What if NASCAR took control of Indy Cars?

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Originally Posted by Starter

I understand your disdain for the 'Danica', but an honest person would admit that she hasn't done all that badly over in stocker land. Better than many of the other drivers. And when one complains that the sanctioning body gives her the advantage, talk is cheap - prove it.

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You miss my point which was probably disguised too much in realist sarcasm...

If Nascar took over Indycar, "real" racing would be out the window, all competition would be "managed" on a race by race basis, favoring certain drivers, sponsors, and manufacturers, miraculously adjusting specs for one manufacturer versus another, the slowest cars would get allowable tweaks not available to the faster cars.... if they became faster then they get adjusted backwards... Nothing happens in Nascar by accident !

If Nascar took over Indycar racing look for low cost tube frame cars with the same stockblock engines as grand-am for economy of scale and allowance for teams to run cars and 'name drivers' in both divisions, in essence an open wheel grand am car.

and a real "honest" person would say the princess hasn't done shiite in taxi cabs, what in two years- one top ten finish in the minor league series plus one dummied up fake pole in the bigs.

Look at today's 125 qual race, she started on pole, was passed in the first turn and finished 17th. Same thing will happen Sunday -bet on it.

I haven't totally been against hte idea, mainly beecause they know marketing and own a ton of race tracks, many of which we would love to see Indycars return to.. More than likely, we'd essentially see a return to formula very similar to the original IRL. I seem to recall TG basically tried to create an open wheel version of NASCAR as it was. He worked closely with ISC and the Frances on more than one aspect of the IRL. Stock block based engines, tightly controlled, under powered high downforce cars and mainly american drivers on ISC ovals and maybe the glen again.......no way I see any way they could return to any sort of a tube frame chassis for 200+mph open wheel cars simply because you can't possibly make them safe enough for the FIA or anywhere close to acceptable safety standards....... ok i guess if that's your thing.

Agree with Nigel, they couldn't go back wards on car design with tube frames.

I wasn't a huge fan of the IRL early days. NASCAR would no doubt run Nationwide and trucks at some where like longbeach, and the Indy Cars would be racing back at Michingan, in support of Nationwide series or trucks.

I do think the marketing machine would be a huge help for Indy Cars.

Interested in what was said above about the series trying to make parity amongst teams. CART did this witht turbo boost and really pissed off Honda I recall?

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Originally Posted by nigelred5

I haven't totally been against hte idea, mainly beecause they know marketing and own a ton of race tracks, many of which we would love to see Indycars return to.. More than likely, we'd essentially see a return to formula very similar to the original IRL. I seem to recall TG basically tried to create an open wheel version of NASCAR as it was. He worked closely with ISC and the Frances on more than one aspect of the IRL. Stock block based engines, tightly controlled, under powered high downforce cars and mainly american drivers on ISC ovals and maybe the glen again.......no way I see any way they could return to any sort of a tube frame chassis for 200+mph open wheel cars simply because you can't possibly make them safe enough for the FIA or anywhere close to acceptable safety standards....... ok i guess if that's your thing.

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I believe that as part of the IMSA take-over, Nascar now essentially owns Panoz, so they could make a bunch of DP01 knockoffs, put the 5.0L fuel injected Ford/ Chevy, er ah Hendrick/ Roush engine in it and go racing

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Originally Posted by SoCalPVguy

I believe that as part of the IMSA take-over, Nascar now essentially owns Panoz, so they could make a bunch of DP01 knockoffs, put the 5.0L fuel injected Ford/ Chevy, er ah Hendrick/ Roush engine in it and go racing

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Probably not too much of a stretch, though I"d rather see something like the ford tt V6 just unveiled for the Michael Shank Daytona Prototype.

I can imagine that NASCAR would mean two things: engineering stagnation and disappearance of the road and street courses. IndyCar has been recently moving away from exactly that model, despite its lack of resources.

It's sad that I feel this way. But in light of where the series is now and how low this type of racing is on the public's radar, would it really matter??? To be honest, I'm not sure that NASCAR could do anything to the IRL... er "Indy Car" that it hasn't already done to itself. I don't know that there's been a more mismanaged business since Enron was on the ropes. Maybe, just maybe, NASCAR would bring in some real business people who actually understand how to mix business, racing and entertainment. I'm not saying it would be what us old heads would want (I don't expect the "good old days" will ever return). But at least it wouldn't be on crutches, stumbling toward the graveyard.

Something else I'll mention: what NASCAR has done/is doing with the Grand Am engine formula (and the DP formula) is pretty much what I think the goofballs at IMS/IRL/Indy Car should have done with the ICS engine formula. I used to hate Grand Am. But I now tend to pay at least as much attention to Grand Am as I do Indy Car - and from next year on, probably more.

The biggest negative would be that it would end any wish of the series improving coming back into truly fast automobiles and top prices at Indiana or anywhere else. And in fact they won't let any one the stockerz . . . . . .. .

If NASCAR treated the two series properly it could be fine.... Market indycar to the "wine and cheese" and Midwest crowd and Cup to the beer and pizza and southeast crowd. Cup would still generate greater numbers and they could cross promote both series to grow overall viewership etc. I am not sure it would be bad.... Also, they seem to be getting he clue that the cup formula doesn't work for everything as the new sports car model seems a respectable compromise thus far.....

Chris, I think the issue that NASCAR might have with that is they'd be giving up the wine & cheese crowd that they've managed to draw in over the years that open wheel has been in decline. While we might like to still believe that only "Bubbas" watch NASCAR, the last NASCAR race I went to, there were more Ferraris and Porsches in the parking lot than the last open wheel race I went to. NASCAR now has the major corporations and the B2B that CART used to have (that the ICS largely doesn't) and so that's where the movers & shakers go... if they go to races at all.

I just joined a new (multi-national) company around the first of the year. And while I'm still getting to know people, most everyone knows that I am a HUGE racing fan. The Americans will ask me who I like in NASCAR... and the Europeans will ask me who I like in F1. No one has asked me who I like in Indy Car. The closest I've come to discussing Indy Car is a brief chat I had the other day with a fellow who remembered who Team Rahal was (back when my former employer sponsored that outfit in CART). This outfit has a B2B relationship with Pepsi. So I'm sure that if we ever did sponsor a car, it would be in NASCAR.

I'm just not sure who the target demographic is for Indy Car these days. And I get the sense that the series doesn't know either. Has anyone seen a Joyce Julius report lately? I wonder what the demographic breakdown looks like these days.