Grand Prix of Baltimore presented by SRT

[zako85]

How old are you zako?, Some of us older fans could write pages and pages about those tracks explaining how great they are and at the same time knowing deep down why it is economically not viable to run on them with the current state of the series, very sad.

IndyCars will never race on The Circuit of the Americas, which is a sad thing, I really liked the race when attending the F1 race last year, people were predicting another Mickey Mouse, cookie cutter track, but it is a great track that lets you race and takeover other cars.

I am in mid-30s but I didn't follow any American motorsport until 2011 or so. Circuit of the Americas is certainly world class. Why wouldn't IndyCars race on the Circuit of the Americas. Would this make Bernie Ecclestone unhappy?

[garyshell]

I am in mid-30s but I didn't follow any American motorsport until 2011 or so. Circuit of the Americas is certainly world class. Why wouldn't IndyCars race on the Circuit of the Americas. Would this make Bernie Ecclestone unhappy?

Make Bernie unhappy? Just a teensy tiny minuscule little bit. He'd go apoplectic and find a clause somewhere that allowed him to cancel the F1 race post haste.

Gary

[nigelred5]

I am talking about the road courses where IndyCars do race. In Sonoma, they could get some cranes nearby and ready to evacuate the cars into a safe area under local yellow, as in F1. As for race tracks, if IndyCar officials wanted, they could add more to the calendar. Last time I checked, they're not racing at Watkins Glen, Road America, Laguna Seca, or The Circuit of Americas. I think IndyCar is afraid of not being able to get enough enthusiasts to come to the road course, so instead they try to bring the race to the spectators onto the city streets.

Besides too many crashes and yellows, an annoying thing is, as I mentioned, that the front running cars in the race or the championship regularly get taken out of race. This makes the championship into a lottery, and reduces the fun. This sort of thing should really be minimized. No one likes this. When Hamilton got taken out by Maldonado and Alonso by Grosjean in F1 races last year, people were fuming of boards for weeks or months, but in IndyCar it just business as usual.

They aren't racing at Road America, Watkins Glen, COTA, etc... because the races can't afford it on the crowd indycar draws these days unfortunately. Take bernie's ransom and move the decimal two places. ICS tracks still can't cover that in most instances.



Indycar prefers to keep cars in the race as opposed to craning them off the track simply because they stalled or were maybe stuck in the kitty litter. I've always agreed with that. That generally requires series track crews responding to the incident site to free a car or restart one. Again, I'd prefer to continue to see that if the car is safe to race, especially when they were the victim of brainless racing(which is far to often lately). While some tracks like Road America are large enough that a crew could possibly accomplish this, In general, if track workers or track vehicles are required on course, You're gonna see a FCY in American racing. I"ll blame that on safety and liability insurance. Again, in general I agree with siding in favor of OVERALL safety. I'd prefer to never witness a track worker being struck by a car at speed again, even at a slightly reduced one under a local yellow. I'll have to disagree with the F1 vs Indycar championship lottery. F1 has essentially been decided by the time they leave Spa far too often. I'd prefer to see a ten way battle down to the last lap. Cars and drivers are far more equal than F1 has ever been. Don't want to be taken out-stay further out in front.

[jarrambide]

Make Bernie unhappy? Just a teensy tiny minuscule little bit. He'd go apoplectic and find a clause somewhere that allowed him to cancel the F1 race post haste.

Gary

What he said.

[FormerFF]

I'd really like to see them ditch the double file restarts on both road and street courses, but especially on street courses. There were too many cars piling into that hairpin.

[zako85]

They aren't racing at Road America, Watkins Glen, COTA, etc... because the races can't afford it on the crowd indycar draws these days unfortunately.

Then IndyCar should be looking to change that. You can't become a major league sport if you don't play on major league venues.

Indycar prefers to keep cars in the race as opposed to craning them off the track simply because they stalled or were maybe stuck in the kitty litter. I've always agreed with that. That generally requires series track crews responding to the incident site to free a car or restart one. Again, I'd prefer to continue to see that if the car is safe to race, especially when they were the victim of brainless racing(which is far to often lately). While some tracks like Road America are large enough that a crew could possibly accomplish this, In general, if track workers or track vehicles are required on course, You're gonna see a FCY in American racing. I"ll blame that on safety and liability insurance. Again, in general I agree with siding in favor of OVERALL safety. I'd prefer to never witness a track worker being struck by a car at speed again, even at a slightly reduced one under a local yellow.

Without descending into philosophical considerations about whether its fair to end the race for a car that spun out and stalled, taking it away under a full course caution can result in a duller race. If a 3rd party was involved, then they should be handed a penalty, and next time everyone will be smarter. If anyone speeds or does stupid things under local yellow, they should also be punished.

Besides, I for one don't believe that every car must have the right to continue in the race, specially after being stranded off the track.
Helping stranded cars to make it to pits to be fixed to continue the race makes more sense in endurance racing, but open-wheels should really be run more like sprint races IMO.

It's even shocking to me that right now for some teams it may be worth it to fix a broken car and let it run (slowly) for a few laps to gain some points. IndyCar is giving points away rather easily. I thought it was ridiculous last year when after crashing his car in the final 2012 race, Will Power got his broken car out for a few laps to gain a few points. Earning points should mean something, like say finishing in top 15 or top 20. He was getting points even if car did not complete much of race distance.

[nigelred5]

Indycar has tried to change quite a lot, but the series and it's fans, teams, drivers, venues and eve former fans carry one hell of alot of baggage from a nasty 13 year civil war. Its not so easy to just "change it" when people can't even agree on what actually needs to be changed. Some love road and street course racing, yet a large amount of US racing fans despise it, and the opposite is just as true.
I for one agreed the war needed to end, but I'm not sure that a total reunification was the answer. Personally I would rather have seen one organization run seperate series with the the same car regulations and a limited number of common events.

I'm really missing those additional 16-18 open wheel races we used to have with two series, and next year, It's happening again in us sportscar racing.

[jarrambide]

Then IndyCar should be looking to change that. You can't become a major league sport if you don't play on major league venues.........

You should look at the history of American Open Wheel Racing, USAC, CART, ChampCar, IRL, how CART used to be a major league and how since the late 90s or early 2000s the sport in the US went spiraling down.

Champ Car, IRL, and now IC tried to if not return to the golden years, to improve the current sad state, easier said than done.

[bugeyedgomer]

Big money flying around Izodcarz these daze

race winner Pagenaud earned $35,000 for his victory at Baltimore

[Starter]

Big money flying around Izodcarz these daze

race winner Pagenaud earned $35,000 for his victory at Baltimore

Not too bad. Just out of curiosity how much money did you earn for any given three days of work this year.