Originally Posted by flatout18:
If Indy Car and USAC would get back together and require drivers to run a certain amount of USAC races in order to run the 500, It would help remove all of the foreign$$$ that seems to be driving the series. If this could happen, it would also supply Indy Car the feeder series it always had in the early days. This would give those guys a chance to run Indy. Do you think these F1 guys would come over here and try to competitively run a open wheel dirt car? I think not. That is why I think it would give more American Drivers a shot at Indy. JMO
This would just return us to the '96-'99 IRL era when the Indy 500 was ridiculed by the mainstream media.
This isn't likely to go over well with most of us on this forum, but the fact remains that we're not really Indy Car's target demographic. The people that they're really after wouldn't be caught dead at a sprint car race. Why do you think that most of the road course races are titled "Indy Grand Prix"? Becuase they want to appeal to folks who might think they're seeing Formula 1, or at least something like it.
There's no bias against circle tracks with Indy Car. It's just that it's hard for them to make money on the non-Indy oval races when they can only get 10-15,000 people in the stands, and only a few hundred thousand to even watch on TV.