OMG....I tried to watch the IRL race in Brasil....***....What a joke..what a change in its business model...and Disney 96 promoting all short track racers....Michner, Stewart, Gosek, Tyler, Beechler and Hamilton....averaging 35 cars and sending 7 home after Q.
By 2002, the IRL had a great formula that allowed smaller teams such as Kelly, Blair, Foyt, Nunn, Cheever, Dreyer/Reinbold, Treadway etc. to compete on even terms with Penske. GM and Infiniti were the engine manufacturers and teams "bought" the motors from private builders. There was a great mixture of American circle trackers and road racers and it was pretty much an all oval series. Several of the tracks were drawing full houses and the racing was the greatest ever seen on this planet. Enter Honda and Toyota and the $1.7 million leases to the smaller teams while the Rich, Penske-Ganassi-Andretti, got freebies. Enter an ever increasing amount of road courses. Exit American circle trackers to NECKCAR. Welcome, unknown foreign road racers, three teams winning 99% of the races and the disappearance of the photo finishes that happened so regularly pre-2003. Yep, Tony sold out his soul and his principles for Honda and Toyota money (which never did a thing to promote the IRL) and now we have a dead series on VERSUS!!! Oh well.
Cecil!...Thank you..OMG...I'm glad some othe normal person see's it!....Thank goodness for Sprint cars, midgets and supers.....that can take the place of Indy car.....What a mess....!
I barely watched, was mainly watching college b-ball but had to laugh at the deal, first off they couldn't time trial due to the fact the frontstretch was a parade route and was painted and was too slick, so they ground the paint off and on the first lap(and many more) the dust was so thick you couldn't see past a couple of rows, had a couple wrecks in the first turn of the first lap, the track was so rough the cars were in the air alot, then it rained and so on and so on, first time I had even bothered to turn on a IRL race in about 4 years and I see I haven't missed much. Won't even bother with Indy yet again this year, they can have it, I'll go to the Little 500. Also love the fact so many new rookies and not a single one was American.....
I didn't watch and don't really ever. Regardless of the racing Will Power is the best name ever. I did watch a little F1, but again it's the same thing people with way more money then a sprint car guy, buying rides, nepotism, new tracks in new countries. It isn't anything close to sprints. Posted via Mobile Device
I quit going to Indy after 2008 when the field was made up of mostly road course specialists, on an oval track. To me that's like the Indianapolis Colts getting rid of most of their players and hiring a bunch of soccer players in their place. And the decline in the product showed. One or two of these guys were running their forst or second oval race at Indy. Thay would have never flew with Fengler. We held our breaths every time Mario Morias came in to pit. Him and Viso were particularly scary.
The IRL needs serious help, if it's not too late already. Lets hope the Bull Rider guy can talk some sense into these people.
I don't have Vs so I couldn't watch. I don't think anyone expected the front straight to be a problem. (It was a street course btw) I was impressed with them getting everything accomplished in one day. The race was a sellout.
All the cars entered were guaranteed 6 figures in pay. Something they all needed. I don't have a problem with road/street courses, they make up half not 80% of Indycar races, look at the schedule. The new car is coming in 2 years and will change things. There's 8-10 new possibilities for cars by the survey I took from an Indycar email. Yes, it's had it's problems but Napcar sucks 10X more and they don't have the Indy 500 which has been a shear joy to watch the last few years.
It takes a driver to drive a road/street course much like a sprint car. The boredom of 500 miles at a Napcar race has lost all interest with me. Eventually Versus channel is suppose to be everywhere like ESPN, that's why there is a 10 year contract. I'll wait patiently for Indycar to come back to the top and it will. Tony George is now gone.
The engine lease for 1 year is less than 1 million per car. That applies to all teams
