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Archive for the tag “Verizon IndyCar Series”

01 Jun 2015
2 Comments

Five worthless opinions: The Chevrolet Dual in Detroit

The Verizon IndyCar Series floated onto Belle Isle in Detroit and, with promoter Roger Penske’s help, managed to put on two races that once again highlighted the yin and yang of IndyCar as we know it.  Here are some waterlogged WO’s (worthless opinions) to bring some sunshine to your day.

1.  Andretti Autosport went 1-2 in Saturday’s race with Carlos Munoz and Marco Andretti.  Strategy of any kind makes a race more compelling.  The decision to stay on slicks and stretch fuel as the rain was coming in was flawless, as was Marco’s aggressiveness in staying out longer than the team wanted so he could build his lead.  Munoz’s later fuel stop allowed him to pass Marco for the win, but it was gutsy racing from both Andretti drivers.  Take a chance, win a race.

2.  What was great about Sunday’s race?  The obvious was the small teams up on the podium.  Sebastien Bourdais, a beast in the wet for KVSH Racing, held off Takuma Sato, another beast in the wet for A.J. Foyt Racing, for the win.  The final podium spot was Graham Rahal, a beast in general this year for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.  Something less obvious was the fact that it was a Chevy and two Hondas vying for the win and nobody really noticed.  It should be the drivers competing for the win, not the motors.  I am sure that Honda is proud of sweeping eight out of the top nine spots on Sunday, but Will Power taking out Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya running out of fuel, and Scott Dixon getting wrecked by teammate Charlie Kimball had a little something to do with Chevy’s bad day.

3.  Wet socks were the order of the day for both Saturday and Sunday, as was the cold.  Rain and temperature are a strategist’s nightmares.  Will the race go the distance?  Will it be timed?  When do we go from rains to slicks and slicks to rains?  Do we stay out for position or get fuel?  A hard-core fan is following all of these possibilities.  A casual fan is wallowing in them.  One thing that is extremely difficult to follow at a street race is strategy.  If you have a radio or scanner, it helps tremendously. At home, viewers depend on the broadcasters, who are at the mercy of their monitors and their directors.  Truthfully, radio does a much better job of explaining strategy.  In any case, being able to follow team strategy just makes the racing better.  Not shilling here, but if you have a Verizon phone, download the IndyCar 15 app.  Radio broadcast, team radio communications, and other goodies…all free.

4.  Speaking of strategies, Jon Beekhuis (@JonBeekhuis) conducted a Twitter Q and A after the race that was illuminating.  He explained timed races, discussed tire selection, and interpreted rules and penalties.  My question is this: Why is this only taking place on Twitter after the race?  All these are topics that fans and viewers want and need to understand.  Much of the consternation of being an IndyCar fan comes the esoteric nature of rules, penalties, and strategy.  A new fan to the series needs a primer on these topics.  If not, then rain shortened races like Saturday and Sunday confuse fans instead of excite them.  Beekhuis takes these topics, and without dumbing them down or using props, clearly and cleanly explains them.  Use and promote this man on pre-race, YouTube, and Twitter!  Engage the fans!  We are not stupid, just uneducated.

5.  The rules and race control are in the news, as always.  I will give race control this, they are NOT making calls that affect the outcome of races.  Whether this leads to issues on the track or not remains to be seen.  Graham Rahal moved all the way over on the track to block Takuma Sato on Sunday and defended this by saying blocking is legal as long as you don’t move in response to another driver.  Fair enough.  Still called for blocking, though.  He was required to give up his position to Sato.  That’s a penalty I can live with.  His race was not ruined, just his spot on the podium.  Juan Pablo Montoya complained loudly that Sato jumped the start.  If he did, there was no penalty.  I am not sure that probation and points penalties handed out on Wednesdays will deter rule breaking, but so far a light hand has seemed to work.  I do wonder if the rolled-up-newspaper threat to drivers will be ignored by the drivers like it is ignored by dogs everywhere, though.

In honor of the doubleheader weekend, I considered a doubleheader set of WO’s (worthless opinions) but decided against it.  The two days of bad weather in Detroit this weekend was punishment enough.

Posted in Five Worthless Opinions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
18 May 2015
8 Comments

Five worthless opinions: 2015 Indy 500 Qualifications

The Verizon IndyCar Series makes me happy.  Normally, that happiness comes from the racing itself.  Other times, it comes from a series that continually makes news for all the wrong reasons.  In other words, the WO’s (worthless opinions) often write themselves.  Let me offer my thanks to IndyCar for once again making my job easier.

1.  The flying cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are absolutely a cause for concern.  The DW12 Dallara chassis has had an unfortunate tendency to have the wheels lift off the ground when contacting walls at high speed.  When first introduced, the chassis had an issue with yaw, which is defined as “to twist or oscillate around a vertical axis,” when making contact with walls at high speed.  The current iteration of the Chevy aero kit has shown a ugly tendency to have the rear wheels lift off the ground on contact, particularly with a half spin, putting the tail of the car into the wind.  At that point, the car becomes a kite, having the necessary elements of air speed and a large surface area to deflect the air downward as it speeds by.  Yikes.  Physics has laws that must be followed, even by aerodynamicists.

2. One of the terms being thrown around at Indy this week has been “computational fluid dynamics” or CFD.  This usage implies that really smart people are using really smart tools to make really smart decisions so there is nothing to worry about.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.  We have the CFD unit in here to take care of things. With the lack of real-world testing, the series and teams have come to rely on algorithms to solve their aerodynamic problems.  How is that working out?

3.  Speaking of testing, the superspeedway aero kits did not really get much in the real world.  Airplanes are designed on computers and tested with software.  They are then given a rigorous series of real world flight tests, at tremendous risk to the test pilots, to ensure that they act as expected.  If not, then it is back to the drawing board.  As a cost-cutting measure and a way to provide parity in the series, the Verizon IndyCar Series severely limited testing, even with the new aero kits coming on-line.  As an additional monkey wrench, the series mandated holes be cut in the spec Dallara floor to decrease downforce.  In other words, the teams arrived knowing very little about the aero kits and have been allowed to try an insane number of aero combinations.  It has a little Wright Brothers feel to it. “Hey, Orville.  Let’s try this and see what happens!”  Just like airplanes, real testing is a vital component of development and safety.  More testing, please.

4.  The Verizon IndyCar Series certainly made an unpopular but arguably correct decision about qualifications at Indy.  Due to the rainout on Saturday and the continued flight of Chevy cars, teams were required to use their race aero set-ups for qualifying and the extra boost that was to provide a speed kick was taken away. Additionally, teams were only allowed one attempt to qualify.  Basically, the teams were told to take the cars off the knife edge that is the essence of Indy qualifying and make them stable and slower.  And if that didn’t work, then be reminded that you might not make the race if you wreck.  Point taken.  The runs were ho-hum, but the field got filled without incident. Poor Honda, though.  They did nothing wrong and were penalized for it.  And after the series played the safety card, any protest by Honda would be met by accusations that were against safety, freedom, apple pie, and the American way.  They cannot be happy.

5.  Do you need proof that there is power in social media?  After the rain washed out qualifications on Saturday, the IMS Twitter feed was letting patrons know that rain checks for Saturday would not be honored on Sunday, the explanation being that cars were on the track early and practiced.  Of course, the tickets said “Qualifications” in big letters and that did not happen.  Before Twitter, this would have been a non-starter as an issue.  People would have found out as they arrived on Sunday and been disappointed.  It may have made the paper on Monday, but not likely.  Immediately after IMS announced that people had to fork over more money for Sunday, you could feel the anger building on Twitter as more and more people started responding.  IMS felt the love fading and quickly changed its decision.  Power to the people

 

Posted in Five Worthless Opinions, Humor and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
10 May 2015
7 Comments

Sibling rivalry: the plight of the Angie’s List GP of Indianapolis

People with older siblings understand the story. If your older brother or sister is anything you are not – smart, good-looking, athletic, popular, criminally insane – then you are constantly in the position of being compared, normally unfavorably. You hear the disappointment in every back-handed compliment and outright criticism:

“Those grades are okay.  Not as good as your brother’s, though.”

“Why can’t you take more pride in your appearance and dress like your sister?”

“You know that your brother averaged double figures when he played basketball.”

“Even though he went to prison, your brother was a real genius when it came organizing a distribution network and cooking meth in the barn.”

We have all heard it.  And it hurts.  So welcome to the family Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis!  Your little road race is cute, but look what your big brother built.

That really is the story.  The GP of Indianapolis will always be in the shadow of its older, more successful, and more popular sibling.  And truthfully, not much can be done about it.

I’m a fan of the road race at IMS.  Turn 1 (Turn 4 area on the oval) is exciting as hell.  Unless you are Juan Pablo Montoya, of course.  His quote after this year’s race dealt with a long, fast straight leading into a first gear corner and the expected carnage at the beginning of the race.  Point taken, JPM, although as a counterpoint I would mention that every driver knows that the aforementioned first gear corner is there.  Act accordingly.

The GP of Indy had some great stories.  Graham Rahal’s second place run once again proved that something is different on the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.  It must be engineering since having his dad Bobby off the box couldn’t have that big of an effect, right?  A one car team with local sponsor Steak and Shake could add up to a tasty story line for the 500.

Will Power is stamping his dominance on the Verizon IndyCar Series.  He simply put on a show that stated he is all grown up and focused.  Finally.  He is the most dominant road racer in the series.  The oval at IMS remains his white whale, though.  He needs Ahab focus in the next two weeks.  Without the insanity, of course.

Even with these storylines, the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis is still the little brother tagging along for the ride because the parent company Hulman Motorsports said so.  The lengthy shadow cast by its much older brother simply cannot be overcome.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has done a masterful job of taking a month of May that had dwindled to the 500 and a convoluted qualifying weekend with barely enough cars to fill the 33 car field and expanded it to a three weekend month with two IndyCar races on two different courses at IMS sandwiching a convoluted qualifying weekend with barely enough cars to to fill the 33 car field.  Regardless of the attendance, a race with a title sponsor should be making money for the series/facility.

The problem is not the racing at the GP of Indy, nor is it the fact that it is a road race.  The problem is that it is not the Indy 500 and never will be.  Simply put, the big brother is just more popular than the little brother in everyone’s eyes.  Any racing event absolutely depends on local attendance.  While the Indianapolis 500 brings in fans from around the country, the majority of its fans are local.  These locals plan for the event.  They order tickets in advance, host parties, shop for food and beer like its Black Friday, and spend money like drunken sailors on leave.  They do it because the event is the thing.  It’s the Indy 500.  It’s a Midwestern Mardi Gras.  At the end of the month, they sober up and go back to sleep for another year.  They don’t have the love or the money for another event.  Going to a race at IMS is a massive undertaking.

All this leaves the GP of Indy waving its arms in the air and shouting, “Look at me!  Look at me!” to a populace that smiles and pats it on the head telling it how cute it is and then turns its attention to the fair-haired older sibling who always gets the accolades.  Fair it is not, but who said life was fair?  Even though the general admission tickets are an absolute bargain, and the spectator mounds offer sight lines to the best passing zones, the Indy area fans will always love the 500 more.

What does all this mean for the Angie’s List Grand Prix of Indianapolis?  Just keep trying to get everyone’s attention.  There is no need to cause trouble, act out, or start hanging out with unsavory characters.  A younger sibling in this situation has two choices: quit trying or get busy pleasing yourself instead of trying to compete with big brother.  My advice for the GP of Indy is simple.  Be yourself.  Or else spend years of therapy trying to come to grips with your feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.  Your choice.

Posted in Humor, Opinions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
27 Apr 2015
4 Comments

Five Worthless Opinions: Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama Edition

At times, my WO’s (worthless opinions) can run to sarcasm.  Surprising, I know.  And the Verizon IndyCar Series  always seems to offer snark fodder in abundance.  At previous races this year, the fragile front wings, racing in the rain, and rules interpretations have made it easy for one so inclined.  The Honda Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park changed most of that.  While not snark free, most of these WO’s celebrate a great race.

1.  All-American Finish: Josef Newgarden winning is a big deal for many reasons.  A compelling storyline to recent Verizon IndyCar Series seasons is the lack of a marketable American drivers for a North American series.  F1, noted for drivers from around the world, is a truly international series with venues around the world.  The IndyCar series is not.  The international drivers in IndyCar are outstanding, but without sounding all jingoistic about it, having a young, well-spoken, and telegenic American cannot hurt the marketability of the series.  If the series chooses to market him, of course.  They had American Ryan Hunter-Reay as both series champ and Indy 500 winner, and it would be hard to say they capitalized on that.

2.  The Racing: Newgarden and his Chevy were racy from the start, passing Scott Dixon, Simon Pagenaud, and Will Power to grab the lead from a fifth place start.  It was the kind of start that had fans using body English to help the drivers maneuver through traffic.  Graham Rahal’s run in his Honda to second after a late fuel stop had fans watching two strategies at once: Newgarden’s slow-paced fuel saving in his Chevy versus Rahal’s hanging-it-out after stopping for fuel near the end.  Fans could actually see the interval decreasing by seconds per lap.  And while Newgarden’s early passes were scintillating, Rahal’s outside passes throughout the race were equally spectacular.  Great stuff.

3.  Lack of Idiocy/Penalties/Yellows:  It was almost life affirming to not see carbon fiber flotsam and jetsam strewn around the track on the first lap.  The racing was tight and, for the most part, clean.  For the second race in a row, yellow flag racing was at a minimum.  Of course, the last two races simply balanced out the first two in the green/yellow ratio.  We’ll see where it goes from here.  It goes without saying that no Verizon IndyCar Series race is complete without grousing and complaining from drivers and teams about the officiating.  Both Sebastien Bourdais and Stefano Colleti took exception to yellow flags causing them personal hardship.  Juan Pablo Montoya took umbrage at Rodolfo Gonzalez slowing him down.  James Hinchcliffe was upset with Rahal’s line through the turns.  Ryan Hunter-Reay is still upset about NOLA and sees inconsistency everywhere. And of course, everyone complained about Francesco Dracone’s pace.  The reality was that Race Control penalized some, drivers, warned others, and called nothing in other situations.  It’s like calling holding in the NFL.  An official can do it every play.  You can’t call it all in racing, either, no matter how much the drivers whine and complain.

4.  Success of CFH Racing and RLL Racing: Back at the top of the podium, the success of Carpenter Fisher Hartman Racing over Penske and Ganassi bodes well for the sport and the team.  The same holds true for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, too.  The smaller teams in the series need success to bolster their bottom lines when it comes to sponsorship.  While Ed Carpenter has Fuzzy’s Vodka for he and Luca Filippi in their ride share, a win can go a long way to help Sarah Fisher land a season-long sponsorship for Josef Newgarden.  Graham Rahal’s second place finish sure put sponsor Steak and Shake in the spotlight.  And Rahal, ever the shill for his sponsors, tweeted after the race that he might stop in for a shake on his way home.

5.  Big Mo Heading to Indy: There must be something to momentum in sports.  Every announcer, coach, and player in every sport talks about its value.  If that’s true, then the month of May in Indy could be interesting.  Chevy certainly has engine and aero kit momentum.  They are the class of the field.  Penske has some, too.  The team has every driver in the top nine in the standings with Montoya and Castroneves running first and second.  The Ganassi boys are coming on, particularly after Long Beach.  With Newgarden and Rahal riding their Barber success, this might be the year for an underdog winner at the 500.  And don’t forget about the invisible man, Ed Carpenter.  He knows Indy.  The greatest beneficiary of momentum has to be the Verizon IndyCar Series.  After the aero growing pains of St. Pete and the weather woes of NOLA, the series seems to be finding its groove.

All in all, it was a most excellent race.  Let’s hope it sets the tone for a most excellent month of May in Indy.

Posted in 10 Worthless Opinions, Humor, Opinions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
19 Apr 2015
3 Comments

Five Worthless Opinions: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Edition

What more could the Verizon IndyCar Series ask of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach?  They had beautiful weather, tremendous crowds all weekend, and almost non-stop track action throughout the three days.  After the debris debacle in St. Pete and the weather worries in NOLA, the series had everything they needed…except an exciting race.  I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but woof.  This was an ugly race in a totally different way than the the first two.  Here are five totally worthless opinions about why that is true.

1.  The Start: The new sheriffs (plural) in race control decided that since all the cars were on the track at the same time, it was close enough to perfect for a green flag start.  That’s one way to keep poor driver decision making at bay.  Long Beach has always been a difficult start for the series with the hairpin at the beginning of the front stretch and antsy leaders like Helio Castroneves refusing to wait for the pack to form up.  Helio simply decided that since he was ready to go, everyone should be ready to go.  Race control appeared to take the public employees’ mantra of “Close enough for government work” to heart and turned a blind eye to prevent mayhem.  Maybe it was a good choice.  Maybe not.  Two words: standing start.  That shouldn’t be hard for the most versatile drivers in the world, should it?

2.  Debris Free: The drivers did behave themselves, though.  There was only one yellow for four laps.  Deep down in my heart, I want that to be because of their innate respect for each other and superior driving skills.  The more likely scenario is that they don’t have enough spare parts to replace the glass-like front wings and box kite-like rear bumpers.  The lack of yellows for wing debris is an absolute positive.  Drivers being unable or unwilling to force an issue or dive bomb a pass due to the fragility of the wings is not.

3.  No Passing:  A big part of the no-passing issue at Long Beach was the tenderness of the wings.  The drivers know that damage to a wing, winglet, flick, or kick can ruin an otherwise great day.  Another part of the problem was all the dirty air that the Honda and Chevy aero kits produced.  The end of the race had the four cars of Juan Pablo Montoya, Simon Pagenaud, Tony Kanaan, and Sebatien Bourdais nose-to-tail for positions three through six.  Not one attempt to pass was made.  Maybe I’m reading too much into this.  Maybe the drivers, hard chargers all, simply decided to points race since race winner Scott Dixon was long gone for the victory.  Maybe.  Last year there would would have been a tussle, a nudge, a bomb, and some harsh words after the race.  Some passing attempts would be nice, though.

4.  Strategy: This was a strategy race.  Drivers needed good in-laps, out-laps, and pit decisions.  Helio Castroneves lost the lead to Scott Dixon, and likely the race, when his left front tire changer wisely held him up as Tony Kanaan was pulling into his pit stall directly in front of Castroneves.  The human factor of pit road service and decisions is and should be part of a driver winning or losing a race.  I’m not sure I want it to be the only reason a race is won or lost.  That may have been the case at Long Beach.

5.  Dominance: Must be nice to have a Chevy engine so you can have a Chevy aero kit.  There’s a chance that the oval configuration may be different for Honda, but the road and street circuits are Chevy’s playground, the fuel strategy win of James Hinchcliffe in a Honda at NOLA notwithstanding.  Will the fans, and the Honda teams, be longing for the halcyon days of parity that the DW12 spec aero kit provided?  The first seven positions were Chevy and the first five were Ganassi and Penske.  As The Who sang many years ago, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

The negatives did not exactly outweigh the positives at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.  In fact, some might say that the esoteric nature of strategy and aero made a race like Long Beach sublime.  Tell those esoterics that IndyCar isn’t soccer.  I hope.

Posted in 10 Worthless Opinions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
13 Apr 2015
2 Comments

IndyCar weathers the storm at NOLA

The inaugural Indy Grand Prix of New Orleans has come and gone…and hopefully comes again next year.  While not everyone liked the weather, or the Verizon IndyCar Series reaction to the weather, it seems as if NOLA Motorsports Park will be in the line-up in the future.

The public needs to remember that this is a new track attempting to move up to the major leagues with IndyCar.  The facility made the safety and fan upgrades that IndyCar required and had to expect some issues.   A weekend of horrendous weather can neither be predicted in the long term nor changed in the short.  The track and the series had to deal with it.  And that was problematic.

The series and promoter were in no-win positions with decisions this weekend.  During qualifying on Saturday, approaching lightning forced the series to evacuate the grandstands and ask the fans to seek shelter.  With one lawsuit looming over flying debris at St. Pete, the series could in no way delay action on this call.  Legal counsel always errs on the side of safety with lightning.  If it is on the way, get out.  All major sports do this now without delay.  On Saturday, NOLA sent fans to every inside shelter on the facility, including buses.  Great call.  And the lightning certainly came in.  It doesn’t matter if the weather is deemed severe or if a warning exists.  Lightning equals evacuation.

The more noticeable issue, and the one that brought the most criticism, was making the race on Sunday a timed event with so much TV window still open.  The series and promoter made the call to start the race early.  This is fan friendly.  This likely would not have been as doable on ABC.  NBCSN had a little more wiggle room with programming.  This gave the series a chance to have rain delays and still get a race completed.

So the windows, both TV and weather, looked good on Sunday.  The teams handled the wet track pretty well at the beginning of the race, but as the track dried and the slicks replaced the wets, so too did yellow flags replace green.  By the race’s end, 26 of the 47 laps were run under yellow conditions.  Why?  Slick track, slick tires, aggressive drivers.  But not to worry, there was plenty of time to get all 75 laps in.  Or not.

Weather was coming in.  It could be seen on the radar.  Predictions said it was going to rain.  Simulations were done that predicted both the time and place of the storm’s arrival.  People saw it on their phones.  Here it comes.  Such was the dilemma on Sunday.  While not a full house, the crowd was robust for the race, the weather, and the facility.  It must be assumed that most had checked weather and brought umbrellas and raincoats.  Even so, if lightning rolled in, there was no place to put all the people.

The people.  The ones that had to park offsite because there was no onsite parking.  This is not a criticism of the venue.  Many major golf events move 30,00-40,000 people from parking lots to courses via shuttles daily.  NOLA Motorsports Park does the same thing.  But as with any new event, the wait times for the shuttles after the race were going to be very long.  It would not do to have thousands of people waiting for shuttles in a storm with no place to harbor them if lightning showed up.

So the decision was made to shorten the event.  The expectation had to be to have great green flag racing, finish the race, and get the people to their cars and safety.  The call was the right one except for the fact the expected weather did not roll in.  Poor IndyCar.  They made the right choices and still managed to provoke every troll on Twitter and every critic with an ax to grind.  Everyone wanted a full race and lots of green flag racing on a sporty, fast circuit, but fan safety trumped all.  IndyCar made the only choice it could make for the circumstances.

IndyCar will weather this storm, and hopefully NOLA Motorsports Park will, too.  The Verizon IndyCar Series needs to be the premier race at this track as it grows in the coming years.   A spot on the calendar needs to be found in the early spring where this event will blossom.  Until other road courses starting knocking on the series’ door, IndyCar needs to party in New Orleans, rain or shine.

 

 

Posted in Opinions and tagged , , , , , ,
31 Mar 2015
2 Comments

Fast Five Worthless Opinions: Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

Yes, it’s true.  The rarely beloved and often reviled “Ten Worthless Opinions” feature is no more.  Why, you may ask?  “Well, it seems that due to the vagaries of the production parameters of this fragmenting of the audience to the cable television, carnivals, water parks,”¹, the 1000-1300 word length of the feature is much more relevant and readable when it is nearer the 500-750 word limit.  Plus, it’s so much easier to come up with five opinions than it is ten.  So there’s that, too.  In any case, here you go.

1.  Penske Domination: What can be said?  Will Power was the class of the field until a very slight pit delay allowed Juan Pablo Montoya to take the lead during pit stops.  After that, it was all Montoya.  The Penske posse dominated the time charts all week and did the same in the race.  This leads to the real question of how Penske does it.  They have the same Chevy engine and aero kit as the other Chevy teams, so that is not the only reason.  While the team does have more driver depth and talent than any other organization, it cannot be just the pilot.  And yes, the pursuit of perfection by the whole organization certainly leads one to believe that Team Penske could dominate by sheer attention to detail.  But after the parity of the last two years, what does this group have that other teams don’t?  Hmm.  I wonder how the Team Penske cars support all that downforce?  Remember what other area is open to development, and you might have your answer.

2.  Honda vs. Chevy: It is way to early to tell which will be dominant throughout the year.  Chevy (read: Team Penske) certainly seems to have the upper hand on the street.  We will see if the same holds true for natural terrain road courses at NOLA Motorsports Park and Barber Motorsports Park.  The ovals are still a tossup between Honda and Chevy, particularly with the removal of so much downforce.  What the series does not need is for Chevy for run away with everything, particularly after the last two years of parity and multiple winners from both large and small teams.  When you hang you marketing hat on the series being competitive and it’s not, then you have a problem.  Follow the leader (read: Team Penske) is not good for the series.  Let’s hope Honda and the other Chevy teams get it figured out.

3.  Wingapallooza:  At least in St. Pete, the worst fears of many came true: Wingapallooza.  In a clear demonstration of aerodynamics, a broken wing proved it can fly, sailing over the grandstands in Turn 10 and seriously injuring a spectator.  It is the Law of Unintended Consequences in action. If injuries to fans isn’t enough of an issue, wing related issues affected the racing, also. No race needs 20% of the laps run under full course yellow conditions, particularly if most of those laps were a direct or indirect result of the less-than-robust wing assemblies being unable to take the punishment of the old Dallara wing.  And it could have been worse!  Race Control was very judicious in not throwing the yellow for every piece of carbon fiber that found its way onto the track.  They even had a track worker pick up a piece on the main straight during green flag conditions.  Let’s hope that this is a simple learning curve, and the drivers adapt to the new fragility of the front wing pieces.  In any case, I can see an old Italian man sitting in a big office in Varano tapping his fingers together saying, “Eccelente.”

4.  Tears for Graham: Let me go on record by saying that IndyCar needs Graham Rahal, an American driver with a superb racing lineage, to be successful.  He is great with sponsors and supports charities.  I pull for him.  Really.  But he makes it so hard sometimes.  Even though I have a scanner, I really like the Verizon IndyCar 15 app.  It offers drivers’ radio communication, the IMS Radio Network, and great visual information.  And it’s free!  This week, Graham Rahal was one of the featured drivers, and all I can say is that he is the poster child for the over-indulged generation.  Nothing is his fault.  He biffed Charlie Kimball, an aero kit casualty, and blamed him for basically being in front of him.  When he was penalized with a drive-through, he radioed his dad and said, “They’ll find anything they can to screw me!”  C’mon.  Of course, this all may be sour grapes on my part since he also loves to tweet how much he loves flying with his new partner Wheels Up in their new Cessna King Air private plane.  Just rub it in, Graham.

5. Chip’s Chatter: According to an interview at TrackSide Online, a subscription IndyCar news service, Chip Ganassi may be less-than-enthused about how Mark Miles is going about building a new schedule.  His concern is that a short calendar season makes it hard to find sponsorship, and that the series should have extended the front of the series in February before axing the schedule after Labor Day.  As much as I enjoy pointing out Chip’s foibles, I tend to agree here.  Even though Chip Ganassi Racing is one of the big boys in the Verizon IndyCar Series, he does not have the budget and personal fortune of someone like Roger Penske.  He must have the sponsorship to compete, and sponsors do not like the short season.  Maybe it all gets sorted out with next year’s schedule, but for now, Chip is not happy and he is not afraid to make himself heard.  As if there was ever any doubt of that.

That the five fast WO’s for this week.  Let’s hope we have fewer flying wings and more passing at NOLA Motorsports Park.

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¹ This is Kramer’s explanation to Raquel Welch in a Seinfeld episode as he fires her from the production of The Scarsdale Surprise for not swinging her arms when she dances.  Seemed apropos here.

Posted in Five Worthless Opinions, Humor, Opinions and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
24 Mar 2015
2 Comments

IndyCar, Boston, and Labor Day

The Verizon IndyCar Series has a recent history of races that almost happened.  Brazil, China, Ft. Lauderdale, and Providence come to mind.  All were well-intentioned, of course, but somehow the organizers could not quite pull it all together.  The most recent name to be mentioned is Boston.  They do know a little something about hosting big races.

Boston is a big event city, with the Boston Marathon and its 35,000 participants serving as a benchmark.  When you add in the Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins, and Patriots, it is easy to say Boston is the biggest of big league cities.  IndyCar connecting to this vibe is a huge benefit.

According to a recent article in the Boston Herald, the race would be run in the Seaport District, presumably using the Boston Convention and Exposition Center as a hub.  The revitalized area in South Boston is a happening place, home to museums, hotels, and restaurants.  Basically, this is the only place in town with the necessary infrastructure to host the race and not screw up the notoriously bad traffic of the city to the point where the natives would rebel.

The article mentions a Labor Day date.  That date would satisfy Hulman & Co. chief Mark Miles’ dream of a season ending race where the champion is crowned on Labor Day in front a big crowd.  If the season is going to end on Labor Day, this is the place to do it.  Boston checks all the boxes for the season finale.

There would be a big crowd.  If there wasn’t, at least the television viewers wouldn’t be able to tell.  Certainly, the VIP chalets around the track would be sold out.  The empty seats at the season-ending oval race at Fontana don’t really paint a picture of a thriving series celebrating a championship.  Boston is big time.  Crowning the champion there makes sense because it would not be just another race.  Miles is on record saying he wants to own Memorial Day and Labor Day.  This is where you own Labor Day.

The time zone is right.  Ending the season with an evening race in California is brutal, and not just because the setting sun is in the drivers’ eyes. No one on the East Coast watches, and the East Coast, whether the fans like it or not, is the center of the sports broadcasting universe.  There is a reason that crazy Bill Walton gets away with his stream-of-consciousness ranting on ESPN’s Pac 12 basketball broadcasts: no one watches it.  Yes, the East Coast sports elite look down on the flyover country of the Midwest.  Yes, the East Coast sports elite marginalize the Verizon IndyCar Series.  But the series still needs to curry favor and get on their radar.  If that means ending the season on Labor Day so you are the biggest show in town before the NFL starts, then IndyCar needs to grit its teeth, smile, and put on a great show.  The product will sell itself once people see it.

If the Verizon IndyCar Series is going end its season on Labor Day, then they have to own it.  The teams and drivers need to be on board and pretend to be excited about the Labor Day event as the season-ender.  It is worth noting that Mark Miles went out of his way to make the point that he may have been unclear about wanting to have multiple races in the late winter season after the Super Bowl, and that he certainly wants to build the schedule on the front end.  Right.  You can also read that as the team owners and sponsors letting Miles know that the season has to be longer in terms of duration to justify spending marketing money.  Miles is no dummy.  He knows that the push-back to a Labor Day end of the season is real and must be dealt with by an earlier start to the season.  Miles has drawn his line in the sand.  The season ends on Labor Day.

In a perfect racing world, the Verizon IndyCar Series would start in February and end in October.  Everyone would be sated with the best open-wheel racing on the planet.  In our imperfect world, though, the series needs to do what it can with what it has.  They need to be successful on the stage they control and build from there.  Boston is center stage and the series needs to be on it.  Hopefully, the Hub won’t be another city given the hook and pulled offstage before IndyCar can get its show on the road.

 

 

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16 Mar 2015
1 Comment

Millennials and the future of auto racing

Imagine a future where the whole concept of a car culture shifts.  A future where the youth of America are not overly concerned about muscle cars like the 60’s and 70’s or the rolling status symbols of the 80’s and 90’s.  A future where youth culture is concerned about environmental issues like CO² emissions, climate change, and the depletion of fossil fuels.  And don’t forget about a future where technology rules and everything is “on demand.”  Now imagine how that all gets rolled into the auto racing fans of the future.  Those fans, better known as Millennials¹, are here now.

Crusty old Bernie Ecclestone at F1 has made it clear that he, and by extension F1, are not interested in creating new fans since young people do not have any money.  Bernie has always used himself as F1’s target audience; he’s only interested in other rich guys.  So while he is waiting for all those types to spring into existence, he has alienated his European promoters and allowed his teams to sink under the weight of enormous costs.  Over at NASCAR, the one-time American racing bully and its partners have been pulling seats from all of their tracks to make tickets more elite.  Well-managed but sometimes tone-deaf, the series is slowly moving away from the mainstream and back to its guns, camouflage, and beer Southern roots.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  They know their core audience and go after it hard.

All of this begs the following question: Is auto racing too expensive and elite as in F1 or too rural and redneck as in NASCAR for the Millennials to follow?  Whatever series captures this demographic while simultaneously keeping their own core fans will be the one to assert their dominance.

It would seem Formula E would have an edge here.  This electronic series, described as having forklift motors and Formula Ford chassis with bad tires, certainly checks some boxes of the Millennials: it’s green, technologically relevant, and cool.  The racing, while slow and quiet, is really pretty competitive when you get past the lack of sound and speed.  The fact is that Millennials might not know the difference.  Plus, they have some big name sponsorship with BMW, DHL, Michelin, TAG Heuer, and Qualcomm.  What series wouldn’t want that?  What it does not have is an existing core fan base.  It’s starting from scratch.

Which brings us to the Verizon IndyCar Series.  This is the series best positioned to connect young fans to old fans and begin its ascent to greater popularity.  The series certainly brings a rabid, albeit small, fan base.  Unlike F1, it is not sinking under he weight of outrageous cost.  The argument can be made that it was sinking under the weight of less-than-stellar management.  No longer.  Technology giant Verizon markets the phones and data that Millennials desire.  That checks another box.  The racing is superb, which trumps the slo-mo action on the Formula E circuit.  The Verizon IndyCar Series’ willingness to race on any type of circuit gets it into places that F1 and NASCAR cannot go: city centers.  IndyCar can bridge the past to the future.

Need more?  The introduction of the new aero kits has been big news from the non-traditional media as well as the racing media.  Articles appeared in Wired, The Verve, DesignBoom.com, Fox News, USA Today, and Jalopnik.  Okay, Jalopnik is a car site but it’s not a racing site.  The article there is outstanding.  IndyCar has some buzz going on about things that are not the bad news of recent years or Indy 500-centric.  Just as yellow flags breed more yellow flags in a race, good coverage breeds more good coverage in the media.  At least IndyCar fans hope that is true.

IndyCar promoters should look to the Indy 500 and IMS for lessons on how to hook Millennials while keeping their core fans.  At the corporate Snake Pit in the infield at the 500 this year, Millennials will pulse to the beat of world-class EDM (electronic dance music) DJ Kaskade.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who this is.  The Millennials do.  And it matters if you want to hook them.  Can you imagine this at Daytona?  IMS caters to its other demographics with rock and roll on Carb Day and a top flight country show on Saturday.  This stuff matters!  If a race fan doesn’t care about it, great.  Just go to the race.  You are an important demographic, too.  Quit being so stuffy about it all.

The ascension of the Verizon IndyCar Series is under way.  Real business people are running the show, real research is being done, and they have a real product to sell.  As the character of Penny Lane explains so well in the Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous, “It’s all happening.”  Be there or be square.

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¹ Millennials are the demographic group following Generation X.  Birth years of this group range from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.  These are the coveted money spenders of the future.

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10 Mar 2015
2 Comments

Worshiping at the aero kit altar in IndyCar

For such a small fan base, the Verizon IndyCar Series certainly has its share of pulpit-pounding proselytizers.  The problem is that for such a tiny number of acolytes, there are far too many congregations.  The responses to the aero kits of both Chevy and Honda are prime examples of these particular worshipers.

The first worshipers at the altar of IndyCar are the ones who take everything on faith.  They accept that the series pontiffs are, if not infallible, at least to be given the benefit of the doubt.  They believe the variations of the aero kits for both Chevy and Honda will not only differentiate a chassis that is otherwise identical, but it will also pique the interest of the fans to see which is faster.  If there is a difference in the two, then the slower manufacturer should go back to the shop and develop theirs.  The fans want development and competition, right?  They know that the millions spent by both engine manufacturers will push the series to new heights.  These fans not only believe, they want to believe, they need to believe.  These trusting souls happily tithe their hard-earned dollars over to the series in the absolute faith that their spiritual need for racing is in good hands.  Just imagine IndyCar high priest Mark Miles holding a staff with a miter sitting on top of his head, blessing this congregation.  If these fans’ faith wavers, they can always silently repeat “Hail Hulman, full of speed.”

In another house of worship, we have the the agnostic IndyCar fans.  Not burdened by the absolutism of the faithful, these fans look at the aero kits of Chevy and Honda, shrug their shoulders, roll their eyes, and smile.  They know deep down that a difference in how the cars look is important, but they really cannot give themselves over to the fact that the new aero kits will make a difference.  They hope they will, but they have taken things on faith before this and been disillusioned.  If they can see the difference in the cars and the racing then they might be inclined to come over to the faithful, but they need proof.  These folks need to see a miracle, not just hear about one.

The third type of IndyCar fan really doesn’t have a church because they no longer believe that the organized religion of IndyCar is deserving of their faith.  These are the IndyCar heretics.  They may come to the cathedral to worship speed, but they refuse to go to the rail for the body and blood.  The aero kits to them are evil incarnate, a false idol for the easily fooled.  Their apostasy demands that all development of cars be completely open with teams spending each other into receivership as we have seen in F1.  Even if the aero kits are successful, they will still be evil because they do conform to their own heretical orthodoxy.  To them, the only way to racing heaven is through a reformation of the series itself.  And if a little burning at the stake of series leaders is needed, they are down with that, too.  The heretics spend time damning the series, its leaders, and its followers on Twitter and in internet forums, the modern equivalent of a jackleg preacher standing atop a soapbox on the street corner.

IndyCar’s small holy war among its flock is cause for both celebration and concern.  On one hand, the fact that some people still care enough to have opinions is a reason for hosannas to be heard at the corner of 16th and Georgetown.  The downside is that the series needs converts to the faith and some cash in the collection plate to continue to spread the faith.  If this does not happen, then everyone will be in need of a mea culpa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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