Indycar failure to return to top form

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5th June 2013, 04:34
garyshell

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starter

You have no idea what SCCA amateur racing is do you? Those people are racers. They do it because they love the sport and most participate at great sacrifice to their personal finances. Stop on by at an event and I'll introduce you to some real racers.

After having gone to races myself for many years, finally one year I was able to convince my father to go to his first race. It was the year that Cadillac went racing again in IMSA/ALMS (I forget who was the sanctioning body then). It was also the year my dad finally got a Cadillac. He really enjoyed the race. So much so, that latter that year we also went to see the SCCA runoffs. On the way back home Dad commented about how much more "racey those guys and gals were than the race we saw earlier in the season." The difference was obvious to a rookie fan.

Gary
5th June 2013, 04:44
dj_bytedisaster

Seriously, in this forum you simply can't go to bed. This thread has one post per day and the 5 hours I went to sleep all hell breaks lose. I want to play, too :p

There is little doubt that Indycar as it is now, isn't the optimum package. The cars are too equal and we have too few manufacturers. Most of the greatest moments in racing that I remember came as a result of car differences and/or drivers.

Take the Donington F1 race in 1993. Sena creaming the lot in a hopeless McLaren. Same for Schumacher 1996 in Barcelona in that dog of a Ferrari. Both these drives would have faded to history if it wasn't for the fact that they were achieved in woefully uncompetitive cars. Everytime a Minardi scored points in F1 made me happy, because they were everybody's favourite underdog. For that to work, however, you need underdogs.
Same with drivers. The only thing that is keeping me interested in Indycars is the lineup. I got hooked on CART when Mansell went there and Alex Zanardi sent the ratings through the roof in Europe. Back then even local broadcasters in Germany covered CART races. I watched most of the 2001 season on a free-to-air channel that spent the rest of its time showing oompha music shows and regional car fairs. These days I can't even watch it on pay TV, because it isn't shown and I have to rely on pirated live streams if I want to see it at all.

What Indy needs is more technical competition. Someone kick Roger Penske until he starts manufacturing his own chassis again. Then bring in Panoz, Lola, G-Force, Riley - whoever. Then go international again. 2 European races (Eurospeedway, Monza), 2 asian (Fuji, Motegi) and one or two south/central american races (Rio, Mexico City) should do the trick. If Indy then managed to get some big names in, it would be perfect. I wonder what it would take to lure someone like Schumacher or Loeb. If I was in charge of the series I would stop at nothing to try and convince S. Loeb to at least try his luck at the Indy 500. That in itself would be a PR gold mine. CART has proven in 2003 that it is possible to build a specially adapted car for Alex Zanardi. Another gold mine. And Schumacher is still on Mercedes' payroll. Bring Mercedes back and luring in Schumacher will be a helluva lot easier.

With F1 seemingly heading down the turbo alley from 2014. What stops Indycar from adopting a similar if not the same engine formula. Both Honda and Chevy have extensive experience in building turbo engines and Indycar could establish themselves as a step-stone to F1 for both drivers and engine manufacturers.

All wild ideas, but one is allowed to dream...
5th June 2013, 14:54
FIAT1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starter

You have no idea what SCCA amateur racing is do you? Those people are racers. They do it because they love the sport and most participate at great sacrifice to their personal finances. Stop on by at an event and I'll introduce you to some real racers.

I didn't say nothing against amateur racing, but I don't think that top level open wheel formula as Indycar should be one.
5th June 2013, 15:05
FIAT1

Quote:

Originally Posted by garyshell

After having gone to races myself for many years, finally one year I was able to convince my father to go to his first race. It was the year that Cadillac went racing again in IMSA/ALMS (I forget who was the sanctioning body then). It was also the year my dad finally got a Cadillac. He really enjoyed the race. So much so, that latter that year we also went to see the SCCA runoffs. On the way back home Dad commented about how much more "racey those guys and gals were than the race we saw earlier in the season." The difference was obvious to a rookie fan.

Gary

I think that lawn mower racing guys are racey and fun to watch, my local go cart club has some racey kids, on occasion I'm very racy on the local expressway and that's fine. What is not fine is that top American racing series adopts that type formula of spec club amateur operation. People have spoken in big numbers and lets open competition and bring Indy and a car to the top level competition where it belongs.
5th June 2013, 17:33
Jag_Warrior

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starter

You have a point about the drivers. Where CART and later the IRL failed (IMO) is they tried going with a B2B model. They forgot about the fans and what attracted them. Both the teams and the series were working on getting budgets via inter relationships with businesses and forgot about bringing larger audiences to the show. Then we had the split which divided and alienated the fans that were there. Not so many fans anymore and the B2B model started to fall apart because the fans were always most of the reason businesses were there.

I agree with all of this. I would just add that on the B2B front, CART (and maybe the IRL/ICS) hurt itself with extremely poor sponsor relations. There was a questionnaire sent to sponsors and CART got marks that were about the lowest of the major series: NASCAR, NHRA, ALMS/IMSA, etc. My former company was in CART mostly for B2B reasons. For the most part, we were there to be around the companies that we did business with and those we wanted to do business with. The fanbase, TV numbers and attendance didn't really matter so much to us. But yeah, as the host/primary sponsors went away, we then went away too. I'm not sure what they're doing now, but we/they eventually went to NASCAR - as so many other companies did. The B2B was there. And the sponsor exposure value was there. All of the negative PR created by the split didn't help either. That's why most (smart) companies stay out of politics, no matter where their loyalties lie.

Quote:

Yes, the cars aren't as good looking or as fast as they could be. The racing is pretty darn good though. Ask yourself this - how long did it take USAC and then CART to build a series which attracted mass appeal? Remember that Indy type cars, except for the 500, were very much a niche sport in the '70s and early '80s. It took a decade to build to what it was in the late '80s and early '90s. And that was when there were limited TV alternatives for viewers. It was the big three networks or nothing. Anyone who thinks that sexy cars or new lap records are magic bullets is fooling themselves. It's gonna be a looong road back folks.

Yes, it took awhile to build CART up to what it became. But CART had a great base to build on. It had a fantastic cast of characters, in former Indy 500 winners, some solid homegrown talent, several F1 world driving champions and quiet a few A-list former F1 drivers. Plus, Indy was still mega popular. Indy back then was as popular as the Daytona 500 is now. And let's be honest, the cars of that era were pretty darn interesting, if not fascinating. But as I look at this iteration of Indy Car, I'm honestly not sure what they can use as a base. What do they have that they can use to attract people, in the near term or the long term? I'm not going out of my way to be a Debbie Downer. I just don't know the answer to that one. And the sad thing is (based on that pathetic list of possibles and potentials and maybes in that long term strategy list in that other thread), I don't think the people in the big conference room have a clue either.

For over ten years I've been saying it and for ten years I feel like none of the people at IMS get it: addressing costs is fine. But you also have to create or enhance value - and they have not done that. You have to have a product that the market wants. I can surely think of a way to mass produce buggy whips at a very low cost. But if there is not sufficient demand for buggy whips, I'll still go broke, right? And where before the series had maybe three or four major issues to address, now they probably have a dozen or more. Even the best magic bullet can't kill that many problems. Until I see some sign that they are prepared to address the value side of the equation, I'm not believing anything that comes out of IMS. Do these geniuses even understand or care why the TV ratings for Indy continue to spiral down??? With each step down, the series becomes less and less relevant to the public, then the sponsors stop taking calls and then all these guys will know to do is focus on cutting costs even more to make up for the loss of sponsor $.

But hey, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. And I wish them the very best of luck in their future endeavors. That's sort of what I said in my resignation letter when I left the clueless company that I worked for up until the end of 2012. Once the silliness gets to be too much, a fellow just has to start walkin', ya know? Fans don't get paid, so they'll do it with even more ease - as we have seen over the years. :(

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