Originally Posted by Leohr46:
Shame that the series isn't ALL ovals.
It shouldn't be. The strength of this series has long been the diversity of running varying ovals along with street and road courses which even though they are both left and right take a different style of driving and technical skill to run.
Road/street racing is just as much of a part of the history of this series as the oval. While 1905, the first season, was all dirt oval, the second season of 1909 featured 9 road circuits, one point to point, and a dirt oval. Board tracks, dirt ovals, road, street, asphalt ovals, point to point, and hill climbs....all part of the history of this series.
It's honestly a fairly good mix right now with 6 ovals spread out among three at a mile and a quarter and less, one at a 1.5 miles, and two 2.5 milers with five street circuits and 6, maybe 7 if Mexico City is finalized, flowing natural terrain road courses.
There's not another top level professional endurance circuit racing series that tests the drivers and teams like this one. One week you are on a rough city surface mixed with concrete, asphalt, and little margin for error, the following week finds you on a smooth flowing road course, the next you're on a high speed bullring, with a couple of all out speed tests playing the bookends of the summer sessions.
But even more to the point as to why there aren't a couple of more ovals, it's fairly simple. People have to show up. Pretty pointless to go out and tear up millions of dollars worth of equipment, get injured, or killed in a high speed crash in front of all of 10 fans when you can go out and deal with less risk in both injury and crash damage at a place like Long Beach, Road America, Mid-Ohio, etc where people do show up. Not to mention how minor league it looks when your top American open wheel series is playing host to miles of aluminum.
