The Current State of IndyCar

[D.R.T.]

Wasnt one the initial road course set up and the other the oval road course set up?

The nerf bars were never going to prevent wheels touching at high speed - but has helped with reducing cut tyres, front wing damage etc

[Razzzor]

Originally Posted by Salamus

If aesthetics play a big part (which I agree they do), than why does your friend watch F1 and NASCAR? I don't know other people's opinion of F1 and NASCAR cars but they both look fairly ugly to me (NASCAR is getting a bit better). Does your pal consider F1 and NASCAR cars appealing?

That's a very good point. People go about the Indycars being ugly.

But F1 lately looks silly with those high, skinny back wings.
Nascar are just too big and the window frames have always been awkward and ugly. Smooth and slipstream doesn't apply to Nascar looks.
Rally cars are nothing but little old lady hatchbacks these days. Most touring car series' has pretty plain, boxy looking cars.

If you really watch car racing because you care about aesthetics, then sports car racing is where all the good looking cars are.

Part of Indycars issue is no one cares about the manufacturers. V8 Supercars in Aussie, to the casual fan, is more about manufacturer and Ford vs Holden than the actual drivers.
Even F1 still has manufacturers with all the Ferrari fans not really giving a damn who's actually in the car, all they care about is that it's Ferrari and winning.

No one cares much about Indycar's engines Honda vs Chevy. And the casual race fan won't even know what Dallara is - it certainly doesn't relate to their own road car.

[Paradise City]

Aesthetics is needed to engage or reengage fans. To retain fans, that's when the racing and the quality of the drivers come into play.

[JacobP]

In my opinion, the only truly ugly thing about IndyCars is the big bulky insert between the front and read wheels. I understand it's there for safety, but why make it rise so conspicuously above even the rear tires? Just build that section to the minimum allowed size that's required for safety, and make that part as inconspicuous as possible.

Next, I don't think that car "beauty" is what's holding IndyCar from being popular. Just look at two important examples. First, NASCAR. The Sprint Cup cars look like huge soap bars on wheels. They're truly ugly, and yet NASCAR is as popular as ever. Next, the LMP1 cars in WEC and ALMS are probably the most beautiful cars ever, and yet the LMP1 racing has been relatively bland for the last few years. Perhaps people still pay attention to LMP1 in 24 Hours of Le Mans and the rest of WEC, but no one really cares much any more about the procession known as P1 in ALMS. The new TUSCC after ALMS/Grand Am merger killed the LMP1 category and we don't see many fans shedding crocodile rivers of tears because of that, even though LMP1s were the most striking cars in the ancestor series. Why is that? The racing is boring. They can't even have a two horse race.

Now in IndyCar we have truly badass cars and great racing. The cars may look ugly on TV, but they sound pretty mighty at the race track. So why isn't IndyCar more popular? I don't know. There has been a major cultural shift. Americans care a lot about sports, but they don't really care much for motorsport it seems.

[Paradise City]

Well, ALMS don't get ratings for peanuts. They do get a good crowd turn out. Not unlike most sportscar series mind you. Different business model sportscars though.

NASCAR retained it's authority and people continue to engage out of habit. If Indycar had retained its authority they could tolerate an ugly car and bask in people who are habitual Indycar fans too. But they demolished themselves and flushed their authority down the drain with a particularly acrimonious and prolonged split and now noone is watching so they need a car that can turn heads again if they wish to reenter the national consciousness.

It's not necessarily beauty we are interested in here; it's cars come across muscular and intimidating, that they look the match for F1. By mind, Indycar bumbercars, in terms of stature, occupies the space between NASCAR trucks and ARCA and that won't inspire a serious audience.

[JHamilton]

A car, any car, can be cool without being handsome. F1 cars are a perfect example as they are not attractive but purposeful and interesting... Like they might have lasers mounted somewhere. Indycars are neither and there is something terribly out of proportion with them.

[Dragger]

Bring back true open-wheel race cars for one. The current Indycars look like those gooey bloated women with tiny shoulders and thunder thigh saddle bags sagging all over the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Allow more than a single chassis manufacturer, it's a spec series and everyone is racing identical clones. Yeah they're trapped in a contract, should've never agreed to it.

Bring back at least a few Indycar vets(Champs), maybe more F1 drivers(Webber or Senna woulda been great), and keep them, give them reason to stay instead of running to nascar(bleh).

What's with drivers changing sponsors and the color of the car from race to race??? It makes it difficult for the casual fans.

It really all leads to lack of sponsors and money, Indycar was in it's prime in the early 90's, they even took F1's Champion, Mansell. Shame tony george ruined it. At least the series is reunited from his mistake, it's just going to take time to work their way back up.

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

Part of Indycars issue is no one cares about the manufacturers. V8 Supercars in Aussie, to the casual fan, is more about manufacturer and Ford vs Holden than the actual drivers.

Even F1 still has manufacturers with all the Ferrari fans not really giving a damn who's actually in the car, all they care about is that it's Ferrari and winning.

No one cares much about Indycar's engines Honda vs Chevy. And the casual race fan won't even know what Dallara is - it certainly doesn't relate to their own road car.

Well, I've become a Penske fan. I feel the urge to root for the one with most points in the standings, no matter his personality. (I don't like Alonso too much, but I root for him too.)

Originally Posted by Marcus666

Is Indycar in such a bad shape as Champ Car was in 2007-2008?

Television ratings are really low. I care about that because it endangers the future of IndyCar. Still, when I tune races I enjoy them a lot.

[JacobP]

Originally Posted by Razzzor

Part of Indycars issue is no one cares about the manufacturers. V8 Supercars in Aussie, to the casual fan, is more about manufacturer and Ford vs Holden than the actual drivers.
Even F1 still has manufacturers with all the Ferrari fans not really giving a damn who's actually in the car, all they care about is that it's Ferrari and winning.

The problem is that IndyCar never really fostered true team competition. This goes way back. You can't change that overnight. I'll give props to F1 because they always had two championships, the driver championship and the constructors. In Formula 1, they have a real constructor (team) championship. How are you going to have a constructor championship in IndyCar if most teams run one car, but others run two, three, or four? In F1, each team has two cars, so the point arithmetic for teams is very simple, and both cars both look the same. Having the same color is very important for branding purposes. If you want the fans to care about the teams, then make sure that the cars that belong in one team have the same colors. You know Ferraris are red, Mercedes are silver, Lotus is black and gold, etc.

On the other hand, in IndyCar, it's always a mess. You don't even know how to identify cars that belong to the same team. Each car normally looks different, due to different sponsor deals that are specific to each car and driver. The same team can field a car that looks green, and another that's yellow and blue. Sometimes the color of the car changes depending on the race. So, even though Dario's car normally looks Target red, sometimes it's back or blue or whatever. It's maddening, but that's not something you can't change overnight. IndyCar teams are broke and always look for sponsors, even if that's a one-off deal for a single car for a single race.

At the same time though, perhaps a good team competition/branding will not add a whole lot of excitement to IndyCar. F1 teams often have strong fan following because F1 has always been a nationalistic sport, so Italians root for Ferrari, regardless of driver, the British support McLaren and Williams, and Germans support Mercedes, Indians Force India, etc.

Next, regarding the engine competition, no one cares about Chevy vs Honda in IndyCar, and I personally would dare to say that no one cares about engine competition in F1 (besides Ferrari fans). Most fans only get irritated if a certain car goes slower due to a slower engine, because the engine is something that's outside of the team's control. Fortunately, F1 engines have been frozen and equalized for the past few years, so engine competition was not really a factor. It's all about chassis design and team work in F1 IMO. This will change next year with new engines in F1.

[JacobP]

Originally Posted by Dragger

Bring back true open-wheel race cars for one. The current Indycars look like those gooey bloated women with tiny shoulders and thunder thigh saddle bags sagging all over the all-you-can-eat buffet.

The wheels are not fully "open" for safety reasons.

What's with drivers changing sponsors and the color of the car from race to race??? It makes it difficult for the casual fans.

This is maddening to me as a fan. However, considering the economy and the current state of IndyCar, I can see why most teams have a hard time finding a solid sponsor for a full year.

[Paradise City]

They should make the number more prominent on the car; making a number as part of a driver brand would help find sponsorship while mandating a single livery would hamper it.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by JacobP

The problem is that IndyCar never really fostered true team competition. This goes way back. You can't change that overnight. I'll give props to F1 because they always had two championships, the driver championship and the constructors. In Formula 1, they have a real constructor (team) championship. How are you going to have a constructor championship in IndyCar if most teams run one car, but others run two, three, or four? In F1, each team has two cars, so the point arithmetic for teams is very simple, and both cars both look the same. Having the same color is very important for branding purposes. If you want the fans to care about the teams, then make sure that the cars that belong in one team have the same colors. You know Ferraris are red, Mercedes are silver, Lotus is black and gold, etc.

On the other hand, in IndyCar, it's always a mess. You don't even know how to identify cars that belong to the same team. Each car normally looks different, due to different sponsor deals that are specific to each car and driver. The same team can field a car that looks green, and another that's yellow and blue. Sometimes the color of the car changes depending on the race. So, even though Dario's car normally looks Target red, sometimes it's back or blue or whatever. It's maddening, but that's not something you can't change overnight. IndyCar teams are broke and always look for sponsors, even if that's a one-off deal for a single car for a single race.

A team's championship and a constructor's championship are two very different things. In F1, each team is a constructor since they create their own car every year. In IndyCar, teams are just teams since they all run the same car. In IndyCar, team success is not a big deal. We acknowledge that some teams (Penske, Ganassi, Andretti) are dominant but it doesn't really matter.

If having identical cars is so important, why does each NASCAR car look different? Jeff Gordon's car and Jimmie Johnson's car have always looked different yet everyone who follows NASCAR knows they are teammates. At the same time, almost all NASCAR cars have different paint schemes year-round, it doesn't drive their fans crazy.

-------

IMO, the #1 problem with IndyCar is driver recognition. NASCAR and F1 are very popular because their drivers are superstars. Everyone knows who Jeff Gordon is, even my friends (who have never seen a race in their life). Not a lot of people outside racing know who Dario Franchitti is or even Helio, even though he was on Dancing with the Stars.

Last year, people were excited to see RHR win because he was American and we were hoping more people would tune in to watch...didn't happen. There needs to be more exposure towards the drivers, kinda like Hinch and his GoDaddy commercials with Danica.

I always liked Paul Tracy because he was loud and controversial (anyone remember Captain Quebec? lol). Or Will Power getting frustrated and throwing up the finger on TV in 2011? IndyCar needs characters, not just nice guys and girls.

Oh man, this is a long post.

[HJJ]

Again, from AR-1.

10/28/13 The state of IndyCar It seems that AR1.com isn't the only media outlet that tells it like it is when it comes to IndyCar's sad state of affairs. And believe us when we say we take much pain in having to report these horrible facts. Gordon Kirby writes in his latest MotorSport magazine article, very similar facts that AR1.com has highlighted:


The California Speedway (or Auto Club Speedway as it’s officially known these days) remains committed to IndyCar for at least one more year, but over the past 15 years no fewer than 40 tracks have given up the battle of trying to draw crowds. Among these are 21 ovals, 11 street circuits and nine road courses. A sad story indeed.

Clearly, IndyCar has lost the battle for popularity on ovals to NASCAR. There were only six ovals on this year’s IndyCar calendar with small crowds at most of them and little or no prospect for any additional oval races in the years ahead.

But IndyCar’s unhappy story is no better elsewhere with five street circuits and four road courses completing next year’s schedule. Three street circuits ran ‘double header’ weekends this year to bolster the dwindling calendar and the same game will play out next year. In an attempt to improve media and fan interest IndyCar’s new boss Mark Miles has compressed the 2014 calendar into five months starting at the end of March and finishing at the end of August. It is the shortest calendar in big-time motor racing today and may be the most abbreviated season in professional sports.

It’s also abundantly clear that IndyCar needs to substantially upgrade its poor standards for street circuits. Most of IndyCar’s street circuits are notoriously rough, crude and poorly presented. This year’s races in Detroit, Baltimore and Houston were an embarrassment, doing nothing but harm to IndyCar’s poor reputation. The time has come to start applying much higher standards to every element of these tracks from road surfaces and fencing to overall presentation.

Similarly, IndyCar must raise the quality and consistency of its officiating. We’ve seen too many bad or inept calls in recent years and everyone hopes Derrick Walker will help bring a more informed and consistent voice to race control.

Meanwhile, IndyCar is trapped in its contract with Dallara as a spec car formula through 2019 at least. There’s no question that many longtime fans have little or no interest in spec car racing and have voted with their feet. If IndyCar is ever to enjoy any kind of turnaround in popularity it must revolutionize its formula and bring back the spirit of competition and innovation but it appears as though it will be years before that’s possible.

IndyCar’s increasing irrelevance is emphasized by the sad state of the Indy Lights series which drew only eight or nine starters for most races this year. Indy Lights has little or no commercial value and is comprised mostly of overseas drivers. IndyCar has outsourced the management of the Lights series and the rest of the open-wheel ladder system to Dan Andersen, a successful building magnate from New Jersey who has great passion for open-wheel racing and is working hard to rebuild IndyCar’s weak and equally irrelevant ladder system.

Those of us who enjoyed Formula Atlantic back in its heyday almost 40 years ago, when Gilles Villeneuve, Keke Rosberg and Bobby Rahal made their names in Atlantic cars, pine over the demise of Formula Atlantic and its euthanasia a few years ago after Champ Car was absorbed by the IRL.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that IndyCar must pull its head out of the sand and revolutionize itself somehow, some way. Otherwise, its sad decline and fall is sure to continue.

[Dragger]

Originally Posted by JacobP

The wheels are not fully "open" for safety reasons.



This is maddening to me as a fan. However, considering the economy and the current state of IndyCar, I can see why most teams have a hard time finding a solid sponsor for a full year.

I understand the idea of enclosing the tires for "safety reasons", but it simply does not work. They are still running over each other going airborn. It's open-wheel racing, it's a part of the sport and has been for a century. If they want to enclose the wheels for safety reasons, they'll end up looking like GTP cars. And they wouldn't be Indycars. "Bumpers" are not the answer.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by HJJ

Clearly, IndyCar has lost the battle for popularity on ovals to NASCAR.

I think its great they feel the need to put this in the article. Great investigative journalism right there

Gordon Kirby is a good writer but since he was taken off the Champcar employee line in 2007 his articles have had a pretty typical tone

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by D.R.T.

I think its great they feel the need to put this in the article. Great investigative journalism right there

Gordon Kirby is a good writer but since he was taken off the Champcar employee line in 2007 his articles have had a pretty typical tone

I agree, they didn't need to, the TV ratings and the attendance at NASCAR, compared to IndyCar, says it all.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JacobP

The problem is that IndyCar never really fostered true team competition. This goes way back. You can't change that overnight. I'll give props to F1 because they always had two championships, the driver championship and the constructors. In Formula 1, they have a real constructor (team) championship. How are you going to have a constructor championship in IndyCar if most teams run one car, but others run two, three, or four? In F1, each team has two cars, so the point arithmetic for teams is very simple, and both cars both look the same. Having the same color is very important for branding purposes. If you want the fans to care about the teams, then make sure that the cars that belong in one team have the same colors. You know Ferraris are red, Mercedes are silver, Lotus is black and gold, etc.

On the other hand, in IndyCar, it's always a mess. You don't even know how to identify cars that belong to the same team. Each car normally looks different, due to different sponsor deals that are specific to each car and driver. The same team can field a car that looks green, and another that's yellow and blue. Sometimes the color of the car changes depending on the race. So, even though Dario's car normally looks Target red, sometimes it's back or blue or whatever. It's maddening, but that's not something you can't change overnight. IndyCar teams are broke and always look for sponsors, even if that's a one-off deal for a single car for a single race.

At the same time though, perhaps a good team competition/branding will not add a whole lot of excitement to IndyCar. F1 teams often have strong fan following because F1 has always been a nationalistic sport, so Italians root for Ferrari, regardless of driver, the British support McLaren and Williams, and Germans support Mercedes, Indians Force India, etc.

Next, regarding the engine competition, no one cares about Chevy vs Honda in IndyCar, and I personally would dare to say that no one cares about engine competition in F1 (besides Ferrari fans). Most fans only get irritated if a certain car goes slower due to a slower engine, because the engine is something that's outside of the team's control. Fortunately, F1 engines have been frozen and equalized for the past few years, so engine competition was not really a factor. It's all about chassis design and team work in F1 IMO. This will change next year with new engines in F1.

CART used to have several championships or cups as they called them, running along side the driver's championship. There was the Constructor's Cup for chassis, the Manufacturer's Cup for engines and the rather spurious Nation's Cup for driver nationality.

I don't actually mind the different liveries, they detract from the spec aspect of IndyCar but as you say many teams are looking for sponsors, so it goes with the current climate. Even in the CART era some teams didn't always run a two car team with the same livery.

I like the competition between Chevy and Honda and again it helps detract from the spec aspect of IndyCar.

I disagree though about engine competition in F1, despite the freezing of engine development it's still an aspect of F1 I like and obviously a personal thing. Anyway I'm really going off topic.

[HJJ]

Originally Posted by D.R.T.

I think its great they feel the need to put this in the article. Great investigative journalism right there

Gordon Kirby is a good writer but since he was taken off the Champcar employee line in 2007 his articles have had a pretty typical tone

You forget FTG's vision. Blame him not Kirby.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I agree, they didn't need to, the TV ratings and the attendance at NASCAR, compared to IndyCar, says it all.

They do - but its common knowledge. They didnt need to say it but they wanted to say it which shows a little of the motivation behind the publications reporting.

Originally Posted by HJJ

You forget FTG's vision. Blame him not Kirby.

Who is blaming Kirby?? Not sure you read the post which aimed to highlight the trend of Kirby's articles since mid 2007.

[JacobP]

Another big problem with IndyCar is that they have five months of furious activity following by nothing. Most races are in the three summer months spaced by one or two weeks with some race weekends hosting double races. By the end of August, the season is being wrapped up. If they can't have more races, they should at least spread up the races apart from each other a little IMHO. It's kind of annoying that past September ALMS, Grand Am, and IndyCar are over. Suddenly there is nothing to watch besides NASCARs running in circles or Vettel running circles around inept competition.

[rwintle]

Originally Posted by Paradise City

They should make the number more prominent on the car; making a number as part of a driver brand would help find sponsorship while mandating a single livery would hamper it.

How much more prominent could it be? It's already billboard-sized on the end plates of the rear wing, and nice and big on the nosecone (although I agree kind of hard to see since it's near-horizontal there). Indycar, like NASCAR, also uses numbers that are personalized for the driver/sponsor combination - livery colours, sponsor colours, different fonts, etc. I don't see how they could be any more recognizable than they already are, to be honest.

[Dragger]

I'd like to see almost all of the races broken up into double-headers as well as standing starts. Bring back Road America and Surfer's Paradise Australia, have a race at F1's Montreal Canada.

Introduce aero kits ASAP, the cars all look the same and the look has seemed dated since day one.

Make the turbos loud again, spooling, popping, hissing... the current engines sound muffled and dull like they're just street cars droning around at mid-rpm's. Sound is important. Give the engines shorter strokes, bigger bores, resulting in higher rpms(screamers) and more peak HP. The cars will be beasts again.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Dragger

I'd like to see almost all of the races broken up into double-headers as well as standing starts. Bring back Road America and Surfer's Paradise Australia, have a race at F1's Montreal Canada.

Introduce aero kits ASAP, the cars all look the same and the look has seemed dated since day one.

Make the turbos loud again, spooling, popping, hissing... the current engines sound muffled and dull like they're just street cars droning around at mid-rpm's. Sound is important. Give the engines shorter strokes, bigger bores, resulting in higher rpms(screamers) and more peak HP. The cars will be beasts again.

You'll want something like this.

[Dragger]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

You'll want something like this.

Raynard CART car, great start.

[HJJ]

11/07/13 Miles paints a rosy picture for IndyCar As Mark Miles nears his one-year anniversary as CEO of Hulman & Co. -- the parent organization of IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway -- he faces numerous concerns, real and perceived. He addressed some of them with Autoweek as the season came to a close.

Autoweek: There are numerous top-of-mind sponsor issues, including the departures of title sponsor Izod, and team sponsors GoDaddy, Hewlett-Packard and possibly the National Guard. How do you curb fears IndyCar is hurting?

Mark Miles: The Izod decision was made a very long time ago, but it wasn’t announced until recently because they wanted to get more value out of this year, and, as I’ve mentioned, we’re having encouraging conversations about new sponsors. The National Guard issue, as I understand it, is how they’re going to stay in IndyCar, not that they’re looking to get out, so I don’t think that should be in that question. GoDaddy made its decision, but Andretti’s team signed a new company for the sport [United Fiber & Data].

AW: Does losing Izod as the series’ title sponsor without having a replacement hurt IndyCar?

MM: There’s a [loss] because Izod will not be out there [promoting the sport], but if you are asking about our financials, we have deals that are done that have escalators for next year that more than offset Izod. We want to grow, but there’s not an economic [problem].

AW: In announcing IndyCar’s 2014 schedule, you said IndyCar is providing more to the fans. But the Brazil race is questionable at best and Baltimore has been canceled. And the season only spans five months. How is that providing more?

MM: It’s one less race next season, unless we run in Brazil at the end of the year in 2014, which is probably a longer shot than a sure bet. I’m thinking more about 2015, and this schedule is getting to that. We’ll have more racing in ’15, not less.

AW: You also stressed continuity and yet five of next year’s events will have completely new dates, four in different months. How is that continuity?

MM: There’s no way to make a major strategic change in the calendar without doing that, but I don’t expect [further changes]. We continue to expect to end the season on Labor Day weekend. Some [events] changed for next year because it becomes a domino effect.

AW: Finally, what is your assessment of your first year on the job?

MM: It is very much like what I would have expected. There were a number of things I thought we could do, that we could control, and I still believe that’s true, and maybe even more of it. I thought our racing was excellent; I think it’s been a dynamite year for the product, our competition. I thought we could make significant improvements in our ability to execute as an organization, top to bottom, and that’s true, and we will. I didn’t think there was such a thing as a [magic] bullet; there’s a lot of things we have to do to become more competitive, and I think we will. People worry more about the politics of the paddock than I ever do. We’ve got to do our job, but I’ve found our key stake-holders to be remarkably positive and supportive. AutoWeek

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