[arctic monkey21]

The way I look at it is IMS could either keep on having the current bump day that is drawing little interest due to not having enough cars currently to do much bumping, or try to give people a reason to show up Sunday. The argument can be made to change rules and allow more cars, but the reality is they just changed the car and lost teams in that exchange. There is no way they will change cars again anytime soon.

[ThePurple73]

We had gone to Indy for years and years...sometimes spending the month of May.

Watched Indy grow over the years, greatly. A lot changed with the inclusion of the Pacers and Colts I believe.
I am not a native but I think they lost a lot when they changed the infield. From my perspective it looked like it was a yearly thing for Indiana families, BBQing and watching the cars practice.

The cool thing used to be during practice, you could walk around the track and stands and basically sit and watch from anywhere.

The thing that drove us to go home early the last time was the MUSIC on the PA was so damn loud you couldn't even talk to the person next to you.

[jdull99]

Front engine 150mph cars with today's safety. There would be 80 of them on pitlane!

[Honest-Sam]

I remember when lots and lots of folks were critical of Tony George.

[jdull99]

Originally Posted by Honest-Sam I remember when lots and lots of folks were critical of Tony George.

^ words outa my mouth!!!

[chrismattlin]

This is dumb.

So if I go to Pole Day, I won't get to see who actually wins the pole. If I go to Bump Day, I won't be seeing any bumping, but I will see who wins the pole. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Over the last decade, what IMS has done to all the preliminary events of the 500 is akin to Michael Jackson "improving" his physical appearance- a monsterous disaster. It's akin to Our government messing things up with their laws, and then trying to fix things with more laws!

How about this: admit that all these relatively minor changes through the years have culminated to the detriment of the entire event, and revert back to the old, tried, and true method.

[robert gatten]

They should just show up on Sat and practice . Sunday, pea pick and run three 20 lap heats then line them up and run the race , get the whole thing over with ! SAD, seems they want your money but don't want to put on much of a show anymore. Just skip it and go to Kokomo where there will be more cars.

[ossuks]

One persons opinion:

1st went to the Speedway in 1965, saw 1st race in 1973 (missed one since). Have been to every (or part of, as some days would have to leave early to get to IRP) Pole day or Bump day.
When there were "30 days of May" there would be practice days when there would be less than 50 total laps turned by 2-3 cars. I can recall days when you might wait an hour to see a car do 1 warm up lap! I would miss 5-10 days of school just to go to the Speedway! Yes, Pole day was cool, as was Bump day.

So, the Speedway decides to do away with the 1st week of May and all the "old timers" go ape, the speedway has broke tradition!!!! And after Dick Simon was the 1st car on the track we would wait 3 days to see any on track action!! Pole day was cool, then day2 of time trials would see 2 or 3 guys qualify, you could find more race people at Churchill Downs on Sunday then at the Speedway! Then for some real excitement week 2 would start and Monday would see 10 cars at most make 1-2 shake down runs, another time when you could go 90 minutes and see no on track activity! Bump day was way cool!!

Now days the Speedway has cut down to one week, and you get to see the same action in one week that we used to spend 30 days waiting to see!! The Speedway has always been a passion of mine, I have been a Yellow Shirt, USAC official, spent 7 years as Asst. Starter, a bazzilion hours with the photo guys down in the corners (still my 2nd favorite) and most importantly time with my Dad and even cooler, time with my boys!!

The tradition at the Speedway has never changed, it has always been about "The Greatest Race " in the World, and more importantly, the tradition between man and sons. Would I love to see 70 entries and 1000 laps per day, duh!! But, what is so bad about taking the product they have and trying to compact the action into a product that todays fan will support. The "30 days of May" worked when there were 3 network television stations, and Monopoply was the most exciting game, but today there are more entertainment options then I can name, and people want fast paced action!!

I will be at "THE INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY" with my sons as long as I'm BREATHING, I will have tears in my eyes every year when they play Taps, and 30years from now my sons will be talking about the good old days at THE SPEEDWAY when they ran the 2014 INDIANAPOLIS 500!!

[robert gatten]

My father took me to my 1st 500 at age 7 ,in 1952 . We always arrived and parked by RR tracks across from main gate on first day of qualifications and was one of the first through the gates and ran to get top row seats in section E first turn. I did this for 39 years. ( sat threw a tornado going down Georgetown road one year with only a plastic tarp over our heads, ha.) after 39 yrs I moved to California but flew back so I could say I went to 40 races in a row. After 16 years I moved back and my youngest grandson said he would like to go sometime so I got him up and we went early again so we could get a good seat. Got to gate at 6:00 AM and was two of ten people waiting to get threw gate. Got our seat in E section and there were maybe 100 people in the entire stand. We had a great day together but it was not the same excitement it once was.

[darnall]

Originally Posted by richie Of course, I'd love to see 50 cars qualifying for 33 spots and a true Bump Day once again. That would involve a lot of changes to open up the rules, cheaper equipment, etc. I hope we can get back to that point again, but I don't know when that's going to happen, unfortunately.

Oh how I agree with this...totally... It wasn't that long ago a group of guys could acquire a 6-8 year old car relatively inexpensively, put whatever they could afford or borrow in it for a motor, and find somebody carrying a helmet bag that was willing to take a shot at getting it fast enough to make the 30-33rd spot on the grid.

Now that we have so many rule updates every 2 years, you have to have new stuff to go play. I don't know what happens to all the cars that get deemed obsolete with rule changes every 2 years, but there has to be hundreds of them out there collecting dust or sitting in somebody's museum on display. Wouldn't it be AWESOME if Indycar would amend the rules for the 500, or any of the oval races for that matter, and say any car/aero package that was legal in the last 10 years is legal for this race.

Can you imagine how many of our guys would get to take a crack at running the 500??? Buy a 6 year old car for not much more than a new tricked out sprint roller costs, put a turbo on an esslinger and get after it.

If the fundraising effort for Dave Darland to run the ARCA race was successful just imagine how much more money could be raised for him to get a shot at the 500. If the smaller budget teams like Sara Fisher Racing could bring out their old cars that got obsoleted by rules and let a somewhat funded short tracker provide his own engine and crew they could rent them out for way less money than a current car goes for, and actually get a little revenue coming back in versus putting all that money in the attic forever.

As hard as it is for the existing INDYCAR owners to piece together 33 cars every year and find enough funded drivers to fill the grid I would have to think there could be 4-8 spots on the grid available for guys with older cars trying to get in. Even if they only generated 37-40 entries by opening up the rules it would still bring back all the drama and excitement that bump day used to have, and if only 2 or 3 of our guys got to be involved in qualifying it would still make all of us really really excited to see them take a shot.

Pipe dream??? Oh heck yeah... feasible??? probably not... Fun to dream about??? Yes sir!!!