What on Earth are They Smoking
 

At 16th and Georgetown?

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

Care to elaborate? Otherwise my first answer is going to be Marlboro or Camels.

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Moving Pole Day qualifying to Sunday. . . or has this already been addressed.

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I called (317)492-8500 to complain. They weren't aware of the change yet in the ticket office.

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If thay want to add drama to qualifying do what ever it takes to get more than 33 or 34 cars entered for the race.

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Never ceases to amaze me how stupid the management of the Speedway is...
Hey, I got an idea, lets change what works! yeah, yeah, that's a great idea!:11;

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

Well, first of all they put the Indy Car Grand Prix road coarse race on the second Saturday of the month. If I read the article correctly this morning, they have now bumped the qualifying to a single weekend which they are going to qualify on Saturday and do the fast nine on Sunday?(I think) If that is what they are planning, I wonder exactly how they will proceed if they get rain that weekend and have a wash out?

Apparently this is the idea from Mark Miles the CEO of Hulman & Co which owns IMS. It would be interesting to see if they have even consulted with any drivers or team owners to get their imput into all of this.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

I don't care what they are smoking. Just thankful my health is good so I can attend what ever they do. Just remember its still the greatest race and track in the world. Because of the 500 we have many many other open wheel races in Indiana during the month of May.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

Indy 500 Qualifying has been just a single weekend since 2010. I have always wondered what they would have done if rain had wiped out the entire weekend in the past. Apparently, they would just move it to the next nice day until they got it all done. I know it's strange to most fans that the pole winner is determined on Sunday instead of Saturday now, but I think this new format makes more sense than the last system of locking 22 in and filling in the final 11 spots on Sunday.

Of course, I'd love to see 50 cars qualifying for 33 spots and a true Bump Day once again. That would involve a lot of changes to open up the rules, cheaper equipment, etc. I hope we can get back to that point again, but I don't know when that's going to happen, unfortunately.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

The way I look at it is IMS could either keep on having the current bump day that is drawing little interest due to not having enough cars currently to do much bumping, or try to give people a reason to show up Sunday. The argument can be made to change rules and allow more cars, but the reality is they just changed the car and lost teams in that exchange. There is no way they will change cars again anytime soon.

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We had gone to Indy for years and years...sometimes spending the month of May.

Watched Indy grow over the years, greatly. A lot changed with the inclusion of the Pacers and Colts I believe.
I am not a native but I think they lost a lot when they changed the infield. From my perspective it looked like it was a yearly thing for Indiana families, BBQing and watching the cars practice.

The cool thing used to be during practice, you could walk around the track and stands and basically sit and watch from anywhere.

The thing that drove us to go home early the last time was the MUSIC on the PA was so damn loud you couldn't even talk to the person next to you.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

Front engine 150mph cars with today's safety. There would be 80 of them on pitlane!

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I remember when lots and lots of folks were critical of Tony George.

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^ words outa my mouth!!! :)

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This is dumb.

So if I go to Pole Day, I won't get to see who actually wins the pole. If I go to Bump Day, I won't be seeing any bumping, but I will see who wins the pole. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Over the last decade, what IMS has done to all the preliminary events of the 500 is akin to Michael Jackson "improving" his physical appearance- a monsterous disaster. It's akin to Our government messing things up with their laws, and then trying to fix things with more laws!

How about this: admit that all these relatively minor changes through the years have culminated to the detriment of the entire event, and revert back to the old, tried, and true method.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

They should just show up on Sat and practice . Sunday, pea pick and run three 20 lap heats then line them up and run the race , get the whole thing over with ! SAD, seems they want your money but don't want to put on much of a show anymore. Just skip it and go to Kokomo where there will be more cars.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

One persons opinion:

1st went to the Speedway in 1965, saw 1st race in 1973 (missed one since). Have been to every (or part of, as some days would have to leave early to get to IRP) Pole day or Bump day.
When there were "30 days of May" there would be practice days when there would be less than 50 total laps turned by 2-3 cars. I can recall days when you might wait an hour to see a car do 1 warm up lap! I would miss 5-10 days of school just to go to the Speedway! Yes, Pole day was cool, as was Bump day.

So, the Speedway decides to do away with the 1st week of May and all the "old timers" go ape, the speedway has broke tradition!!!! And after Dick Simon was the 1st car on the track we would wait 3 days to see any on track action!! Pole day was cool, then day2 of time trials would see 2 or 3 guys qualify, you could find more race people at Churchill Downs on Sunday then at the Speedway! Then for some real excitement week 2 would start and Monday would see 10 cars at most make 1-2 shake down runs, another time when you could go 90 minutes and see no on track activity! Bump day was way cool!!

Now days the Speedway has cut down to one week, and you get to see the same action in one week that we used to spend 30 days waiting to see!! The Speedway has always been a passion of mine, I have been a Yellow Shirt, USAC official, spent 7 years as Asst. Starter, a bazzilion hours with the photo guys down in the corners (still my 2nd favorite) and most importantly time with my Dad and even cooler, time with my boys!!

The tradition at the Speedway has never changed, it has always been about "The Greatest Race " in the World, and more importantly, the tradition between man and sons. Would I love to see 70 entries and 1000 laps per day, duh!! But, what is so bad about taking the product they have and trying to compact the action into a product that todays fan will support. The "30 days of May" worked when there were 3 network television stations, and Monopoply was the most exciting game, but today there are more entertainment options then I can name, and people want fast paced action!!

I will be at "THE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY" with my sons as long as I'm BREATHING, I will have tears in my eyes every year when they play Taps, and 30years from now my sons will be talking about the good old days at THE SPEEDWAY when they ran the 2014 INDIANAPOLIS 500!!

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My father took me to my 1st 500 at age 7 ,in 1952 . We always arrived and parked by RR tracks across from main gate on first day of qualifications and was one of the first through the gates and ran to get top row seats in section E first turn. I did this for 39 years. ( sat threw a tornado going down Georgetown road one year with only a plastic tarp over our heads, ha.) after 39 yrs I moved to California but flew back so I could say I went to 40 races in a row. After 16 years I moved back and my youngest grandson said he would like to go sometime so I got him up and we went early again so we could get a good seat. Got to gate at 6:00 AM and was two of ten people waiting to get threw gate. Got our seat in E section and there were maybe 100 people in the entire stand. We had a great day together but it was not the same excitement it once was.

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Oh how I agree with this...totally... It wasn't that long ago a group of guys could acquire a 6-8 year old car relatively inexpensively, put whatever they could afford or borrow in it for a motor, and find somebody carrying a helmet bag that was willing to take a shot at getting it fast enough to make the 30-33rd spot on the grid.

Now that we have so many rule updates every 2 years, you have to have new stuff to go play. I don't know what happens to all the cars that get deemed obsolete with rule changes every 2 years, but there has to be hundreds of them out there collecting dust or sitting in somebody's museum on display. Wouldn't it be AWESOME if Indycar would amend the rules for the 500, or any of the oval races for that matter, and say any car/aero package that was legal in the last 10 years is legal for this race.

Can you imagine how many of our guys would get to take a crack at running the 500??? Buy a 6 year old car for not much more than a new tricked out sprint roller costs, put a turbo on an esslinger and get after it.

If the fundraising effort for Dave Darland to run the ARCA race was successful just imagine how much more money could be raised for him to get a shot at the 500. If the smaller budget teams like Sara Fisher Racing could bring out their old cars that got obsoleted by rules and let a somewhat funded short tracker provide his own engine and crew they could rent them out for way less money than a current car goes for, and actually get a little revenue coming back in versus putting all that money in the attic forever.

As hard as it is for the existing INDYCAR owners to piece together 33 cars every year and find enough funded drivers to fill the grid I would have to think there could be 4-8 spots on the grid available for guys with older cars trying to get in. Even if they only generated 37-40 entries by opening up the rules it would still bring back all the drama and excitement that bump day used to have, and if only 2 or 3 of our guys got to be involved in qualifying it would still make all of us really really excited to see them take a shot.

Pipe dream??? Oh heck yeah... feasible??? probably not... Fun to dream about??? Yes sir!!!

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indy,indy,indy......its a shadow of what use to be and that shadow is only getting larger.

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By taking out the infield parking, partying, and the "lower economically challenged" patrons in the 1990's for a road course, IMS essentially killed the golden goose that was the "Month of May". We all were infield residents long before our current condition @ IMS. I would wager that few of us attendees started, or even today, sit in a suite for practice, qualifying, or the races. The average race fan was shut out at IMS and simply found other places to allocate their disposable income in central Indiana. The Gran Prix race will slowly slide down the slippery slope as has the interest in the Brickyard 400 and the Moto GP due to the lack of a "beginner class" fan base that the infield provided for decades of growth in seats and tickets @ IMS. IMS is not a race, a speedway, or event, but rather a living, breathing congregation of families, friends, like minded fans, and heroes. They have successfully suffocated and poisoned the congregation to the point of being on life support. All that IMS is trying to do now is improve the method of life support rather than seek the cure for the real causes of the decline of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. With that said, I will continue to attend the Speedway because I still have a few ramaining family, friends, fans, and heroes to visit in May of 2014.

Re: What on Earth are They Smoking
 

The Appropriations Committee in the state Senate gave unanimous approval Thursday to the bill that grants tax breaks to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The vote was 11-to-0.

The bill is designed to permit up to $100 million dollars in upgrades at the home of the Indianapolis 500. The improvements may include lights for night racing and video boards to improve the fan experience. The track is owned by Hulman and Company and its CEO, Mark Miles, told the committee that the economic impact of racing in central Indiana amounts to more than $500 million per year and that improvements are necessary to compete with newer tracks in nearby states. Committee Chairman Luke Kenley said that lawmakers have been working on the deal with Speedway owners for about 2 years. It was supported by the Speedway Redevelopment Commission and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

No one testified against the bill that creates a motorsports investment district and allows IMS to sell bonds that will be backed by state tax money generated at the track.

They no longer need to sell tickets...they get bonds backed by state tax money...so if you live in Indiana you have paid for a ticket whether you attend or not!!! The Speedway doesn't need fans in the stands.

Its all good in indy