I Support Nothing About Delta Wing

Delta Wing finally got some good news as Nissan announced a partnership that will see Nissan branding and engines in the failed Indycar concept as it runs unclassified at Le Mans. This news is a positive development for a project that looked in danger of failing due to lack of money.  Delta Wing has some high profile and committed fans in the racing world, but I can honestly say I like and support NOTHING about this car, or rather, this trike. Support or lack there of for Delta Wing speaks to the most basic views on racing a person can hold.  People who support Delta Wing point to it’s inovation and potential relevance on production cars and may see it as a way back to the era when race cars and production cars were much closer to each other.  On the other hand Delta Wing haters like myself point out that a trike that looks like a sex toy is not the best way to represent a sport and that a 300HP engine in a premier auto racing  league is kind of lame.  I’m for innovation in some situations (Tyrell 6 wheeler) but I honestly can say that nothing about the Delta Wing excites me or interests me.  This, rather unsurprisingly, is a controversial opinion.

Delta Wing is ugly.  Whether or not looks should matter is controversial, as many “purists” feel that this is a very ignorant and uniformed view of racing.  In their view, form should follow function.  Yet I would counter by saying looks do matter.  Car companies spend a lot of money on styling.  Watch Top Gear and look at the most popular supercars.  Those are styled to look exciting and cool as well as be fast.  A Gumpert Apollo or Atom V8 may be faster (around a track) than a Bugatti Veyron or Lamborghini Reventon but which one would 99% of people rather own?  Which ones get more airtime and attention?  On the more practical level for a racing series the car is what fans will be looking at every time there’s a race for a majority of the time.  When a casual fan flips through the channels the first thing they’ll notice is the car.  The look of the car makes one of the first impressions on the viewer; first impressions matter and I’d hate to have a Delta Wing be that first impression.  Besides, on broadcast TV in the US Delta Wing could get the networks cause some major FCC fines.

Relevance is great but does it really increase the number of fans watching and even the automaker involvement?  After all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans only has 1 full factory effort in LPM1 (Audi), one growing effort (Toyota, will likely be bigger in the future), and Nissan with the D-wang non classified project.  Some argue Honda is also a semi-factory effort but this is not the place for that discussion. NASCAR, with no relevance at all, has 4 major automakers fully involved.  Fan wise relevance doesn’t matter to a majority of people.  Again, look at Top Gear, look at the TV ratings for NASCAR versus ALMS.  Speed records could potentially matter more but that’s a very different situation.  When people tune into Top Gear are they looking for relevant automotive information or are they looking for an exciting and entertaining show?  Further shows like Top Gear allow people to see cars they’re unlikely to ever get to drive or even see in person on the road. They’re showing off aspirational products.  I would argue much the same thing in racing.  There are plenty of 300 HP cars (and in America trucks) out on the road. When I watch racing I’m looking to see something a bit bigger and better than that.

Besides how much relevant road development really comes out of Delta Wing?  Delta Wing achieves high efficiency through low weight and aerodynamics.  Road cars certainly use those things to achieve better fuel economy, but will Delta Wing help develop that?  I don’t see how.  Carbon fiber is way too expensive to use in an everyday production car.  If you can afford a carbon fiber car then you can afford gas at just about any price it’s sold at.  Aerodynamics in a road car are dictated by style, as well as by functions of things like safety, passengers, luggage, and all the other things that go into a street car. Oh, and the front tires have to be very different on the D-wang from a normal car.  I’m not involved in the auto industry but I struggle to see what lessons from Delta Wing are applicable to a road car.  A super car could use it, but that’s a different situation.   On the engine front some relevant development might happen.  However a 300 HP engine in a premier racing series is lame and I don’t see it being a very appealing sell to fans.  Definitely not in the US.  Who’s going to want to watch racing when there are cars in the parking lot with more power than the cars on track?  Using a small production engine in a big league series risk damaging the wow factor of that series, it risks the prestige, excitement, and coolness factor of the racing series in question.

Is Delta Wing really the future of racing?  God, I hope not.  And truthfully I don’t think it will be the future of most major series.  Le Mans may head in that direction but I don’t believe overall that NASCAR will and F1 may move halfway there but high horsepower should remain.  Indycar… well, they’re too conventional to ever try something like that. It’ll be a sad day if Delta Wang’s take over  Le Mans. The last generation of open top Audi’s were some of the best looking racing cars I’ve ever seen and there still are a number of very interesting LMP1 cars out there.  Replacing them with Delta Wing would be a tragedy.  Adding the Delta Wing in as a separate class is an idea and I suppose better than LMPC but not be much.  I personally hope the D-wang dies a quick death and is never heard from again.  Nothing about it is good.  300 HP racing is not a good thing. Vibrator shaped cars are not a positive.  A car that reliant on aerodynamics could be a problem if it got even a tiny bit of damage during a race.  The car could dramatically slow down. I would also question the quality of racing a Delta Wing series might produce.  I dislike the current (new) Indycar a lot, but at least Indycar wasn’t stuck with Delta Wing.  I feel bad for any parents who have to have awkward conversations with their young children after seeing the Delta Wing in person or on track.  I imagine that Rick Santorum would try and ban the D-wang and not let video of it be shown in schools.  Indycar’s ICONIC panel failed miserably but at least they didn’t pick the Delta Wing.  We have that to be thankful for.

2011: A Year’s Worth of Racing In Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.