Originally Posted by cecil98:
Half the field is American. Which is a shock in itself because the FIRST boarding race school is about to open. The thing most people do not relize is these Forgein drivers are better educatated in marketing and the way the car works which gives them the advantage in talking to engineers and sponsers then the majority of natural born drivers.
Face it the way to Indy is through through Carts on road courses..........smbperformance
smb, I'm telling you, everytime I try to prosyletize, for the sport, all I get is "we don't know who those guys are and we don't care"! That's a fact. You can diminish the impact of the disappearing American circle tracker on Indy Car racing all you want but, you're only kidding yourself. By your theory we would never have seen the likes of Foyt, Jones, Andretti, Sneva, Johncock and Rutherford. They were all circle trackers who adapted to the rear-engine cars with ease. No, it's much more than being better educated and possessing better technical expertise, it's that most of the foreign drivers seem to come from, and bring, more money.
Another thing, we raced go-karts on both road courses and ovals. Go-karts essentially have "NO" suspensions thus, how does one gain technical expertise on setting up a formula-type car from a rigid structure like a go-kart? That's a bunch of bull but, even if what you say is true, then the powers that be in Indy car racing desparately need to develop a program to recruit and train circle trackers on the nuances of the Indy type cars and marketing. As long as foreigners dominate all of the top rides in the sport, it will never grow in this country. Danica is a girl and Marco is an Andretti, otherwise, we have no Americans in top tier rides. Hornish was the last American that was of the wrong gender or, not born into racing royalty, that landed a top tier ride.
Karts were ment as a place to start not the direct path. Karts give you the throttle control and the teaches you how to drive and choose a line. Most top teir open wheel drivers still race Karts to stay sharp when they are not racing their main car. However like someone else talked about you must leave Karts and go into formula style cars like Vee, 2000, Ford, Star Mazda..... And now the path way from Indy Lights (IPS) to the IRL is starting to opening up.
I also like BC and cheer for him every week but I am going to use him as an example because he is one we all know.
But look at the carrer path of BC and the carrer path of Montoya, Castronevas, Dixon, Servia, Kannan and other.
BC grew up racing quarters in Cali then at 13/14 moved to Indy and was running sprints and kenyons. He had success on the local series and that got him noticed getting in increasingly better and better quality cars. When he turned 16 he started racing on a national level and shortly after that he got notced and then the first thing Gannasi did was put him in pavement late models a car similar to the ones he was going to run. The only formal education that he has is from the Noblesville school district
Then if you look at the "foregin" drivers they start racing Karts at 5 or so and compete there for a couple of years until they can get accepted into a race school. Once they get into school they not only practice driving but they are taught how to present yourself, find and talk to potential sponsers and keep your sponsers and how to talk to the media. These are the things you need to do to get the bills paid as you move through the ranks which they do while they are in school on the weekends. Vechile dynamics is a vast subject and is more then a pound of air here a round of "wedge" here it is knowing the scrub radius of the tire and how you can manipulate your line and driving style corner entry and exit to change the handling caretistics of the car. This will allow the drivers and the engineers to have a more intimate releationship and get the car better sooner.
If you play hockey and want to make it to the pros and live in Canada then you go on to play in the Juniors. For years there was a lack of Americans in Pro Hockey unless they moved to Canada to play in the Juniors and now the USHL is formed and opened up that path way. If you are living outside the US and want to race for a living then go to a race school but in america you have to no direct path or formal training. Now there is going to be an american race school which will help.
Most drivers when prepairing for the jump from USAC to NASCAR spend time at a short term driving school like Fast Track or Petty's now how much better would a driver be if they started one of those schools at age 10 and it was a boarding school that they went to year round. During the week they would review last weeks races practice lines and driving styles and learn how and why the car works. Along with learning about PR and marketing. Graduates of that school would have a better chance to make it to NASCAR then some one running dirt tracks and trying to do it on their own.
It is the same if there was an open wheel boarding school in America like there aren in other countries then that would become the best way to make it to Indy
