Originally Posted by Puppy:
HaHa good one hoscalecody!
As a big sprint/midget guy that has also road raced, in hindsight it would have been better if the IRL NEVER happened!!! Yes I said it. I loved it at the time just like you all did. For the same reasons you did. But looking at things now, with the momentum that CART had leading up to 1996 it could very well be that top tier openwheel racing would have been the premire American racing sport instead of NAPCAR. As it is now, you listen to your sprint car buddies and they all know what happened at "Bristol" or "Talladega" but they dont even know that IndyCar has a race at Iowa! THey know none of the drivers (How can you NOT like Helio or Kannan?) And to REALLY think that Dixon isnt "all that" is just being ignorant because you never saw him turn a lap at Kokomo... All it takes is to watch one race and see some interviews and now you "know" the drivers like you complain that you DON'T know them. But then they go and watch NASCRAP with a few sprint car guys but the rest have turned a lap at Paragon either....
I don't care about how big Indycar would be without the IRL, the schedule would still not have had enough ovals and the racing would still be terrible. The IRL was definitely needed.
NASCAR may not be as good as it once was, but it's waaaaaaaaay better than modern Indycar. And it's not even close. Even boring F1 is oftentimes more interesting than Indycar in recent years.