Team Meeting Weekend in Review; Free Paul Tracy/O2RT Edition:

Indycar:  Free Paul Tracy and Free O2RT.  It’s all been said already, but I would just like to repeat, how can it be okay for Dario to do the “win and whine” and Ganassi and Penske to attempt to kill aero kits, but O2RT and Paul Tracy get crucified?   That’s insane.  If that’s how Indycar’s officiated, no wonder O2RT and PT don’t trust their race day officiating!

Toronto was a disaster, but what’s the solution?  A lot of people want to see more officiating, but all that’s going to do is turn the race into a parade with no contact, but also no passing.  In what way is that better?  In all honesty, if I’ve got to pick between a crashfest and a parade, I’m picking crashfest every time; at least there is the potential of an interesting winner (which we did not get a Toronto).  Besides, Cotman, Unser Jr., and Barnahrdt have proven they are not capable in any way, shape, or form, so giving them more rules to (selectively) enforce is counter productive.

The solution is two fold.  The new car might help.  The biggest thing to change is the length/width of the tracks.  As has been discussed many times, the tracks are too short, too narrow, and have too few passing zones.  As such, they will turn either into a parade  or a wreckfest.  To fix it, get better tracks or improve the current ones.  Funny thing is, there are tracks in Florida, Georgia, and Wisconsin that are longer and have actual passing zones…

Could be great, could be another Indy Failure League moment

In some positive news, Edmonton might be a good race.  The new track map looks interesting and has a nice straight section.  I’ve been saying all year this might be the best road race of the year, as it’s the only one (outside of Sao Paolo) being held at a track that’s got a bit of length to it and may have some passing zones.  I like the long straight a lot, but there is some risk that the way it cut’s the runway in half could be both a safety hazard and cut down on room to pass.  Still, at least it has potential.

The lone positive about Toronto was Simona’s return to the top 10.  She got her third top 10 finish of the season and managed to avoid the large amounts of wrecks.

Schedule Watch 2011:  Bad news, according to the IBJ, Indycar is considering a European leg of the season, although thankfully, this would not be next season.  However combined with a possible 2nd race in Brazil and new rumors of a Mexico City race (cause Mexico is really safe right now…) and it’s feeling very Champcar esque.  Bernard also has an un-natural fascination with Houston… Laguna Seca has come up as well; becuase Indycar needs more too narrow/short road courses.  In happier news, Road America, Watkins Glen, and Chicagoland are in play with Fontana already being confirmed.  Sadly, Road Atlanta and Sebring are not.

I like Bernard and have a lot of confidence in him.  I also support his double file restart decision and Vegas 5 million challenge.  Yet I can’t help but feel a little less postively about him with the recent Tracy/O2RT issue, as well as his love for a European, Chinese, Brazilian, and Houston race.   We’ll see how the schedule works out; I honestly have no idea what it’s going to end up like because there are so many different rumors/reports.  I like Bernard a lot, but depending on how this goes, it may be time for a reevaluation.

NASCAR:  Another race, another fuel finish.  This has been a better season than I expected and has had a varied group of winners, but the fuel finishes are getting old.  Almost every other race it seems has come down to fuel!   NASCAR has got to find a way to improve the racing on their 1.5-2 mile ovals.  The solution is obvious; cut down on the “dirty air” the current cars produce and add some adjustablity.  Sadly, this isn’t happening, and so the fuel finished continue.

The rumors of Carl Edwards going to Gibbs continue to build.  Despite the fact that Edwards is leading the points with Roush.  Edwards at Gibbs would give him 3 of the best drivers in NASCAR, with Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Busch.  The only problem is, Busch and Edwards don’t get along well and having both in one team might create too much conflict.

The NASCAR hype men are trying to convince everyone that Kyle Busch’s “100th” win is a monumental and historic moment.  Just one problem, a majority of those wins are in the Nationwide and Truck series where he, as a Cup driver, has a massive advantage against his opponents.  In Cup competition he has 22 wins.  That’s good but it’s not historic.  Another non story in NASCAR to cover up the problems.

And the biggest problem of all is sponsorship.  Red Bull and Crown Royal have left the teams they sponsored (or ran, in the case of Red Bull).  When two companies that are still fairly profitable and still plan on being involved in various other forms of sponsorship leave that suggests a serious lack of Return on Investment.

Kyle Busch also made an interesting comment with regards to Indycar, saying he has a sponsor ready to support him should he ever want to run an Indycar race; Vegas or the 500.  Getting Busch into the Vegas race would be a major victory for Indycar, and the combination of Kahne and Busch would instantly raise the ratings by a fairly large amount.

Sprint has come up with a new Sprint Summer Showdown.  The winners of the 5 races before Atlanta will be eligible to win a million dollars for themselves, a charity, and a fan if they also win Atlanta.  That actually makes it likely that Sprint will have to pay out this bonus; that’s a lot of races to give a driver a shot at qualifying for the bonus at Atlanta.

MotoGP:  After producing some F1 style races, MotoGP was back in good form with Mugello and Germany.  Lorenzo and Pedrossa have twice upset the Casey Stoner domination and for Lorenzo, it keeps his title hopes alive.   Pedrossa’s win was a major confidence boost after recovering from his second injury in the last year. Good racing and a lot of passing have been returned to the series.  Next up is Laguna Seca, the first of 2 US rounds of MotoGP.  Better yet, these two races are good tracks for both Hayden and Spies.

Valentino Rossi’s struggles have continued as he tries to figure out how to get the Ducati to race well.  The plan to bring the 2012 bike into 2011 has failed miserably.  The bike is still hard to handle and Hayden is considering keeping the 2011 bike instead of moving up to the 2012 converted bike at Laguna Seca.

The first test for the Claims Rule Team bikes did not go well.  The BMW powered machine couldn’t outrun the 800cc bikes testing with it.  The BMW was using BMW’s very difficult electronics package so that has to be taken into account.  Still the outlook is not good for CRT teams next year.

WSBK:  The World Superbike Championship ran a race at Bruno that was televised a week ago at the same time as the Indycar race at Toronto.  That didn’t do much to help my enjoyment of the Indycar race.  In one there was a 3 way fight for the lead, and in the other, there wasn’t, to put it nicely.  Marco Melandri and Max Biaggi each won a race and closed some of the gap between themselves and Checa.  Carlos Checa held onto 3rd in both races and thus avoided giving up too much ground.

ALMS/Le Mans:  The ALMS ran a non televised race at Lime Rock with 3 prototypes and no LMP2 cars.  The 24 Hours of Le Mans has had Jaguar and Porsche express an interest but none of that suggest either plans on joining the ALMS.   For ALMS fans the news continues to be bad.  Will there even be prototypes next year?  I have no idea.

If only NASCAR would make such a good looking car

DTM:  I’ve been accused of not being positive enough.  To answer all I have to say is this; look at the BMW DTM car.  I have nothing negative to say about it.  It looks awesome.

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.

USAC/Indycar Connection Confirmed! Will it Work???

Randy Bernard will announce today that the winner of the USAC Grand National Championship will be given a scholarship for Indy Lights ovals only.  In many ways, this is a very positive move.  Indycar needs more Americans, and this is a good way to get them.  Also, it’s another sign that Randy Bernard won’t forget about oval racing, which will be reassuring to many fans.  This decision has been discussed for a while, especially by Robin Miller, and is part of a larger push to make the Road To Indy actually work, instead of making Indycar the F3/F Renault, GP2, F1 reject dumping ground.  However, it’s a little concerning that the scholarship is for ovals only; after all, if you’re trying to develop a USAC driver into an Indycar driver, they’re already fairly prepared for the Indycar ovals; certainly, as prepared as any of the drivers who come straight from Europe, but what they’re not used to is road racing.  And by not assuring them road racing time, Indycar runs the risk of developing American talent that is only shown on half the races, or worse, drivers who only get a shot once a year at Indy.

I’m hoping that the scholarship will “roll over” to the next available driver if the winner doesn’t wish to run Indy Lights, because sadly some (many) will not, for one main reason, money.  Right now, Indycar is ride buyer driven, where as NASCAR generally isn’t (and even the start and parkers get a paycheck) and neither is USAC/WoO, plus staying in sprint cars gives drivers opportunities to run local and regional series, and be a driver/owner, and make a career out of it.  And it has to be disheartening to any driver with a hope of racing Indycar that Graham Rahal, Paul Tracy, Jr Hildebrand, Jonathon Summerton, Buddy Rice, and Ed Carpenter are all (were, in Rahal’s case) rideless; if drivers who are either champions of The Road To Indy, Indycar/CART winners, or should have lots of connections to money cannot get a ride, what chance do they have?

USAC drivers may need some of this to be successful

Also, it worries me that the scholarship is for ovals only.  With luck, they’ll be able to get a full time ride anyways, after all, with half a season paid for, it relieves half of the sponsorship burden, and many USAC drivers already have connections with sponsors.  But to develop a driver into Indycar, they’re really going to need road racing experience, otherwise they’ll end up like Ed Carpenter, an awesome oval driver, but horrible on the road courses.  But then again, remember Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have developed into good road racers in NASCAR (which includes competing against Montoya, Ambrose, and various Sportscar/Open Wheelers), so clearly a dirt track driver can learn road racing.

Right now, though, may be the perfect time to do this.  NASCAR, where USAC drivers have been going, is having a lot of issues, and Nationwide/Trucks are starting to become very ride buyer driven as well (Indycarification).  Rides aren’t as available, as current USAC points leader Bryan Clauson knows.  He had a fairly successful rookie year in Nationwide with Ganassi, but the Earnhardt Ganassi merger, and the sponsorship drying up, ended that, and he’s back in USAC.  This means there are going to be more USAC drivers who would be willing to look into Indycar.

This is part of a larger effort to make the Road To Indy matter; although this is the first part to be announced.  Plans are out there to advance the champions up a step, cumulating in the Lights champion moving to Indycar.  Ultimately, the success of this plan will rest on how the rest of the Road To Indy works, because if no one’s advancing from Lights, it doesn’t matter if a USAC driver get’s into Lights.

We've got lot's of this... let's get some diversity!

Finally, there are some people who are unhappy about this.  Naturally, anything involving the words USAC causes controversy.  Still, almost the ENTIRE series is made up of international road racers (some talented, some F1 rejects) and I really don’t see what it hurts to try and develop a couple of American oval drivers.  Besides, if the random international road racers are so great, they’ll end up winning anyways.  Also, there are people in the United States who’ve actually heard of Bryan Clauson!!!  Even with Indycar fans, outside of Servia, Kannan and Wheldon, no one’s going to miss the random non North American road racers (Conway/Moreas/Viso/Baguette/Sato) if they don’t come back next season.

Indycar's well known for failure... can this succeed???

Success or failure for this plan won’t be determined for a few years.  I like that Randy is focusing on developing drivers throughout the Road To Indy, so hopefully Indycar can progress from being ride buyer/ F1 reject land to actually having a full field of talented and successful drivers who’ve raced in Lights for a while.  But, this is Indycar, and they’re not renown for being able to accomplish their goals, and often giving up on ideas pretty quickly.  Can Randy Bernard change this?  If he can truly accomplish his goal of developing American talent, and the series continues to grow, and they get more sponsorship TO THE TEAMS, perhaps we’ll finally be able to really grow, hopefully in time to capitalize on NASCAR’s struggles.  Maybe we’ll even see Bryan Clauson and Chip Ganassi together again in Indycar???

NASCAR is Falling, but Who’s Taking Advantage of It?

NASCAR is clearly in trouble.  Ratings continue to drop, and as the Chase has started, have actually gotten worse which kind of makes the arguments for the Chase sound a little hollow.  It’s not just the economy, because that excuse may explain the attendance issues, but that doesn’t explain the fall in ratings.  The fall isn’t just a slight downturn, either; it’s become a very significant drop, which hasn’t helped with already cost conscience sponsors.  You’d think this would be the perfect opportunity for the other racing series in the country, especially Indycar, but sadly they seem to be failing to capitalize on this opportunity, in fact, the other series may be in worse shape.

Indycar is theoretically the series that should gain the most out of NASCAR’s struggles.  After all, it’s the only other major pavement oval racing series in the country, (ARCA doesn’t count) and American Open Wheel Racing was as big if not bigger than NASCAR just 15 years ago.  NASCAR falling is about the best thing Indycar could have hoped for after Unification, it gives them the opportunity to get disenfranchised NASCAR fans another form of televised oval racing, and Indycar gives the sponsors a much lower cost way to get involved with racing.  Sounds like everything Indycar could have hoped for, right?  Well… unfortunately it seems Indycar’s letting this opportunity slide by.  The ratings for Indycar on Versus are awful, .1-.2 in 2009 and this year they’ve hovered between .4-.6, which makes selling sponsorship, especially team sponsorship, very tough.  They have added no major sponsors from NASCAR except Version, which was driven out of NASCAR due to being a competitor of Sprint, have increased spending, and Shell may be slightly involved as a package deal from Penske’s NASCAR team, but otherwise, nothing.  Plus, Indy 500 ratings were down this year, and really, the racing hasn’t been very good at Indy since 06, and that’s the main time Indycar get’s to showcase itself to non-Indycar fans!

Plus, to gain more fans, you kinda need to have more than two teams win every race!  And possibly having more than 3 full time Americans, more good ovals, and maybe some passing on the road and street races.  I’m sure fans are lining up to see Mr. Classless (Sebastian Saadevra), the guy who’s name sounds like Bugatti, Adam Carroll, and Takuma Sato… it’s not like there’s any marketable or popular drivers without full time rides…(Rahal, Hildebrand, Tracy, Fisher, Carpenter, Rice).    All of these things tend to help bring in fans, especially fans who already watch racing!  And speaking of bringing in fans… running a parade around Motegi at 2AM doesn’t help either…

Indycar is missing the opportunity most people only could have dreamed of in 2008.  When/if Indycar ever improves itself to the point where it might finally be able to capitalize on this, it’s likely NASCAR will have found some way to fix their issues, and then the opportunity will be lost.  You would think that the much lower costs associated with Indycar would be appealing to sponsors who’re tired of NASCAR spending, but then you look at the fact Indycar is 17 races compared to 38 race weekends in NASCAR, with ratings generally in the .3-.4 range, you sort of see why Indycar’s got so few sponsors, especially for the teams.

A lot of ALMS fans are (or were before the Audi news) feeling pretty good.  After all, ALMS is “relevant” racing and that should bring in more manufacturer support.  Plus, the ratings of ALMS races on Speed equal or beat the Vs. Indycar races, and attendance is fairly strong, especially at Petite and Sebring.  The GT2 class has factory backed cars from Porsche, BMW, Corvette(GM), and Ferrari, plus other cars based off of Jaguar, Ford, and other sportscar makes.  And the new LMP2 rules seem to make it even easier to get more teams and manufactures involved!

But, things aren’t really that great for ALMS, either.  First off, Audi’s not going to enter, and even if Audi had joined, they would then simply have won every race!  What ALMS really needs is 3-4 LMP1 manufactures so that they can have a truly competitive and factory backed LMP1 class.  Secondly, I enjoy ALMS a lot, but it’s not the easiest form of racing for “casual” fans and there’s not much crossover potential with NASCAR.  4 different classes that sometimes running 10-24 hour races isn’t something a non racing fan is likely to understand or enjoy.  I see the biggest potential for growth coming from fans going from NASCAR to Indycar and then to ALMS, but until Indycar starts growing… well, that doesn’t help much.  And, ALMS has too few races spread across too long of time for them to truly become a “major” sport.

And, there’s an even bigger problem.  ALMS lacks any sort of star power.  Indycar (and AMA, Grand Am) struggles with that too, but at least you have potential, you’ve got Danica and Helio and Marco, plus Power, Kannan, Tracy, Wheldon, Rahal, Hunter-Reay, Silvestro, Mann, Hildebrand, Fisher, and Franchitti.  But in ALMS, how many of the drivers have even the recognition that TK or Wheldon?

Grand (Sh)Am and AMA Pro racing have no chance, mainly because they’re owned effectively by NASCAR, so they’re not even going to get a shot at real success.  Out of the two, AMA has a lot more potential.  In fact, were it not for the NASCAR connection, they’d have a lot of potential.  They have some potential for “star power” and the racing is often very good.  But, again, too few races spread across too long of season, and the races are run tape delayed on SpeedTV at Midnight and latter.  Plus, auto racing people may struggle with the switch to 2 wheels.  In the end, though, the NASCAR connection is the real reason they’ll never get off the ground, because NASCAR’s never going to let another series owned by them start to gain any ground on Cup.

F1?  No American teams, drivers, or races…  MotoGP and WSBK have potential, especially MotoGP.  However, I just can’t see MotoGP truly challenging NASCAR.  I’d love to see it, but I just don’t think that’s likely.  I could see MotoGP challenging Indycar and ALMS, maybe even getting ratings in the 1.0 range, but an International Road Racing series probably has a fairly low glass ceiling in America.

World of Outlaws, Lucas Late Models, and other forms of short track and dirt track racing fits very well with what most NASCAR fans are used to.  But, it’s not regularly televised, so while it likely is where the diehard oval fans will go, the casual fans probably won’t move to that.

It seems, and I know a lot less about this than other forms of racing, but it seems NHRA is doing a bit better than the other series at grabbing unhappy NASCAR fans.  The series has a similar “feel” to NASCAR, and has a lot of interesting storylines in it.  Personally, NHRA, or really any kind of drag racing, doesn’t interest me, but it does seem like they’re benefiting from NASCAR troubles more than others.

The elephant in the room is the fact that road racing series have struggled in the US to gain “mainstream” appeal for a sustained period of time.  This puts a cap on the amount of support that’s likely even possible for ALMS, AMA, Grand Am, and in some ways Indycar.  Maybe that attitude can change, and maybe road racing can become more popular in America, but until that happens, road racing series are going to be far behind NASCAR and even farther behind the “stick and ball” and even PBR and UFC!  Which does make you wonder why Indycar’s adding more and more road and street racing… but anyways, let’s not get stuck on tangents.

It’s not completely the other series fault for not capitalizing on NASCAR’s struggles; after all, the economic problems have hurt them, too.  But for Indycar especially, this is/was the perfect opportunity that could only have been dreamed about 4 years ago.  This might have been Indycar’s best window to regain it’s strength, and if anything, things have been getting worse, not better.  ALMS, AMA, MotoGP, and WSBK are great forms of racing, and with luck, not to mention promotion by the series and their fans, hopefully they’ll start/continue to grow, but I can’t see any of them really being able to break out of the “niche” sport market, or challenge NASCAR, either.  That said, if they could get ratings to equal PBR (1.3ish) that would be a very positive thing.  Indycar should be taking advantage of this opportunity, but they’re not.  NHRA seems to be doing alright, and getting a few of the NASCAR people to tune in, and the dirt track/short track series are probably getting some of the really hardcore NASCAR people to attend some of their races, but really, no one’s capitalizing on this opportunity to the point where it’s anything more than a dream that they’ll ever challenge NASCAR for supremacy.  And really, that’s the scary as a racing fan.  What happens if NASCAR continues to fall and becomes a complete niche sport again and none of the others step it up?  Will racing then completely fall off the “mainstream” US radar and become like MLS and WNBA?  That is what should worry all American racing fans, whether they like NASCAR or not, if NASCAR implodes and there’s no racing series there to take it’s place (as NASCAR did to Indycar in the 90’s) then what happens?  I don’t know, but I doubt it’s something any racing fans are going to want to find out.

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.