non ruling) that much more controversial.

Lotus Cars has officially bought into Renault, forming Lotus/Renault racing.  They will run the historic Players styled livery, while Team Lotus, which had also announced that livery, will return to the green livery used this season.  I like the black livery a lot, so seeing it on a somewhat competitive team will be nice, despite how that may upset the hardcore anti-cigarette people, although, really, that makes it even more fun.

MotoGP:

MotoGP also had major rule changes announced.

Practice will be returned to 4 one hour sessions, which is a move that has been called for since the practice time was reduced.

Tire Warmers will be allowed, which must make the Ducati team happy.

Moto3 will allow a spec traction control unit, much to the dismay of most fans, and MotoGP will move to a spec GPS unit.  Yes… MotoGP bikes have a GPS unit attached that mark where they are on the track and then uses that in the traction control.

KTM will build a Moto3 bike.

AMA:

The AMA Pro Racing 2011 preliminary schedule was announced, and it’s unfinished.  Two TBA’s exist and the season finale hasn’t been finalized.  The Daytona 200 will be moved back to a day race but will still be followed by a 2 month gap between race 1 and 2.

ALMS:

I hate that shark fin!!!!!!

Audi announced it’s newest LMP1 car, the R18.  It’s not an attractive car, although I know I’m in the minority on that one.  The current cars will still race the 12 Hours of Sebring, and then be retired.  Due to the rule changes, a lot of what has made the Audi’s unique (open cockpit, 5 speed, ect.) have been removed, but it is moving to the Acura style 4 rear wheel concept, where all 4 wheels are the same size.  It also features a reduction in power and engine size… which will excite the green people, but isn’t what race fans really want to see.

Sim Racing:

Trailer for Forza 4 that was released over the weekend.  It looks like there are some clips from Top Gear in this, but I’m not sure.

Forza 4 was announced on Saturday.  No details were given other than a fall 2011 release date.  Considering how good Forza 3 was, this is very interesting.  Hopefully day/night racing and rain are added.

Poll of the Week:

This weeks poll is about Team Orders.  Do you like them, hate them, accept them grudgingly, or what?  Personally, I’m not a fan of team orders, especially F1 style team orders (drivers throwing wins.)  NASCAR style team orders, IE, a driver in 4th giving a position up to a driver in 5th isn’t as bad.  Also, F1 team order issues come up more because of how often teammates end up running 1-2 without anyone that close to them, which allows them to do team orders and not get passed by a third party.  Team orders are worst in F1, and it seems like F1 fans accept them more than fans of any other series, so I guess it’s not that big of deal, but I would have a problem if F1 style team orders migrated to Indycar, NASCAR, and MotoGP.

Team Meeting, Weekend in Review: Chevrolet Edition

Indycar:

Chevrolet confirmed their return to Indycar, and Penske confirmed his team will be one of the teams that will switch to Chevy.  I wrote extensively on the subject here, so go read it if you want more info.

Will there be another manufacturer joining in 2012?  I’ve heard the deadline is this week, possibly today, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, if someone wants to commit next month, Indycar’s a lot better with more manufactures than less, but in an interview here, Randy says we may here of another engine maker by the end of the week.  Guess we’ll know by Friday.  At the moment, it’s being rumored that Alfa Romeo will be the Fiat owned car running in the series, which is a little strange.  I mean, does anyone in America even remember the Alfa badge?  I guess it works since they’re planning to bring Alfa back, but since Fiat’s coming too, I would have thought Fiat would have made more sense, or just run Ferrari or Dodge or Chrysler.

Might we see an American in the US National Guard car???  Rumors are building that JR Hildebrand will be in the #4 for Panther.  If so, that’s huge for him, and for the series, because Panther may in fact be the third best team next season, depending on what happens with Andretti, DeFerran, and a potential Ganassi Satellite team.

Is Edmonton dead or isn’t it?  It sounds like a lot of work is being put into saving the race, instead of moving it somewhere else.  Since Edmonton’s been such an awful race the last two years, I can’t see why they won’t let it move somewhere else.  Surely Canada must have somewhere better than that to race in, right?

Izod reports a 350% return on investment for their Indycar spend, according to the Sports Business Journal.   Because I am not a subscriber to their website, I cannot read the article, so I don’t know how they did this.  I’m very curious how they came up with a 350% ROI for a series with many races that were outscored ratings wise by late night infomercials.  But if it’s true, that’s very good news, but I do wonder, what ROI was Seven-Eleven getting???

It’s looking more and more like Tony Kanaan will be at DeFerran’s team, he tested with them at Sebring, and everyone sounded very positive about it.  Tony is going to try and raise sponsorship in Brazil, and being teamed up with DeFerran and potentially Matos as well will only help that sponsorship.

Ground breaking was done on the new taxpayer funded Dallara factory in Indiana.  It’s supposed to be the site of construction for the 2012 saftey cell, but will it be finished in time?  Or, are the safety cells going to be finished right before the 2012 season?

F1:

Yas Marina, as Pressdog calls it, a Gorgeous facility!  Beautiful track, awful, awful racing.  Bet Indycar’s going to book a date any time now…

Sebastian Vettel is your 2010 F1 champion!  He won the pole, race and title, largely due to how strategy played out, which hurt Alonso and Webber badly, and since it’s a F1 race at a Tilke Track, there was no making up those positions on the track.

Rubens Barichello will return to Williams next season, and it’s expected that the top 3 teams will retain the same drivers for next season, although there are some rumors of Webber to Ferrari.

Want more proof F1 is 99% car and .5% driver?  Daniel Ricciardo, the runner up to the Formula Renault championship, led the young drivers test in a Red Bull, and was only a quarter second slower than Sebastian Vettel’s pole time. That’s not a typo.  A rookie who didn’t even win the championship in the series he ran in was almost as fast as the F1 World Champion.

NASCAR

Jimmie Johnson pulled another Golden Horseshoe out and managed to salvage a top ten finish out of what looked like an awful and championship killing day, as did Kevin Harvick.  Thus, going into Homestead, Denny Hamlin only has a 15 point lead over the Lapdog, Jimmie Johnson.

Cup drivers won both support races, the Truck and Nationwide races, over the course of the weekend.  And NASCAR wonders why they have no rookie drivers this year…

Ratings were still down, and they’ve been down for every Chase race, despite the fact it’s one of the closest Chases ever.  Perhaps people are tired of seeing Lapdog (JJ) anywhere near the front.

Carl Edwards got his first win since 2008, which should be encouraging news for Ford, since both Biffle and Edwards have won during the Chase, although neither have been able to contend for the title this year.

Phoenix International Speedway will be re-paved following the post Daytona race there at the start of the 2011 season.  That’s encouraging, maybe ISC learned something from the Daytona mess earlier this year.

The struggles of Danica Patrick continued this weekend, and she was involved in some “payback” with Alexander Kennedy, a driver I can say, as a fairly knowledgeable NASCAR fan, I’ve never heard of and who’s probably driving for a team who’s budget equals the JRM/Hendrick hospitality costs.  There’s a saying don’t quite your day job…

Did you know, despite the amount of women who’ve ran a race this season in the Camping World Truck series and NASCAR Nationwide series, only Johanna Long has finished on the lead lap, doing so at Martinsville.  Hope someone steps up and gives her a good fulltime ride in either the Nationwide or Truck series; it could be the best investment any sponsor and/or team could make in the foreseeable future.

MotoGP:

After post season testing, Valentino Rossi finally got surgery on the shoulder he injured in a motocross accident in the spring, before his injury at Mugello.

Post season testing didn’t go so well for Rossi, as he struggled to make the top ten in the speed charts.  However, a major part of the test for Ducati was deciding which engine to use, and they’ve indicated that they will use the Big Bang engine for 2011, so the test accomplished one of his main goals.

WSBK:

Donington Park was added to the 2011 World Superbike Schedule, giving the WSBK two rounds in the UK.

Rubens Xaus will be the second Ten Kate Honda rider alongside Johnny Rea, despite earlier rumors that Ten Kate would drop down to a one bike team.  This could be compared to KV hiring Takuma Sato…

2nd Annual Triple League Racing Awards Coming Soon: Viewer Participation Requested

I’ve been busy, and haven’t been updating as regularly as I’ve wanted to, but I do have some things coming up.  Foremost, the second annual Triple League Racing Awards.  The First Year’s awards can be viewed here. Catagories will include Driver of the Year, Team of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Race of the Year, Worst Driver, Disappointment of the Year, Best New Track of the Year (note, new to a series, not necessarily brand new), Storyline of the year, and possibly more.  This year, though, the awards will be split up into multiple posts, because it’s too big to be one post.

The Awards cover all racing series, especially NASCAR Sprint Cup, NASCAR Nationwide, NASCAR Camping World Trucks, Izod Indycar, MotoGP, WSBK, F1, ALMS, although I’ll consider other series (Moto2, AMA Superbikes, Grand Am).  The awards are planned for the end of November/beginning of December, because I cannot finish the awards until NASCAR and F1 finish.  Some categories(rookie of the year) are closer to completion than others (driver of the year).

Also this year, I’d like to request input from the readers on who/what to nominate and in the end win.  This goes for categories as well, you can request another category, and if I like it, I’ll add it in.  So PLEASE comment and give your nominations!  These awards cover a ton of series, and I may forget something important, plus I haven’t seen every single race in all of these series, so reader input is appreciated.  That said, the final decision on winners is mine.  I’ll also include a fan vote on all categories with the awards.

Can USAC Drivers Race Indy? Diversity of Driver’s Background’s

 

  Want to start a war with Indycar fans on Twitter, forums, or facebook?  Mention USAC and Indycar in the same sentence.  On the Wind Tunnel Extra, Robin Miller called into the show and mentioned taking Randy Bernard to a USAC race, and introduced some of the drivers to him.  Randy apparently agrees that some USAC drivers should be able to enter into the Indy 500.  And predictably, the next day, twitter, the forums, and Robin Miller’s Facebook page lit up with people for or against it.

  One of the best thing about NASCAR is the diversity of background’s their driver’s have.  They have drivers who have raced dirt late models, World of Outlaws, USAC,F1, CART/Champcar, Nationwide, Camping World Trucks, local pavement ovals, Grand Am/ALMS, even an Australian Touring Car driver!  About all they don’t have is a WRC driver.  Indycar does have some diversity too, with drivers from F1, GP2, F3, Atlantics, Champcar, and Indy Lights, as well as some drivers having ALMS/Grand Am sportscar.  However, USAC drivers have been left out for the last 20 years.  In fact, part of the point of the Split was this issue. 

  Those who want more USAC involvement point out that in the heydays of the 50’s-70, dirt oval drivers were involved in the sport, and were many of its most popular drivers.  Some of the current WoO and USAC drivers have fan bases, in America, larger than anyone but Danica, Helio, and maybe Kannan.  As well, one of the biggest issues with Indycar is the lack of Americans, and USAC has a large amount of Americans, which could provide the source for American drivers, as there is currently only one American in Indy Lights.  However, there are arguments against their involvement.  Firstly, all open wheel dirt cars are front engine cars which run on dirt ovals, and Indycar’s are rear engine cars driven around ovals from .75 to 2.5 miles long, motorcycle tracks, street courses, and the occasional road course.  So there’s some doubt as to how much of the skills learned in USAC will transfer to Indycar.  It’s worth remembering too that right after the Split, the IRL was made up of those people, and it didn’t do very well. 

  So where do I stand on this issue?  I agree with the view that SOME USAC driver need to be in Indycar full time.  The reasons?  We need more Americans, and that’s where there are Americans, they are clearly good drivers, RE Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart.  Besides that, from a marketing/interest standpoint, to have Americans from USAC and IndyLights battling against Europeans from GP2 and F1, and Australians/Brazilians who’ve come over to IndyLights would be very exciting.  I’ve expressed this opinion before, and I’ll say it again, Indycar needs to pick up fans from NASCAR, because a LOT of them are becoming disillusioned with NASCAR, and Indycar would be a great place for them to go.  But to get those fans, we probably need more than 3 Americans, with only one of them regularly able to contend for wins, and adding some talented Americans would help.  If Kasey Kahne were an Indycar driver instead of a NASCAR driver, he’d have a major impact on Indycar, and probably be one of its most popular drivers.

  However, the biggest issue facing them is development.  It’s pretty hard to imagine someone successfully going straight from USAC to Indycar without at least some time in IndyLights.  And that’s where this hit’s a major roadblock.  Especially in World of Outlaws, but also some in USAC, the drivers actually get paid.  And in IndyLights, I’m not sure if there’s a single driver who isn’t bringing money.  And with many of the Indycar teams also requiring money, what’s the motivation to move to Indycar?  If they’re going to move, they would probably try and move to NASCAR, although that’s also got its issues.

  In the end, for this to work, Randy Bernard is probably going to have to “help”.  Sadly, while Randy’s got an actual vision for the future of Indycar, he doesn’t have TG’s money.  And, his focus driver wise needs to be more on Graham Rahal, J.R. Hildebrand, and Paul Tracy, marketable and talented drivers who are already involved in Indycar, than trying to get a USAC guy up to speed.  BUT, he should try and get a few of the USAC guys over here.  It would take time, and they must be given time in IndyLights to learn road racing.  Still, I hope Randy does manage to get a few USAC drivers into Indycar, and prove the doubter’s wrong.

Death of Auto Racing?

 

  This isn’t a pleasant topic to discuss.  But, for anyone who’s not paying attention, racing series are in trouble, especially in America.  Car counts are down across the board, ratings and attendance are down, and in many cases, the sanctioning bodies do nothing.  Now, mainly this article focuses on the United States, because I follow racing here more than in Europe, but F1 is involved. 

  Now, by death, I don’t mean auto racing going away completely.  What I mean is many series going away, while others becoming marginalized.  I think NASCAR and Formula One, although going in the wrong directions, have a while before the bottom competly falls out.  For other series, such as Indycar, the end may be much closer.   And, unlike before, there is no new racing series waiting to replace the falling giants. When Indycar, sportscar, and F1 fell out of mainstream America, NASCAR was waiting in the wings to take over. 

  For Indycar, things look grim.  This is going to upset a lot of people, but if things don’t improve, Indycar racing could go away.  The Hulman George family is clearly unhappy with funding the Indycar series.  The ratings for non Indy500 races were awful, worse than Camping World Trucks(I’ll get to them in a minute), worse than PBR(Professional Bull Riding!), really reaching Champcar levels of ratings.  Sponsorship is incredibly hard to find, and at the moment only 2 Americans are confirmed full time(Danica and Marco).  Plus, Indycar isn’t putting a very good schedule together, either.  They are going to “pay” events such as Brazil that don’t really pay, as Champcar did.  Despite the horrific struggles of NASCAR, despite Unification, despite the disasters in AMA Pro Racing and ALMS, Indycar is falling even further behind! 

  ALMS, the Prototype class is dying.  Hopefully its temporary.  Sebring and Petite will have some P1 cars, but I don’t know how many will show up for the full schedule.  As well, I have no idea who’s going to run the Grand Am style P2 replacement class.  All that said, the GT2 class looks pretty strong, and the GT3 class has competitors too.  

  NASCAR Sprint Cup racing, where do we start?   Ratings are falling, races are boring, sponsors are pulling out, manufacturers are in trouble ect.ect.  Worse, it really seems like the NASCAR management is out of touch.  But, . Nationwide, things are looking even worse.  Very few winners, pretty much the Joe Gibbs Series, a ton of Start and Parks, and just really no one caring.  Camping World Trucks?  Well, smaller fields, no sponsors, and a ton of Start and Parks.

  Grand Am(Grand Sham) the NASCAR Sportscar series.  They are in trouble.  Car count was down for the 24 hours, so I’d worry about them for the rest of the races.  No one even goes to the 24, much less the other races. 

  So what does this mean?  Well, for starters, Indycar is in trouble.  Clearly if things don’t improve, Indycar will die.  Or, be sold off, either to CART2.0 or, maybe, NASCAR/Grand Am/DMG, which would mean it would be better off dead.  Or, it would be reduced to Indy and a couple supporting races, as the IRL was in the 1998 era.  Hiring Randy Bernard as CEO to me feels like a last minute move.  If it goes well, then Indycar will survive, but if it goes wrong, I think it would probably kill the series.  Izod is great, but how long will the stick around.  So in the end, I see Indycar as very endangered. 

  As for sportscar, I think they’ll both survive.  ALMS will survive based of the GT2 class, which is still pretty good, and the 12 Hours of Sebring and Petiet Le Mans.  As for Grand Am, NASCAR will float them as long as ALMS is around. 

  NASCAR wise, Sprint Cup will survive.  Enough people are interested that even with a major fall off it will be around, and enough drivers do have a fan base that I think it will live.  Nationwide is tough.  It’s not going well, but NASCAR will keep a 2nd tier series around, so it lives.  As for Camping World Trucks, they probably  will die.  There’s not point to them, and so I just don’t see NASCAR floating them as well as Nationwide and Grand Am. 

  The biggest thing NASCAR and Formula One need to realise is they can’t be complacent.  Even though at this moment I don’t see them endangered, if the continue on the current path, they could end up like Indycar, and then they could be destroyed. 

  There is a real danger that national level auto racing could become very marginalised if things don’t improve.  However, this doesn’t have to happen.  The biggest thing is the racing has to become interesting again.  And they need to re-engage the fans.  Otherwise, people will just go and watch other sports.

A NASCAR driver to run an Indycar Event?

  Hot off the presses, read http://thestar.blogs.com/autoracing/2010/02/danica-in-stock-cars-has-nascar-star-keen-on-open-wheel.html for the news, andhttp://www.16thandgeorgetown.com/2010/02/stock-car-star-looking-to-attempt-irl.html for a little analysis. 

  So?  Well, if this is true, then the first thing is that the series isn’t mentioned.  The writers says they can’t mention the series, so it might not be Indycar.  Other Open Wheel Series possible include Indy Lights, Atlantics, GP2, GP3, and Formula 3.  However, the article also says that the driver will run on a track they are familiar with, and that the driver was in the Budwiser Shootout, and doesn’t have any Indycar experience(so not Stewart).  Also, they want to run on a track they are familiar with.  So most likely an oval, and thus most likely Izod Indycar. 

 The 16th and Georgetown Blog has some analysis.  I would assume that a top cup driver would want a proper Izod Indycar ride, not Lights.  16th and Georgetown believes that Texas is most likely, and has broke down which tracks would conflict with cup.  My analysis is that Texas is possible, but I’d say Chicagoland looks pretty good to me.  Watkins Glen and Infenion are also possible, but I do think an Oval makes most sense, plus those two tracks run different configurations then NASCAR.  Texas makes sense, because they’ve tried to get a NASCAR driver to come before. 

  In other words, I’ve got no idea where it’ll be.  Now as to who it’ll be, that I can shed some light on.  I think Waltrip and Cope won’t do it.  I don’t think Labonte will either.  Kahne, Newman, Jeff Gordon, all have USAC experience, and likely have dreamed of Indycar(confirmed for Gordon).  But, Gordon has repeatedly stated that he thinks running Cup and Nationwide together isn’t a good idea, and so he’d only want to run if there were no cup date.  Kenny Schrader is an old school racer who likes to try different series, but I don’t think he’s really a star, either. I thought I once read that Greg Biffle ran some European Open Wheel stuff when he was younger.  If thats true, then he’s also out.  As well, I just don’t see Lagono doing it, although he’d be most likely to do Indy Lights.

  My gut would lean Kyle Busch.  The only problem is Gibbs sometimes would let Stewart run the Indy500, but then more recently he blocked Stewart from running the 500.  That could prevent Busch, but then he does a ton of other racing stuff already, so maybe Gibbs is okay with it.  

  Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurry have team owners who also own Indycar teams.  And, they own winning teams.    Between the two, I hope it’s Busch, but Ganassi does seem to like McMurry a lot. 

  A really interesting possibility is Dale Junior.  He has stated he respects Indy, and it would be a huge deal.  However, with his NASCAR struggles, I don’t know if he’ll be up for it. 

  Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick would be fun, because they’ve commented on how Indycar racing isn’t nearly has hard as NASCAR. 

   In the end, I really don’t know.  It could be anyone, and it could be not true or fall through.   But it is interesting, and I’ll follow through on this story, if/when it continues.

Blog Participation, First Edition: John Hall

This is the start of the new feature Blog Participation!  The first guest is John Hall from www.livefastracing.com, and the LivefastRacing Podcast.  He watches multiple series, and does a lot of Motorcycle stuff.   This feature will continue, and for the next two guests I would like to find NASCAR writers/bloggers to kick off the Daytona 500!

1.) What races are you looking forward to the most next year?  Why?
John: First and foremost I am probably most excited about when the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series returns to Cleveland Speedway this June.  Last years race was one of the best dirt races I’ve ever seen and I’m sure this year’s will be as well.  Lucas has a great series and Clevelandalways does well with this show.  This is what oval racing SHOULD look like.

I’m also going to try and get back down to Atlanta for Petit Le Mans
this year.  I’m not sure any other event in North America packs as
much into 2 days as the Friday/Saturday of Petit weekend.  I love the
variety of cars and classes you get with ALMS as well as the more
casual paddock atmosphere.  Road Atlanta knows how to treat fans as
well.

Other than those two, I pretty much am looking forward to WSBK and
MotoGP, especially WSBK.  With Spies gone, it will be WIDE open for
the championship this year and the talent level just keeps getting
upped.  And although they’re now a year old, I still get pretty pumped
to see/hear the Aprilia RSV4 and BMW S1000RR used in anger.  Those
bikes are just vicious.  MotoGP should be good as well, although it
feels like we’re back in a holding pattern until the 1000cc engines
come back.  I’d like to see Hayden rebound some and see how Spies
does.  The new Moto 2 championship should be interesting as well.

Dylan: In a dark way, I’m looking forward to the first 4 Indycar races, to see how bad they are.  Brazil(unconfirmed), St Pete, Barber, Long Beach?  It’s like they are trying to turn fans off!

Otherwise, I’m not sure if there’s one race I’m looking forward to more than others.  Certainly Indycar at Kentucky and Chicagoland should be good, and the 12 Hours of Sebring and Petite Le Mans are good.  But really, how many good F1 or NASCAR races have there been in  the  last few years?  Thats a problem, when I honestly can’t pick an event for either series that I’m particularly pumped about.

2.) Who was the driver/rider of the decade?(2 or four wheel)

John: That’s easily going to be Valentino Rossi.  Seven championships in thepremier class is impressive enough but the way he did it was what putshim above anyone else I’ve ever seen.  He is one of the few riders on earth who is both a good rider and a good racer.  He can be fluid and
smooth when he needs to preserve the lead but also dice through
traffic and make the most of his passing opportunities.  And then
there’s his mental game.  He simply BROKE the competition when
necessary.  The way he completely destroyed rivals was downright
brutal.  I think the bike world will always wonder the “what ifs” with
Gibernau and Biaggi (who has since redeemed himself in WSBK) had Rossinot been there.  Vale also went to arguably the worst bike on the gridwhen he switched from Honda to Yamaha and still found a way to win thechampionship which proved with him, it was about the rider, NOT thebike.  This is bittersweet to write because I’m really not a huge
Rossi fan at all, but facts are facts.  If I were to give honorable
mentions for the decade I think I’d have to give Michael Schumacher
and Ricky Carmichael the nod.

Dylan: To me, three drivers occupy the top tier.  Jimmie Johnson, Micheal Schumacker, and Valetino Rossi.  And I do feel Rossi is the best.  I’ve watched very little of MotoGp, but the fact is he consistently is on top, and has won a streak of titles, lost a few, then come back and won more really elevates him ahead of Johnson.  As for Schumacker, Rossi has raced longer this decade.  And he does it without appearing to be the machine that Johnson and Schumacker are.

3.) What was the best racing moment of 2009

This is a tough one because I didn’t get to see a whole lot of racing
due to my work schedule.  I think Ben Spies winning the WSBK
Championship as a rookie and for the first time ever for Yamaha was
amazing.  I think it proved just how good he and the pre-DMG
competition that strengthened him as a rider really were.  I also
think it was a great moment for Yamaha because of their decades of
lackluster output in WSBK.  They finally put the right team and bike
together and I appreciate the effort that had to take.

Also this year some praise here had to go to Max Biaggi taking the win
in the WSBK Race One at Brno on the new Aprilia RSV4.  This was sort
of a redemption for Biaggi after his MotoGP career kind of flamed out.
Even though he had won with Alstare Suzuki a few years back, to do so
with a new team that also happened to be Italian was a serious
achievement.  Brno was also a great result for Aprilia in their first
year back in the series on a new bike that they are still sorting out
now.

The best racing-related but non-racing moment was when Roger Edmonson,
the hapless, malevolent destroyer of AMA Superbike was shown the door.
Hopefully the bridges he burnt with EVERYONE in the series can be
repaired over the coming year and when paired with an overall economic
recovery, the series can possibly come back to where it needs to be.

Dylan: Honestly, I didn’t feel like there were many good races in the series I watched, partly why I’m looking into MotoGp and WSBK.  F1 had different winners, but no passing.  NASCAR’s only underdog winners won on fuel mileage or restrictor plates.  Hendrick just stomped the field.  And there weren’t any epic finishes without plates.

Indycar had a few good moments, namely Toronto, Kentucky, and Chicagoland.  However, Homestead, Montegi, ect. still sucked.  But I feel like all the best moments were Indycars.

Otherwise, as a long time fan, Jeff Gordon’s win at Texas was pretty big.  I was really excited about it, but unfortunately he didn’t win again.

4.) What changes does Indycar need to make to help rebuild themselves?

John: I think I’ve said it a few times on my podcast before and I still
believe it here…Indy Car needs to figure out what it is before it
can sell itself to the world.  Right now it’s just sort of a bizarro
mashup between old fashioned USAC oval racing and then a poor man’s
American Grand Prix.  Until they have a consistent identity that they
can market to sponsors and fans they will be trapped in purgatory.
That said, this situation wouldn’t be as bad were the on track action
a little better.  Since Indy Car seems to have a knack for always
picking THE WORST road and street courses (Barber in particular) and
lets the Big 2 teams dominate all the ovals, I don’t think the on
track action is going to pick up any casual fans.  Finally, if they
don’t get the new car situation sorted and some other manufacturers
involved immediately, it’s going to be too late.  Fans and sponsors
aren’t going to wait forever.

Dylan: To me, the best way to make Indycar successful is to make it different.  It cannot be fenderless NASCAR or, as John put’s it, poor man’s GP.  That is why I support Delta Wing, or at the VERY LEAST, a completely different looking car.  If we have a completely different car, say a wingless one, it would help make it a unique product.

My vision for Indycar is the most diverse series in the world, both in terms of drivers and tracks.  50-50 of ovals and Road courses, with a couple of street courses in the Road course side.  I believe that there should be a mix of American short trackers, American Road Racers, and International drivers.  As for the feel of it, I think that Indycar should be a much more fan focused F1 type thing.  Be more cutting edge than NASCAR, but don’t do it at the fans expense either.  Be diverse, and embrace the diversity of running Iowa and running Long Beach.  Not the easiest thing to do, but it’s what has to be done.

Also, if Delta Wing is a significantly smaller car, then hopefully Mid Ohio could become a good event, and the Street Courses and Short ovals would improve too.  And yes, Barber, Infenion, and the street courses need to be reduced, NOT ADDED!!! No Baltimore GP!

5.) Which American would be most fun to watch try F1(does not have to be a likely possiblity)

Well, since Nicky Hayden just won that karting event in Europe maybe
he could get a try?  Honestly, I’m not sure how he’d do on four wheels
but he does at least have the world travelling lifestyle and pr thing
down cold.  I’d definitely root for him.  I know a lot of people are
having fun with this question and think any of the more aggressive
NASCAR drivers would be fun.  You hear names like Carl Edwards, Kyle
Busch, Tony Stewart, even Dale Jr., and honestly I think they’d all do
better than people expect because NASCAR forces them to get a LOT of
wheel time and basically dedicate themselves to racing full time, so I
doubt they’d have any of the discipline issues you see F1 drivers have
sometimes.  I don’t think it would be that fun to watch though.  After
the first turn the cars are so spread out that individual driving
style is irrelevant.  Honestly, and this is way out there, just on
entertainment value, I’d like to see the senior guard of American
racing go over there.  Somebody like a John Force or a Scott
Bloomquist.  The radio chatter and press conferences would be off the
charts.

Dylan: Jeff Gordon would be the best.  I’ve been a fan a long time, and would love to see that.  I think he’s good enough, but of course he’s to old.  And he’d need a good car.  But that’s the one I’d want.

6.) Where Should the USGP go, where is it likely to go?

In my mind you have three choices.  You can do Road America,
Indianapolis or Streets of Miami.  From a racing standpoint Road
America would absolutely be the best, but since it is so far from an
international airport I’m not sure it would ever happen.  And without
MAJOR subsidies from local government and sponsors there’s no way they
could afford Bernie’s sanctioning fees.  I was at the last USGP in
Indy and I think it was better than some of the critics give it credit
for.  That town knows how to handle a race and the track isn’t really
any worse than any of the Tilke designed ones.  Now they could run the
MotoGP course so that might improve the racing a bit.  However, with
Tony George no longer controlling anything I doubt it happens.  Again,
the sanctioning fees are just too much.

The Miami street race has been talked about a long time, and Miami’s
culture and location make it accessible for Central and South American
F1 fans to be there again it’s just in this economy I’m not sure how
the financing would come through.  Right now I just don’t think a USGP
will be likely unless the manufacturers force a reduced cost for the
race out of Ecclestone or one of them ponies up as title sponsor.
Since the few factories that haven’t left have kind of taken a
backseat in the newest version of F1, I would think the chances of
that happening are remote.  And with the series being gone for the
last three years, I’m not sure there would be enough fan interest to
justify doing one here again.

Dylan: Road America!  Yes, they need to move the wall of the Kink back a little so that a SAFER Barrier could be added, but otherwise it’s fine.  It would be one of the best tracks in the series, and a nice break from the Tilke Tracks and Street Curciuts.  Sadly though, with the pull out of Toyota, Honda, and BMW plus the loss of some of the main sponsors that do business in the US, there’s just less push for a race here.  And who’s going to pony up the cash for a series few Americans care about when they’ve got NASCAR, or Indycar, or MotoGp or WBSK?

7.) What is the future for Sportscar racing?

I don’t really know.  While it is technically relevant (at least more
so than NASCAR or NHRA) and has a highly devoted cult following, I’m
not sure it will ever have enough mainstream appeal to garner big time
factory support in the United States.  As much as I love the format,
the longer race lengths and multiple classes on track at one time are
probably confusing to somebody who isn’t familiar with it and worst of
all, it doesn’t make for great TV, which is crucial in gaining market
share.  The future is probably more of the same…a niche sport that
survives on superfans and is a testing ground for manufacturers who
want to race Le Mans.  There’s nothing wrong with that and it is
probably a more sustainable model than most series have.

Dylan: Grand Am needs to die.  It hurts ALMS, and does nothing on its own.  For a very casual fan, it is hard to tell the differance at first.  Plus it keeps three events(24 hours of Daytona, Montreal, and Watkins Glen) and a few good teams/drivers out of real sportscar racing (ALMS).  Plus, whats the point of spec enduro racing?

Thats what I think needs to happen, but the problem is Grand Sham is owned by NASCAR.  Because of this, they won’t let it die.  Plus, they probably like the fact it hurts ALMS.  ALMS’s biggest problem is that in the current economic enviroment the Prototypes are dieing.  But once the economy gets better, they’ll probably find more.  Plus, Sebring and Road Atlanta will always have Prototypes.  However, I don’t know how to get it to the level of a major sport for most people.  Still, hopefully ALMS will grow again, and the GT2 class looks great.

8.) Should Indycar run 1.5 mile ovals?

Yes.  As long as they can be done cheaply, which shouldn’t be an issue
in this economy.  Ovals are integral to Indy Car’s series is going to be DOA in North Amerhistory and still
what most of their hardcore fans care the most about.  Plus I think
the demise of the CCWS shows that a road/street course only open wheel series is going to be DOA in North America

Dylan: Yes!    Chicagoland and Kentucky were the best two races held last year I watched.  The only issue is ISC owns a lot of those tracks, and SMI owns the others.  But still, Indycar is the only series right now able to put a good race on these tracks!

9.)  Can the Hendrick domination be stopped?

I don’t know.  So much goes on in the background that we don’t hear
about in NASCAR you almost wonder if they haven’t come up with some
kind of secret “Hendrick Rule”.  I’m not sure that would be necessary
though.  With the newer rules package, other teams may become more
competitive.  But if you look at it from a business standpoint,
Hendrick probably has the most solid sponsorship and funding of anyone
out there, and in this economy that means they can hire more
specialists and do more simulation and testing than anyone else.
Honestly for as tight an on track operation as Hendrick runs, R&D is
probably their strongest attribute.  Until someone matches that, they
will be hard to shake. But l also I think Hendrick has had an
incredible lucky streak over the last few years and NASCAR success
often depends so much on luck (i.e. track position) I wonder if
Hendrick doesn’t just regress to the mean naturally anyway.

Dylan: Hopefully.  It’s hard because Hendrick runs a budget of like 250 Million dollars.  It should be remembered that Hendrick doesn’t have to travel around the world, and doesn’t have to build a unique car every year, as in F1.  So yeah, thats a lot of money.  But, as long as Penske, Gibbs, and Roush are around Hendrick won’t stay on top forever.  These three teams are strong enough to take down Hendrick.  My only hope is that they take Hendrick down without becoming Hendrick, because that would be boring to watch.

10.) Are NASCAR’s fixes enough, do they go to far, or do they miss the point?

The jury is still out on this.  Moving the start times back to what
the were is HUGE because they’re now on even footing with NFL start
times in the fall and because I think people were tired of races
starting and running so late.  I have no idea what substituting a
spoiler instead of the wing rule will do, and the plate and bump draft
changes will likely result in nothing but more needless carnage.
Every year we hear “we’re going back to our roots and let our drivers
be themselves” etc ad infinitum but it never really happens.  Most of
the newer drivers have no personality anyway since they’ve been
programmed to be racers since early childhood and have had to spend
nearly every waking moment of their lives in preparation for their
careers.

Personally I would still like to see shorter races.  The reason for
the long race distances was originally as a test of endurance of stock
or near stock equipment, which hasn’t been relevant in probably 25
years.  Shortening races would eliminate the complete tedium of
hundreds of needless laps and tighten up the action so that every pass
and every pit stop meant something.  Obviously a shorter race duration
would mean less TV ad buys but you could raise the prices for the
smaller number of slots and still probably come out ahead.  I’m not
sure NASCAR would ever do this since they own over half the tracks and
want people at the tracks and spending money as long as possible.  I
see this as short sided though because TV is what made NASCAR and is
still how it is primarily experienced.  If it resulted in a better
product, the at track revenue losses could be mitigated.  But I know I
am not their target demo and honestly am probably going to take
another vacation from following the sport much as I did in 2004-2007.
My free time is so precious and there is so much better racing out
there right now to waste on it.

Dylan: I think the start times are good.  It will please the fans.  However, I think the three things that hurt NASCAR the most are completely missed here.

First, they need better tracks.  I feel that 32 races at 28 tracks make the most sense.  I understand that SMI and ISC don’t like this idea, but the constant re-running of the same tracks get tedious.  Adding some smaller tracks, which I feel is a good idea, would bring NASCAR out to places that have NO major sporting events, except maybe College Football/Basketball.  I’d like to see them run Portland and Road America, drop Infenion, add Montreal, and add Pike’s Peak, Nazareth, Irwendale, Iowa, Kentucky, and some of the other smaller tracks back in the schedule.  Yeah they’d be run in front of “smaller” crowds, but it would have a great impact on fans if a smaller track in their area hosted a race.  Plus Iowa has few major entertainment options, and no NASCAR Sprint Cup race anywhere near it, I feel like you could sell a ton of tickets for this event.

Secondly, the all spec car aspect is getting old.  The issue I think is that because it’s all spec, smaller, and harder to find changes are what’s going to add that extra bit needed to win.  I feel like more adjustable is whats needed, and it’s not happening.  The spoiler will still be tightly controled, just like the wing.

Third, the series has very little personality.  The drivers who have it, aren’t  allowed to show it.  It’s just not compelling to watch a bunch of people who all are best friends race each other.  JJ, Gordon, and Martin all were buddy’s while running for a title!  Sadly, NASCAR seems unable to see this, as the “shut up and drive” meeting two years ago proves.