Everything is an aquired taste in someones eyes. The world has Formula 1, we have INDIANAPOLIS. Seems about even to me.


Being 41, I still find F1 an aquired taste. I cannot, nor ever will understand why F1 teams spend as much as they do to get roughly the same thing as an IRL car or vice-versa.


My company that I work for, Michelin, helped to send an F1 car to Bonneville a few years ago to see what their top speeds were.---------I'm certain they used the long course--245mph top speed! Yes, an F1 car.

There is a wall, a limit as to just how fast these rear engine cars can go with todays downforce, which is needed to deal with corners and such. Innovation? Or maybe just a high tech moneypit?



Just to name a few, here are some drivers that SHOULD be there today. Yes they went for the dollar, and/or the oppurtunities that IRL couldn't give them--Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Eric Gordon, Stevie Reeves, PJ Jones,Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne,Dave Blaney,JJ Yeley,Richie Tobias,Shane Hollingsworth,--just to name a few.


These guys are the continuation of the kind of drivers seen in the 1950's and 1960's, no doubt about that. That formula for a driver would sell today(NASCAR has made tons of money from their type), but that formula isn't there at Indy so much anymore.

Real race car drivers are masters of adaptation, The human mind is an amazingly adaptable unit when someone wants something soooooooo bad. But here's the irony--There could be a time for the car, the car to adapt to drivers needed to be there.

For the most part, this whole rear engine thing has gone so far forward, that looking back is impossible.

It takes millions of dollars to run Indy, the drivers and personalities are in this country to help sell the show, yet we get Milka Doughnuts?

Opperman making his way into the field on bump day in '76 was a better story than this years 500, that'sa fact. Drivers like him, were riding on the waves made from years and years of front engine glory set by others, so when they could get a ride at Indy in a rear engine car, it was fine.

Today, Felippe Markaspagetti is able to show up with a truckload of cash and suitcase of talent. He gets a ride, and even if he makes a show, it is not as real as it was when people were willing to die trying to get to Indy through the short tracks. Not the same.----------The lack of sincerity sells like yesterdays bread.

So..If fenders are the only way I can see Stewart make his way around Indy, using roughly the same techniques as the roadster drivers of the 60's- then I'll put up with DW and the Groundhog.