Originally Posted by darnall:
I would love to see the rules tweaked for the 500..or every oval, to allow any IRL car from the last 3-4 rule packages to run with any naturally aspirated pushrod v-8 or DOHC 166ci turbo 4cylinder.
Every time a new spec car comes out 40-60 chassis become obsolete and only good for showcar purposes....and a couple years later you actually see classified ads on racingjunk for turnkey or roller indycars in the 40-100K range.
Surely Abreu Vineyards could hustle up enough help to buy a dallara showcar from some team for the same price one of their new sprintcar motors costs. Surely TRD could quickly come up with a different cam and the proper turbo to convert a couple of Kunz chilibowl winning motors to a suitable 500 package. Or the Hoffman team could find somebody willing to grab a roller and combine it with a motor out of the 69 sprintcar rotation.
I have no doubt there are a few businessmen in Indiana, IL, MO or CA that would be more than willing to drop 5 figures on a car to get to see Ballou, T-Mez, Shurenburg or DD try to work their way up from the 10th row at Indy.
I would never expect any kind of car grandfathering rule package to allow the old stuff to be equal to the current car and capable of winning...but I am absolutely sure there are 4-10 of our guys who could put a Don Ott 410 in somebody's old showcar and make the show ahead of 4-10 of the ride buyers nobodies ever heard of in a current teams 4th car. Also pretty sure they have enough savvy and racecraft to finish ahead of plenty other ride buyers that do qualify.
So when do we start? I kinda liked the look of those "Gold Crown" cars that were suggested a few years back, why not run Gold/Silver crown type cars instead of mid engine cars with wings... That would, to me, make it the "American Race" its suppose to be, instead of F1 lite.