You may be right about my knowledge of Indy Racing, wright59, however, if you take a look at the teams I mentioned as founding teams of the IRL you will find that only a handfull participated in the 500 before the IRL and of those, only Galles racing ran the full CART/Indy Car circuit. By 1995 Galles was becoming uncompetitive at Indy and CART with Adrian Fernandez and Marco Greco driving for him. Hemelgarn and Byrd were only small one-off Indy participants during the CART years and Menard, while not considered underfunded, only ran the 500, as well, until the founding of the IRL, at which point they began a full time IRL team. Needless to say, after the "sell-out" to the Honda/Toyota Leases and the influx of Penske/Ganassi/Andretti-Green into the series, 95% of these small teams dried up and disappeared. Also, no one here suggested that the IRL inspired the founding of "all" of these teams but, some teams were formed because of the league. With the new economic package the IRL presented, many of these smaller teams saw the opportunity to run the entire series and did. The fact that some existed before the IRL/CART split doesn't mean they weren't "founding teams" of the IRL......

Like I said, if you wanna talk about the 50's-70's there is a forum for that. Last weekend (in 2011) I watched an Indycar race from a street course in St.Petersburg, FL. The old times aren't coming back, I was probably a year old going to pavement late model races in the late 70's. I found sprint car racing and I like it just like everyone else on this board. SOME PEOPLES DEBATING SKILLS ARE LIKE THAT OF A 3 YEAR OLD. I'm not implying that to you Backitin, spend enough time here and you'll see who the know it all's are who can't complete a logical sentence, yet they can fix the world, by implying that Indycar racing should be synonymous with the world of sprint cars. It's as profound as the Southerner's who think stock cars, should be just that stock cars.

All I know is if your a race fan your lucky to be in indiana

You guys go ahead and bash away at INDYCAR if it makes you feel good. All I know is I am getting pretty excited about young Mr. Clauson's entry into the INDYCAR world in about two months. Best of luck in the Freedom 100 Bryan!!!

I respect any driver that cheats death on evey lap by entring turn 1 at Indy going 230 MPH. Think it's easy.? I think not.

Couldn't agree more, some people were so happy that Clauson is running the ovals, then 3 weeks later take no offence to someone saying it's so easy a monkey could do it.

I do think I read that the TV ratings were the highest since 2007 for the St. Pete's race.

Cecil your valid point about the IRL formula had one huge flaw, no body came out and saw those races and not many more tuned in on TV. I went to quite a few of the midwest races between 1999-2004 and you always had plenty of room in the stands.

The INDYCAR Series is a business and needs to make money. The street / road races are more "events" than races and allow the IICS, teams, and promoters cater to the sponsors through hospitality.

I consider myself a race fan and will watch just about anything that requires one person to go faster than the other whether it is Indy cars, F1, Nascar, sprintcars, modifieds or street stocks.

Yeah, overnight ratings were a 1.4 for the st pete race. That is the highest rating that an IndyCar race (other than the 500) has received since 2007.

They had several races that were well attended (e.g. KY 65K +,Texas 100k+, Chicago 70K+ etc) and thus, created a solid foundation for the series to build on. If Tony had stuck to his guns (and "no lease" formula), I believe the series would have caught on. The racing was just too good and they had a good mix of young drivers that could've developed into stars had they and their teams not been forced out by the big money. As it turned out Honda and Toyota, from a marketing standpoint, did nothing to promote the series. In the end all they did was give motors to the teams that could already afford them. Huge mistake by Tony George.

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I'm excited about Clauson getting a chance myself. We discussed a kid named Travis Gregg (a Lawrenceburg regular) on here a while back who got a similar chance and excelled in the IPS feeder series. He won, sat on the pole for several races and always finished in the to 3 or 4 but, never got a sniff from the IRL owners. I'm just hoping that Clauson gets a real shot and not just a token shot, as Gregg did. Hopefully, Bryan has some solid funding behind him. I know his dad has been beating the bushes up in Indy for years and has done a great job of promoting him. The IRL needs the Bryan Clausons' of the racing world more than he needs them IMO. I hope they finally start realizing this.

Part of the issue is that drivers from other countries recognize at an early age that if they want to get into F1, GP2, GP3, F3 or even in to the lower tier formula feeder ladders, they will need sponsorship, so they are networking, developing sponsors and hiring agents much earlier in their careers than many of their US counterparts. So when their career path to F1 fizzles out, they still may have sponsorship dollars to take elsewhere.

The other part of this problem is that the feeder ladders in US racing have been a mess, and the competition in European ladders is much higher. This allows for the perception that somebody who has vetted themselves in the European ladders has learned more racecraft than somebody who came up through the US ladders.

One other reason that some of these foreign drivers get the nod is the perception that you can teach a road course driver how to tackle ovals much easier than you can teach an oval driver how to tackle road courses.

The current management of the IndyCar Series is trying to do something about that though. Last year they brought Star Mazda and USF2000 on as part of the official IndyCar ladder along with Indy Lights. They have established scholarships for each ladder series champion driver to help them move on to the next rung. They have set up some interesting side deals like providing a scholarship for the USAC champion to run all the ovals in Lights. They have also established a "combine" where ladder team owners and IndyCar drivers can evaluate up and coming talent in USF2000 cars. This "combine" will draw from series and event champions from across the karting world, as well as USAC D1 midgets.

Yeah, their current marketing spin is that they have the "best drivers on the planet".... I don't believe that for one second. Yeah, they have some good drivers, but the best in the world are in F1 and NASCAR.... because that is where you get paid what you are worth. But at least they are making moves in their ladder series to try and make their ladders a legitimate feeder into IndyCar and maybe help them over time earn the title "best drivers on the planet".

IRL = its really lousy. IOW fans won't,b satisfied unless Clauson makes it to the IRL n has a top shelf ride. i personally only care about Paul Traceys results so I just follow him on Twitter. Until he,Sarah Fisher, or Clauson run a full schedule , count me out.
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