IndyCar Changes Moving Series in Right Direction

The IZOD IndyCar Series has been practically extinct since the open-wheel split with CART nearly two decades ago. However, the past few seasons have shown light as the seats are becoming more filled and the TV ratings are soaring. There is still much work to be down, though. New IndyCar Series race director Beaux Barfield has made a few changes here and there to help improve the on-track show, and so far has been a major success. His latest change might very well be the most beneficial change of all.

The IndyCar Series has changed the distances of four races on the schedule for the 2013 season in attempt to eliminate fuel-mileage races.  Road/street races at St. Petersburg, Long Beach, and Mid-Ohio will be adjusted, and the Milwaukee Mile oval race will add 25 laps to be a 250 mile race. 

In each of these races, nearly every car went out conservatively in order to save fuel. Teams could easily stretch their fuel tanks to make it a two-stop race on the road/street courses. However, the pit windows would be extremely small, sometimes with a window of two laps or less. This left very little room for strategizing, and meant that most wins came solely from qualifying and from pit lane. Nobody was willing to gamble on the track because they would waste too much fuel by challenging another racer. So instead, fans got the prototypical “single file parade” around the circuits – not very exciting.

It is exactly that prototypical racing style that makes most American fans yawn at road/street courses. They want lots of passing. They want cars smashing into each other and trading paint (NASCAR…yawn). They don’t know of the art of making a pass on a street course, and much of it has been because of the lack of competitive road racing.

Image courtesy of racing enthusiast
and 3SN racing analyst Ryan Mooney

Why is there a lack of competitive road racing? Much of it is due to the fact that Americans never SEE good road racing. The only F1 race that is regularly shown is the Monaco Grand Prix, the most fabled on the schedule. It’s also the one which is most difficult to overtake on. Result (for the casual fan): Boring. NASCAR has two (at the most) non-oval races. They bring in road-course specialists, meaning half of the field are no-names to the casual NASCAR fan. And finally, stock cars are such bricks that they cannot make a passing maneuver in the amount of time required by a road course, so again we have single file racing – boring. Finally, IndyCar. The perfect mix of F1 and NASCAR. Except that the road races have been less than stellar due to drivers “racing to a fuel number” instead of fully racing. Now that should change for good.

And you know what, maybe Americans’ concepts of quality auto racing will change. Doubtful, but one can only hope!

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