The overall sentiment seems to be that Indy Car has lost touch with the American fan. But if the American short track fan loses touch with Indy Car by ignoring the road course races, who then is really at fault for the disengagement?

We need to support the whole series, regardless of how we feel about the road course races. As the saying goes, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkeness.

Used to be a saying around race cars "I'd rather be lucky than good", Now the saying is "I'd rather be rich than good", How times have changed.

I bet Brian could hustle on of them big old cars around Indy and make it look easy. I wonder how one of them foreign guys could do it? Or would they even have the testicular fortitude to do it?

Indy racing has turned into a multi million dollar business while silver crown cars have only turned into a million dollar deal. Before the invasion Indy racing was a kinda of do it yourself deal. The top builders would draw out on their garage floor what they thought would be the hot set up buy some tubing and build a race car. Then they followed the Midget and Sprint races to get the best talent out there and put them into their new creation to race at Indy.

There were no ISO-9001 certified race car factories out there in those days. About as close as you got was Frank Kurtis out west or AJ Watson in Indy, and the owner could still go talk with them to get something just a little different built.

With the "Invasion" came Engineers and cookie cutter cars. Back yard builders were put out of business overnight. Since only one or two factories controlled the whole deal they also controlled the cost of racing, and it's been down hill since then.

We lost what made American Open Wheel racing great. We replaced it with million dollar bath tubs where now you can't eves see the drivers head sticking out in the wind. How far away are we from remote control or robotic controlled race cars controlled by people sitting in their den at their palatial estates in Europe?

Honest Dad himself

In fairness to those carbon fiber "million dollar bathtubs", we would have buried a lot more drivers over the past several years without them. And I'm quite sure Mike Conway is glad his head didn't stick out farther into the wind when he hit the wall with the the top of the car at Indy this year.

Remote control would be much safer yet. No need to endanger a human being when with todays technology we don't have to.

Can you imagine AJ Foyt, Rufus Jones and them other young guys in the Big cars going around there at 150 to 160 mph without even a cage over their head, they were kinda of stupid back in them days but they put on some pretty good races. Best I can remember they showed a little more reserve with one another on the track.

Maybe Tony is the guy that could bring back low tec racing at Indy?

Honest Dad himself

This reminds me of the suggestion that we could reduce football concussions by going back to leather helmets. Why the heck would we want to go BACKWARDS in regards to safety?

Remote control is safer!!!!
Racing would no longer be considered a dangerous sport.

Honest Dad himself

I just miss the days growing up watching Thursday night thunder on Espn and the crazy amount of racing going on and wish the ******** and big business wasn't controlling racing. Seeing local drivers in big races made me feel connected to them. It was a reminder that the working class hero had a chance to be big. Seeing BC at Indy was awesome btw! I recently had the opportunity to take a tour with my wife of some old Indy cars from the early years and she asked why there were no cages and why the drivers sat so high in them. I simply replied that it was because they needed room for the big balls to drive them.... Lol seeing a local guy build a car in his garage and going big is legendary.

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As The World Turns---Days of our Lives>>>> I see a pattern.

Honest Dad himself

You all are missing the real problem. It is not the George family, who just want to see an end to the loss of millions of dollars each year. It is that we have jumped back in time to 1992 and the car owners once again are in control.
Bernard wanted to make changes in 2010, and the car owners bucked him. Roger Penske said at Indy last year that the only ovals available for IndyCar were unsafe for today's cars.

In order to end the IndyCar war, Tony George had to reach an accommodation with CART owners. We would still be fighting had not Chip and Roger broken the CART line. But, to finally end the loss of millions of dollars, Tony George had to agree to some of the things that CART owners wanted.

I believe the car owners would love to make IndyCar a global product, but their sponsors are all national. Franchitti said as much during a press conference last year, that the reality is that the teams are supported financially by U.S. sponsors who have no interest in being overseas. Franchitti said there is tremendous interest in IndyCar racing overseas. It does not happen for one reason -- the Indianapolis 500, which has a U.S. fan base.

The car owners still want to be the ones to call the shots.

Why would anybody outside the USA want Indy Car when they have F-1. Indy is a F-1 wanabe, and not a real good one at that. I don't see F-1 cars running in circles.

Honest Dad himself