Indycar 2023

RANT:

Between the current state of F1 as a contrived tire wear management competition glammed up into events (i.e. the circuses at Miami and Las Vegas) and the Spec nature of Indycar, I'm about done with both.  The Indy 500 was traditionally a "who built the better mousetrap" race with the drivers being those who could bend said cars to their will and risk their lives doing it.  Indycar (F1 be disregarded) needs a huge injection of GRM adrenalin, stat.  Maybe the technology curve has made motorsports irrelevant--but IMHO there needs to be a new series based on people like The Hive building cars in their garage/shop.  Yes, 90% of them will be crap, but a reality series (which could be done stupid cheap on various internet platforms like YT) focusing on the teams reaching for the brass ring over the course of the season would sell itself.  I sometimes wonder what F5000 would have evolved into had it not been killed by the SCCA.  It might have been an affordable bridge that entirely avoided the exorbitant cost of Indycar in the 90's.   Now that Indycar has indicated they're going "green" in the near future, I think there's more need than ever for a relatable American open wheel formula that isn't on dirt.  

/RANT

In reply to stroker :

Good rant, for one thing.

But if a system can be figured out with an Indycar scale cost cap, where we can have 3 or 4 car makers, that would go a long, long way.   I have no idea how to make it work- it was great when you had almost everyone with their own car, but that's pretty much not possible anymore.  And it was most popular when it was March vs. Lola vs. Penske and Cosworth vs. stock block vs. others- and that's possible.

alfadriver said:

In reply to Andy Hollis :

Liberty markets everything.  So DtS is because of them.  Netflix may do it,

Disagree.

Liberty owns the rights, Netflix pitched the idea, negotiated the rights, and made the product.  All that Liberty did was make a wise choice in doing the licensing deal.

You statement would be like saying EA Sports' Madden Football was because of the NFL...not because of Electronic Arts.  It was/is a rights deal.

Casual Indycar fan here: what's the difference between the "Green" alternate tire and the "Red" alternate tire? 

Andy Hollis said:

alfadriver said:

In reply to Andy Hollis :

Liberty markets everything.  So DtS is because of them.  Netflix may do it,

Disagree.

Liberty owns the rights, Netflix pitched the idea, negotiated the rights, and made the product.  All that Liberty did was make a wise choice in doing the licensing deal.

You statement would be like saying EA Sports' Madden Football was because of the NFL...not because of Electronic Arts.  It was/is a rights deal.

Berine would probably had said no.  So without Liberty, Netflix would have been able to do nothing.  It is a rights deal, sure.  But Liberty is taking a different approach than Bernie did, and it's working WRT fans.

Madden Football would not exist without permission from the NFL.  So, yea, the NFL was needed.

Permission is required to make the item, and the owners of the license need to at least see the benefit of the item to grant it a license.  

It's all about what perspective you look at it, but both parties are needed for anything to happen.

CrashDummy said:

Casual Indycar fan here: what's the difference between the "Green" alternate tire and the "Red" alternate tire? 

The "red" tire is just a standard, soft-compound tire.  The "green" tires are made using a compound based on some plant that nobody can pronounce, hence being "green".  Note that the plant-based rubber is only used in the sidewall.  The actual tread of the tire is still the usual rubber.

stroker said:

The Indy 500 was traditionally a "who built the better mousetrap" race with the drivers being those who could bend said cars to their will and risk their lives doing it. 

As I recall, and I may be off a bit, it was the Indycar / CART / et al teams that decided to go to a spec car. I believe that was due to the rising costs of building competitive cars.

I do agree that the street races (F1 and Indycar) are mostly boring parades. But a solution is not in sight for a variety of reasons.

It is a double edge sword to make racing appealing to fans.  On one hand, if the rules are totally open, you'll quickly see one or two teams who dominate and end up leaving the rest of the field in the dust.  99% of that is based on budget, so you'd need to put budgets in place to keep that from happening, which will affect the amount of development and somewhat negate the openness of the series.  In some ways, F1 suffers from that.  The big money teams are the ones that dominate while the rest of the field is basically finishes in order of the team pocketbook. 

To help prevent that, an organization could to start specifying out how the cars will be built.  To the point of designing the cars to look the same and, in the case of IndyCar, even providing the chassis.  Nascar is the same way.  It provides much closer racing, with multiple passes, but at the expense of wild development.  The only differences in the cars (that a fan can recognize) are the color schemes.

That said, what do the fans want?  I'm not talking the racing fan like many on this forum, but the more casual fan that watches other sports.  What would make them watch racing more?  For some, it might be seeing a team dominate (as long as it's "their" team), for others, it could be the close racing in a spec series where driver skill and willingness to be aggressive or take chances are more exciting.  It could be seeing a breakout athlete.  For example, a football player breaking through the line and running it 80 yards is exciting.  How do you breing that same excitement to racing? I honestly don't know.

All of that said that, one reason I think Nascar does well are the ovals.  While it's easy to point out that all they do is turn left, the cameras are able to keep up with most of the field for the whole race.  Looking at things like F1 or IndyCar or IMSA, because they're on road courses most of the time, you only see the full field at the start or at a restart.  90% of the race coverage is on just a few cars at a time.  If you're a fan of the one of the back markers or even mid pack teams, you'll see your team for less than 20% of the race. 

I don't have a solution, btw, just pointing out why I think it's challenging.  It really comes down to getting "normal" people interested.  It looks like the background drama (whether real or manufactured) has helped F1, but I'll be curious to see how that pans out in the long run.  I'm also curious how many people watch DTS, but don't watch an F1 race.  I know my boss is one of them. 

-Rob

In reply to rob_lewis :

There are 346K youtube Indycar Subscribers, 8.93 Formula one, MOTOGP 5.55 Mil, Formula E 791K, and Nascar has 1.03 Million. They need a bigger and better presence on social media. Same goes for commercialization, it's ridiculous there is no hype around the indy 500, GTP was a class of less then 10 cars and there was more hype around that. There should be several articles shoveled out everyday about the indy 500. Why isn't indycar a international presence? shouldn't be hard for the international stage to get access.  I have read several times even across the border that Canadians are not getting coverage, I can't remember when there wasn't a Canadian on the grid (let's not forget a race in Canada) even during the split. Indycar can tap into the different markets in South America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and Asia. They literally have drivers from each of those continents. If indycar spent any money hyping it up, it will actually sell itself, without totally alienating it's fan base.

Heard a very interesting thing about Nascar tires that may apply to F1 and Indycar.  Environmental regulations have changed the makeup of tire rubber so significantly that it is harder to "rubber in" a track, which obviously means that the tires are harder or have a grittier makeup.  So instead of a sticky gumball that glues itself to the asphalt, you get something that gets sanded down by the track surface.  

I would love to see the major series be able to run a super sticky tire with real falloff (except at superspeedways)

In reply to jmabarone :

The NHRA won't like that...

Anybody going to the qualifying or Indy practice? I really enjoyed going when my sister lived in Indy. I think GCR has a strong car and wouldn't be surprised if one of them gets the pole, but EC Enerson with the new team and Katherin Legge I would imagine they are on the bubble of not making it however it's the Indy 500 and anything can happen. 

Practice this week was until 6pm.  If I lived there I'd find a way to leave work at 3pm.  

I conveniently made sales calls in Indy on Tuesday leaving the end of the day open.  

Rained out!  Dang, now back to sales calls.  

Not a fan of Marco and I think it's a long shot but it would be wild if he won the race this year.

Another strong episode of "100 Days to Indy" tonight. Lots of Will Power in this one, along with a good dose of Canapino. I think I've figured out why this show is so much better than "Drive to Survive". They don't need to invent fake drama, because Indycar has actual on-track drama. 

Hey,

I just watched the last 1/2 hour of Indy qualifications.

Are the motors for these cars rev limited?

If yes, is the rev control run by a Micro controller on each car, or is it managed by race control via telemetry?

Thx

Rog

Dang. Doesn't look like Graham is going to make it. 30 years after the same thing happened to his dad.

Edit: Maybe not? I guess they are going again tomorrow.

In reply to boulder_dweeb :

They probably have a rev limit, but they are not gear limited, so they want to get it exactly right.  Basically, they are aero limited, and they change the gear to be just at the limiter at their fastest point of the track.

Sunday is the normal Fast 12 narrowed to the Fast 6 qualifying thing, with the addition of the slowest four cars having a shoot-out to bump the slowest car out of the show.

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

You can tell GR was really pissed off with the whole situation when he was interviewed.  Maybe tomorrow will bring him a better run.  

At least Kat Legge showed she still remembers how to drive an Indy car and is in the show for sure, the quickest of the RLL drivers.

Jim Pettengill said:

At least Kat Legge showed she still remembers how to drive an Indy car and is in the show for sure, the quickest of the RLL drivers.

Loved that. Good to see her back in an Indycar.

Heroic effort by Jack Harvey to go out again so soon after his previous run and find a few tenths.

I was talking with a friend, and the math seems unreasonable, but 3.82788 seconds between Palou and Rahal.  Not per lap.  Per the entire 4 laps.

.00396 seconds Palou to Veekay...

It was a dramatic qualifying today! You have to feel bad for Graham Rahal, as well as Jack Harvey, who bumped GR out of the show.  It's interesting how the whole RLL team has lost their way this month.

Anyone want to pick their favorites for the win next Sunday? I'm a big Dixon fan, but I also think Palou, O'Ward, and Rossi will be very strong.