Tag: INDYCAR

"I have but one question" – Existential Ennui In The Summer Of Our Discontent


“Now is the summer of our discontent
Made glorious winter by this sun of Anton;
And all the clouds that lower’d upon IMS
In the deep bosom of racing buried.”



In paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Richard III, I am comparing the rise and fall of not only the oft-maligned leadership of Indycar by Anton Hulman George, but Indycar itself. 

It is interesting to me that nobody is more narcissistic or wants to believe just how fantastic Indycar is more than the sport itself, its fans, and its leadership. 

NO-body. 

Hubris, people… hubris.

A fantastic and wildly unpredictable race on Saturday at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana Cali-forn-aye-ay, and subsequent social and traditional media storm in the following 48 hours was as exemplary a modern Indycar event that you’ll ever see. 


If it were possible to quantify this statement, I’d proclaim the 2015 MAVTV500:
 
the single-best, highest-quality, overall Indycar race ever, that was seen and appreciated by the fewest people in modern (post-1979) history.

Talk about exclusive. For better and worse. 

That’s Indycar ‘in a nutshell’. 
It’s in my nature to be inquisitive. Perhaps to a fault. Maybe I should have gone to journalism school and become an investigative reporter, like this guy who brought down the massive FIFA scandal. Journalism bad-assery of the sports variety at its best, but I digress.
I’d like to suggest that the most important thing we might do to help is to challenge ourselves to take a huge step back and look inward at the sport from the outside. I’m talking big, big wide-angle view of Indycar here.

Imagine you are NOT one of the approximate 500,000 (or 00.0083%) humans on this planet who follow Indycar. If you’re reading this, it’s quite likely you are a fan already, but please try. 
~ IF we are to take the leap and assume my posit about the quality of this race relative to the total audience worldwide is fairly accurate, my question is, “WHY?”
~ IF Indycar has such great racing (even applauded publicly by much more famous drivers from other disciplines – via Twitter et. al.), why is it not wildly successful and more popular?

~ Why does Indycar struggle to gain any TV ratings of significance (which, as we know, serve primarily to bolster media ad buys, increase exposure and sponsorship for teams and the league, leading to better financial stability and security)?

~ Why does Indycar struggle with ticket sales in such low demand to the degree that venues have little desire or financial incentive to host a race?

Which, therefore, leads me to wonder – does it matter that Indycar exists at all? 
“Why does Indycar exist and for what purpose?”  

Here’s where I ask for your thoughts. In the comments please try to step waaaaay back from the sport and clearly, concisely, and honestly illuminate your answer for me in one or two sentences/less than 50 words.

I have a thought in mind already, but I want to see what you say.  No snark, no bile, no humor, just honestly and succinctly answer the question.

If the Indycar ownership could also do that for me, we’d be well on our way to solving some things.




The Future is Now


February 25, 2017 – Austin, TX

Good morning everyone from sunny Austin, Texas and welcome to the first on-track open test of the inaugural season of the 2018 RedBull Hypercar Series.

Ever since the purchase of the nearly-defunct Indycar series by RedBull in late 2016 and the subsequent debut of the RedBull X1 chassis as the spec chassis for the new RBHS, fans have flocked to to the internet, track, and television to get their first impressions and follow the development of this amazing “hypercar” powered by a very unique, hybrid propulsion system. 


Fascinated by cutting-edge auto-racing, yet also unhappy with the fractious divides, polarization, and lack of transparency in the governance of F1, RedBull founder Dietrich Mateschitz vacated his teams and money from Formula 1 and devised his own series, and made an audacious offer for the failing Indycar Series that the Hulman and Company board could not refuse.  

The concept for the new series, born out of the twilight of the Indycar Series following the 100th Indy 500, was to open a new outlet for forward-visioning, single-seat, monocoque, single-spec chassis, incorporating a hybrid propulsion of various internal-combustion motors and electrical motor systems. 

Multiple settings will exist for the motors and even can be altered during the race based on strategy and in-race conditions. Teams will be allowed to devise their own fuel of choice prior to the race (from traditional ethanol, methanol, compressed natural gas, or biodiesel) and also their own downforce configurations from the bodywork options as well. 

Paid winnings will also be coupled with a points system including a graduated bonus system for minimal energy input usage.  A baseline for energy units (combustible fuels or electrical storage in the battery configuration) will be established for each race. Teams exceeding the baseline will receive a graduated-scale of reduced winnings while teams staying below the baseline will receive an increasing scale of bonus winnings and points in addition to their placement payout.


The new Redbull Hypercar Series will incorporate sprint and endurance racing, and span two divisions (one each in the South and North American continents) culminating in the Inaugural Championship of the Americas to be held at Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas in October 26-28, 2018. Each division of the Series will contest their own race series. Based on the results of those ‘seasons’, each division will produce 8 contestants for the final Championship race with a purse of US$20 million going to the winners.

Several existing racing teams from the former Indycar series have shown up for this weekend’s testing fielding multiple cars piloted with an illustrious list of drivers for the new series.

In the North American Series, 12 events in the US and Canada will be held on a variety of race circuits, and run from May to late-September. The Central and South American series will see 8 races hosted in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, with the season running from July to September.

The Top 8 teams from each division will contest the final 6-hour race at COTA with the Champions receiving the all-new traveling RedBull Hypercar Cup Trophy.

The inaugural 2018 season will launch in North America at Mazda Laguna-Seca Raceway on May 5th, with stops at Indianapolis on May 27, Road America on June 9. Night races also feature in the North American series including stops at Daytona International Speedway (road course) in late June, and again in Indianapolis for a 12-hour endurance race on the road course in late-August. 

Excitement and interest in an American racing series has not been seen like this for decades. Citing pre-sales of tickets already well-beyond 50% capacity at many of the venues, RedBull expects the inaugural season to be a success with likely expansion of new divisions to Asia and Europe following in 2019.




The Sex and Genetics of Indycar Fandom


People may be surprised to learn that my blog is written totally off-the-cuff and with no preconceived idea until I get behind the keyboard in earnest. I’ve always done this intentionally to produce something immediate and genuine. Some posts are half-baked, others fully. Today’s post is no different so only you will judge it’s bakededness.

I’m going to just come out and say it: I’ve been enjoying this season of Indycar more than I have in many seasons prior.

The conversations surrounding it, even between previously aligned die-hard fans have become increasingly less comfortable, mostly highlighting more of our very personal preferences and illuminating our differences. It’s beginning to remind me of the various levels of discomfort people have in talking about religion or politics or sex.


In professional sports I appreciate intrigue, variety, uncertainty, and urgency, but also a well-ordered game and consistency in fair play. Not easy to find but is why I have a few beloved favorite sports to the exclusion of many.

Aside from the near-panic that Indycar exhibited in Indy after the practice issues with the Chevy cars snap-oversteering at their limits, becoming airborne, pitching/rolling, and leading to a decision to modify both Honda and Chevy kits in the interest of pragmatic conservation of risk (and, in my opinion, unfairly penalizing Honda), I’ve enjoyed the original concept and subsequent drama and differentiation that has resulted from the aerokits. 

With little drama on the power front, the motors have been prescribed to produce very similar overall power, just slightly different power bands and torque points, but in relation to the differences in aerokits, essentially so similar to not be noticeable.

This season has also added drama off the track for fans (and owners), seemingly producing a significant divide in opinion on the worth of aerokits in relation to the on-track product that we haven’t seen in many years. In the case of some newer fans, they’ve never seen this type of racing atmosphere at all. Love them or hate them, the differences are quite pointed. 

It appears that for people with a marked interest in Indycar racing, you appreciate very specific things: the markers of the distant past – open specs and ingenuity; recent past – single-spec racing (one larger, tightly-bunched packs with minuscule differentiation in performance and aesthetics); or you like more of the current racing – varied-but-similar-spec (multiple, smaller packs with more differentiation in performance and aesthetics).

There is also a longstanding gulf between oval-only fans and those that appreciate some twisties. Sounds like we’ve got ourselves enough traits to make a Punnet Square (hurray for high school Biology lessons paying off again)! Let’s examine what kind of Indycar fan you are..


I’ll admit I’m squarely OI dominant with RI as a recessive trait.

Where do you fall in this? 

Are you and your racing mates compatible?  In some cases, I see how those with opposite results might seem suddenly so foreign to us.

If you have offspring, what will your kids most like?

Insert your tongue-in-cheek, take a little time to be totally honest with yourself, regardless of the environment of the sport today, and think about what you most like, what you moderately like, what you are averse to, and why. 

At risk of making some readers even more uncomfortable, I’ll walk out on a limb even further and suggest that what kind of Indycar fan you are based on this punnet square also correlates to the type of love-maker you are. Do you prefer more “strategy” and “set-up” or rather the lowest-cost, lowest-risk route to “victory lane”?  Is high-speed or accel/decel your game? Perhaps a stretch, but without question more research would be needed to examine that hypothesis further.

Regardless, the key to using this tool is understanding yourself, then employing your time to finding joy in what you like. Indycar fandom or otherwise.





Where Amazing Happens / Alternate Realties

One of the most enjoyable parts of the Indy 500 is not only the amazing and rich history of the event, but knowing that each year is an opportunity to see something amazing. 


Some of the richest lore comes from events that seemed destined for a certain end if not for the intervention of fate’s final twist and newest Indy legend born.

I think of some of those events that nine times out of ten would turn out differently, more predictably, yet didn’t, forever changing the future course of the race itself.  Over the next few weeks, I’m going to offer some of the most influential twists of racing fate in Indy 500 history and offer some alternate histories:




1987 – Mario Is Slowing Down:
The 71st Running of the 500 should have been the most uninteresting of modern history. Dominating the entire month’s practice speeds through qualifying and even the Carb Day pit stop competition, Mario Andretti looked poised to finally shed the “Andretti Curse” and win his second Indy 500. Leading from the drop of the green flag, Mario led 170 of the first 177 laps of the race, losing the lead only briefly during pit cycles. On Lap 177, Mario was cruising to a seemingly easy victory when an electronic fueling malfunction occurred forcing Mario to the pits. His car never recovered and from there we know the rest, Roberto Guerrero assumes the lead after being over a full lap down to Mario, only to stall in the pits on the final stop allowing a further lap down Al Unser, Sr., to assume the lead.  ‘Big Al’ hangs on to win his fourth after being rideless just 13 days prior.

Now let’s engage some imaginative thought; just forget the history as it exists and travel down a new path…


Mario wins the 1987 Indy 500 in a runaway victory. He and Michael go on to finish 1st/2nd respectively in the points title for different teams. Newman/Haas, seeing the extreme value in having the two together, expands to include Michael for 1988, driving Lola/Chevrolets for 1988. Struggling initially, they hit their peak at the 1988 Indy 500 with Michael defeating Mario via a late-race restart and becoming the first (and only to date) Father-Son pair to finish 1-2 at Indy.

Kraco Racing (Michael’s previous team), starts the 1988 season with Al Unser behind the wheel and has predictably steady results due to the combination of the March chassis, Cosworth motor, and Big Al’s tempered hand on the wheel. Near the end of the 1988 season, Kraco Racing is absorbed by Rick Galles Racing forming yet another formidable father-son team combination with Al Jr. for 1989.  The Andretti-Unser “family feud” begins and runs through the 1992 season when Mario, Al Sr., AJ Foyt, and Rick Mears all retire.

These ‘Legends of the Brickyard’ leave a massive hole in the sport with their retirements – AJ with 4- 500 wins, Mario and Al Sr. each with 3, and Mears with 2.  Mario comes out of retirement for the 1993 Indy 500 and finishes second to Michael again.

Al Unser, Jr., never makes it to victory lane in 1992 and never utters those famous words, Emerson Fittipaldi never becomes reviled as he was for drinking orange juice in 1993. Andrettis go on to to place three different family faces on the Borg-Warner, totaling 6 wins, Mario 3, Michael 2, Marco 1.  

 


The Legacy of ‘The Greatest 33’

I am, perhaps, quite predictable. 

I can’t possibly know this, however, unless evidenced by others. 

For those that know me well, they register only faint surprise when I produce one of two sports-related anecdotes; one that employs use of comparative statistics, or one that reflects my nostalgic nature.

Today’s post is a little of both.

As a nostalgist, a willful tethering to the past is standard operating procedure for better or worse and when it comes to the subject of Indycars and the Indy 500, I am tethered thusly. So on a day like yesterday, that deep spring day when the cars begin their first ovoid circuits of The Track in May, I eagerly recall familiar places and things past from the greatest of all speedways. 

One such thing was a website that silently orbited the internet, maintaining its critical function for only a few years, until it was taken down, it’s original mission essentially complete. IMS produced an interesting site for the 100th Anniversary race in 2011 called The Greatest 33. While the site his since been taken down, it produced much fodder for Indy 500 fans and I also participated in assembling my own ‘Greatest 33’.

The process for doing the original was enjoyable and so I’ve been fairly diligent in maintaining a spreadsheet with the formula I used and data entered to make my selections (only active drivers with wins or with many years of experience need updating). Every year around the start of May, I open it again and review it for ‘accuracy’. In other words, I ponder whether I feel that the formula used is still fair and producing ‘accurate’ relative rankings. I’ve never been one to rely on totally subjective feelings and thoughts when considering something of this magnitude. Mine is perhaps quite the opposite. I rely first and foremost on the statistics of performance as this is my personal preference for assessing the Greatest 33.

One exception I made to the hardness of the numbers was a play on the “Last Row Party” made famous by the Indianapolis Press Club Foundation members for the rather dubious honor of starting in the last row.  My last row was to be made a specially designated place for the three best ever to have never won. Essentially, I have a Greatest 30, plus three with careers of significance, but lacking that final verse of the turn into victory lane.

Here is my Greatest 33 following the 2014 Indy 500 results:


Rows 1 – 3:

Rows 4 – 7:

Rows 8 – 11:


And my criteria for helping select these drivers:

As you can see, emphasis is weighted heavily on winning the race, with additional consideration for Top 5 finishes, Poles won, Laps lead, and making the race. Michael Andretti, Ted Horn, and Rex Mays are the three highest rated non-winners at the expense of Buddy Lazier and Sam Hanks. 

For 2015, I am considering tinkering very slightly with the amounts of weight between these categories and also have given an intangible additional consideration for those who’ve also held track records or currently own a track record. 

I’m actually quite happy with this list although I think fair arguments could be made for other drivers in the one-win and no-win positions. This is how I choose to delineate my “Greatest” from the “merely great” or “very good”. 

What is of most importance and most exciting to me now is seeing what changes from year to year with the active drivers moving in the list. 

Will Helio, Dixon, or Kanaan, gain an additional win and move them each into the most rarefied of air in my Greatest 33? 

Can Carpenter, Marco, Hunter-Reay, Montoya, or even Lazier move into the discussion based on their results this year? 

What do you think of these cold, hard, numbers that marginalize the likes of Lloyd Ruby, Dan Gurney, Gary Bettenhausen, Jules Goux? 

These are things I enjoy pondering and makes following along consistently much more interesting. 

Let me know what you think about the legacy of The Greatest 33..




Gordon Moore’s Law and Indycar

It’s been over 50 years since those heady days of the 1960s science and technology boom in the US. Electronic (vacuum) tubes were soon to be replaced by an interesting, solid-state device, known as an integrated circuit board. (What was it about the 1960s that made it so damned amazing anyway?)

Gordon Moore was one of three scientists and partners who came to be known as the founders of the company Intel.  They developed their ideas, leading also to the development of solid-state memory devices (i.e RAM chips) and many other advances, which in turn, also begat the rapid advancement of not only computing machines, but also the manufacturing processes that were developed to create these amazing technological tools. April 19th, 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of a paper released by Gordon Moore which later became more widely know at Moore’s Law.

Still not ringing any bells? 

Don’t worry, I didn’t hear any bells either until I read this Economist article today regarding the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law. Moore realized in 1965 that the microchip with all the capabilities of it’s solid-state integrated circuitry stated that the technology to produce microchip and to continually shrink the transistors would then allow for a doubling of transistors per unit of space in regular intervals (he settled on every 18 months or so), leading to an exponential increase in the ability of those circuit boards in addition to the decrease in cost to produce them. Largely his prediction held true, not for the 10 years as he foresaw, but nearly 50 years, longer than most ever agreed his “Law” would last.  

Eventually the increasing limitations of physical space lead to what is now being seen – a reversal of the decreasing per unit cost to produce to achieve that same or declining rate per area of microchip. (This is where the Indycar light bulb went on for me). 

In fall 2011, (maybe you were one of my tens of readers then) I wondered out-loud about the limitations and diminishing returns from increasing costs related to producing a leading-edge Indycar. Indycars (always in search of that next big idea to win the Indianapolis 500) were the working experiments in the laboratory of auto-racing which included design, manufacturing processes, and performance technology. From the early 1960s, steadily increased performance came with astounding regularity (and increasing budgets) until the early-1990s when it became no longer economically viable to build these amazing machines.  

The cost to produce a winner was becoming highly prohibitive to all but those who could be counted only on a bad-shop-teacher’s handful of fingers. Even the “unlimited” strata of F1 has hit a ceiling where costs and technology are outrunning those who would put resources to them.

So when considering how Indycars could be much better, don’t forget that at some point, power, speed, efficiency, technology, AND economic input per unit ALL reach a point that simply cannot be overcome. We found it in Indycars much sooner than with microchips. 

There was a time when the automobile was still new, out of the ordinary, looked upon with fascination and reverie. I grew up in the era when computers, for all their lack of personality, were also these amazing, cantankerous boxes that did increasingly amazing and streamlined tasks. 

So in better understanding that these are the times in which we reside, the current Indycar is quite serviceable for me, adequately and fairly delivering a racing product of enjoyment for those who partake. Short of blowing up the whole paradigm and having a totally unlimited format (including budgets), this is our Indycar, post-Boomer world.

Four generations since the automobile saw rapid development, and two since the computer did the same, the luxurious showroom shine is well and truly off the ‘Apple’ and we’ll likely see neither automobile nor computer with quite such fascination again. 

I can’t even imagine what the next big thing will be. 

Please just don’t let it be artificially intelligent android/robots. 

They’re simply WAY too creepy for me. 





J.W. von Goethe and the Ever-Esoteric Indycar

There have been several treatises written by many much more skilled than I dealing with the sturm und drang surrounding Indycar and it’s TV ratings (which is oft used by media and advertising folks to indicate its relative popularity in our culture, and, in some cases, to indicate relative worth in the commercial marketplace) so I shall not attempt to add to it.

Oh, wait. I already have. Back in 2012, here. Another one of quality by our long lost comrade in Indycar arms, Pressdog, can be read here. Read those in your free time later. For now, just understand that we’ve covered much of this ground before, and reference the continually, relatively small TV ratings outside the Indy 500 as a backdrop to this post.

Today’s Indycar Word of the Day is: Esoteric

esoteric – adj. es·o·ter·ic \ˌe-sə-ˈter-ik, -ˈte-rik\

1 a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone (a body of esoteric legal doctrine — B. N. Cardozo)
b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group (esoteric terminology); broadly, difficult to understand (esoteric subjects)
2 a : limited to a small circle (in esoteric pursuits)
b : private, confidential (an esoteric purpose)
3 : of special, rare, or unusual interest (esoteric building materials)

For this writer, attempting to express ideas through words are typically a source fun and ‘esoteric’ is among the most enjoyable for me to throw out in conversation or print. Regardless, I find this word especially useful to frame what I saw as a very good race at Long Beach last weekend. 
For a sport that is already quite esoteric, to continually heap upon the negative comparisons to the glorious past of 50 (or even 25 years ago) serves no good.

You may think you’re doing the sport a great service, but you’re not. It is pure folly and unfairly shackles the sport to something it cannot possibly be. It reminds me of a younger sibling who becomes a freshman in high school, only to continually suffer the unfair comparisons by possibly more glorious elder siblings’ friends and teachers. To have these comparisons and judgements awaiting you, before you have a chance to develop your own identity, would be highly infuriating. Perhaps you were just such a sibling and can identify with this feeling, but I digress…

My point to all this can be summed up by a quote I came across yesterday attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – influential writer, statesman, and all-round free-thinker from late-1700s/early-1800s Germany. The english translation of his quote is,

 “the thing that is hardest to see, is that which is right in front of your eyes.”

What is currently (and has been for a few years) in front of our eyes is the gilding of a new group of Indycar legends. Yet nobody seems to care.

Scott Dixon scored his 36th career win in Indycar at Long Beach last weekend, surpassing the golden-era legend Bobby Unser, and moving to 5th all-time, a full year quicker and in 17 less starts that ‘Uncle Bobby’.  
Let that sink in for a bit.
I’m not going to attempt arguments which bring in subjective comparisons based on the sport or vehicle history – only the hardest, most basic statistics. We can certainly view them all through the lens of their time but I find it increasingly hard to say one era is better than another based on conditions of the time. Liars figure and figures lie, correct?
We are in a time when new legends such as Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Sebastien Bourdais recently retireds Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy, ALL are in the top 15 in career wins.
These drivers, some of whom are permanently gone from the cockpit, or likely soon to be, are legends in their own right, yet most often we only hear and celebrate the voices of those who continually lob mortars at the sport’s façade, quite unfairly damaging this current generation of legends. The worst thing, the absolute WORST we do as fans is depreciate their status.
(c) Jeff Gritchen – OC Register
I’m making an concerted effort to eliminate the unfair comparisons with the sport’s past. The drivers of today are legends in their own right, living in the shadows of the sport’s earlier legends, yet they’ve earned the right to be treated as such. 
The subdued congratulations from TK and Helio on Sunday, seemed akin to a knowing nod that despite the weight of golden-era legends and their esoteric, nostalgic fans before them, they do understand their place in the sport’s pantheon.
If only more Indycar fans did as well.
 
 
 

Initial Feedback – The Inaugural Grand Prix of Indy

Mug-N-Bun never fails to satisfy

Following the #GPofINDY, and surviving a near brain-freeze from rapidly trying to ingest too much Mug-N-Bun root beer float, I had a three-hour drive home to recount the day’s events. 

It’s my opinion that direct and unfiltered customer-to-provider feedback is a good thing and especially when the experience is fresh in the mind. Upon returning home with sleepy family members in tow, I resisted my usual race-return tradition of watching the TV coverage and sent out only my most vivid impressions via Twitter. The immediacy of approximately five thoughts, I thought, would gather a decent snapshot of my experience. 

Listed below are those tweets in chronological order, which ended up being forwarded by a follower of mine to Douglas Boles, President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  He graciously responded. 































Who knew a blowhard blogger such as myself can provide useful, concise, and unbiased feedback? 




The President of IMS, that’s who. You’re a good man, Douggie Boles. 


I encourage all you reading this to add your own ON-SITE facility experiences in the comments below, and save the racing and TV critiques for other places. I believe that no opinion is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, as long as you strive to be as fair and honest with your input as possible. 

I’ll be happy to forward all of the input I receive to the uppity-ups at IMS. The more ‘pixels’ we have from the event, the better the overall picture they’ll have.

Crystal Ballin’ 2014



Ah, yes. The waiting is over. It’s all to be done.


The newest of Indycar seasons is upon us and in keeping with my ill-advised tradition of making predictions, the time has come again.  Rather than summarize my previous predictions, feel free to examine those thoughts from 2009, 2012, and 2013.  Seers of sooth, sayers of all, gather ’round whilst I make the following lead-pipe cinches:

St. Pete – A new tradition was born in 2013 and a previous non-winner will win here. Odds are heavily against me as there have only been two in the history of St. Pete (Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe), but the first race of the season is always a wild-card in my opinion and this year’s first-time Indycar winner will be… Carlos Munoz.

Inaugural GP of Indy – A new tradition is born at IMS and I’ll predict a rain-shortened race, finishing under the red flag, with the winner not being the one who lead most of the race.  2014 and inaugural GP winner will be Will Power.

Indy 500 – I’m pleased (and TK is as well) to report that back in 2013, and for the first time in 7 prior years, I did NOT pick TK to win the 500, thus allowing Murphy’s Law to present him with his first Borg-Warner likeness. This year though the ‘double’ will actually come to be synonymous with grabbing the GP of Indy and the Indy 500 in the same year.  2014 Indy 500 winner = Will Power.

Triple Crownin’ – Pocono and Fontana makes up the remaining two-thirds of the Fuzzy’s Triple Crown. Again there will be a different winner at each race, so the winner of Pocono for ’14 will be Marco Andretti, and the Fontana winner will be Tony Kanaan.

Elsewhere – The remainder of the season will largely be as many before it – entertaining with smatterings of controversy. Other race winners in 2014 will include Dixon, Pagenaud, Bourdais, Montoya, Wilson… hell, even Sato will get a win this year. Championship Controversy will abound because people will be tracking the points in both the 2013 and 2014 formats.  Replete with ballyhoo and consternation, the storylines following Indy will revolve around two points formats and who would be where. I predict the winner of the 2014 season championship would not have won under the 2013 points system. OH, THE HAND-WRINGING!

Verizon – A slow start, but major May-centric advertising blast will continue through the middle of the season with their logoed ‘Red-V’ on signage as far as the eye can see both in person and on TV. Nice, but how long before the public tunes it out as background noise much as the original IZOD campaign became tiresome?

Regardless, we’ll have another enjoyable season with some slight momentum going into 2015…

Oh, yes.  2015…
Aerokits: Finally. In keeping with a previous prediction (under ‘2013’ in that 2011 post) though, the visual and performance differences will be negligible to the average viewer, leaving many asking the question – “Just what in the wide, wide, world of sports was the point of aerokits anyway?!” 

Motors: A (new) third powerplant finally (European) badged and in development, two entirely new venues scheduled for 2016, the loss of one storied venue, and the ever-present B&C (ballyhoo and consternation) in the off-season.

Teams: Two more teams will call it quits just prior to 2015 (one will fold, one will join Formula E) and one new, hugely optimistic (and former IMSA) team will join Indycar. Car count will sit at 20 this time next year with further consolidation of smaller teams.

TV: ABC will perform marginally better, NBC Sports will crush them again however in terms of production and fan preference, just not in the ratings… yet.  Ratings will hold at their ’13 levels and the Sunshine Squad will note that upticks in ratings at a few events signal things are on the right path. Overall, the ratings will be the same for the season which will be cause for ongoing concern by entitlement sponsor Verizon.

Management: Between the typical controversies, proclamations, hints, appointments, firings, and typical squabbles of the Indycar ilk, management will stay largely behind-the-scenes for better of worse. Fans will need to get used to paying no attention to the ‘man behind the curtain’, the great and powerful Oz will speak only as necessary. 

Despite the advent of what will be presented as new ‘traditions/improvements/enhancements’, Indycar will look largely the same by the start of 2015 that it did at the start of 2012, albeit with a slightly elevated financial situation. 

The glacial rate of decision-making (largely caused by the ongoing and misplaced placation of the freshly consolidated owners), will stagnate what minor growth has occurred.

Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, the decree from management will come that this is the very best that Indycar can expect.  The reverberations will at long last be enough to silence the long-time, ever-shinking, and stunned ‘traditionalist fanbase’ aged 45-95.

Conclusions – Enjoy what Indycar provides you, for it is all you shall have and all you shall expect to get. The sooner you can accept this, the happier you will be.


Spring Training

The newly minted, pre-season Indy Fans Tweet-Up was a success by all accounts (I wasn’t able to attend much to my chagrin), although I was there in spirit – a cantankerous, mean spirit to some perhaps. I’ll admit the Polar Vortex had it’s grip on me as I was preparing the trivia contest for the Tweet-Up.

Some of you may recall last off-season I spent many lunch hours posing Indycar Trivia questions to you via twitter just for a something to keep the Indycar home fires stoked a bit. I learned as much as anyone by doing it and in light of not being able to attend, much as I’d like to have, I offered my dastardly services to the kind and ever-gracious folks (@openwheelmom and @PippaMann) who organized the pre-season Indy Fans Tweet-Up which occurred last Sunday, March 16.

Granted, I made it fairly difficult, but based on my experience over last off-season (which made me realize I’m far from knowing as much about Indycar history as I think I do), making the quiz too easy would make the contest reliant on just a few questions to make the difference. Never was it my intention to make it humiliating, only to make questions that enlighten or give pause to think about Indycar for a bit, while rewarding those who are supremely studious. 

I suppose if I was a professor of Indycar Trivia, my “college-aged me” would think I was a real hard case probably. I guess I can live with that since I learned the most from those hard cases who challenged me. In my view to properly test knowledge, I posed questions as fill-in-the-blank type… none of this multiple-choice garbage.

ANYWAY…

Here is a copy of the quiz questions that assaulted, presented to Tweet-Up attendees, with the winner (@HinchFanatic) scoring 8.5 of 15 possible and taking from the prize table a genuine Mayor-of-Hinchtown-autographed, race-worn, helmet visor.  If you wish to play along for yourself without peeking at the answers at the bottom of this post, score one point for each correct answer (or half-points per the question). 

15 questions and 15 minutes to complete.

Are you ready? annnnnnnnnd, BEGIN!


Trivia Quiz Contest Form
1. Name the 2013 Season Sunoco Rookie of the Year.
2. In 2013, how many times did a race winner start from the pole position?
3. Of the drivers who finished in the Top 10 in points, name the only one whose best race finish in the 2013 season was 3rd.          
4. Who was the only driver to sport the number 63 during the 2013 season?
5. 2013 Champion Scott Dixon won 4 races, but finished outside the top 10 in how many races?                                   
6. From what position did Tony Kanaan start to win the 2013 Indy 500?
7. What former winner drove the Pace Car for the start of the Centennial 2011 Indy 500?
8. Name the only 2 drivers to win Indy 500s in 3 different decades (1/2 point for each correct).
9. Who currently holds the record for fastest race lap at the Indy 500?
10. Dan Wheldon was the most recent driver to win the Indy 500 with the number 98. Name the other two drivers to win the Indy 500 with this number (1/2 point for each correct).
11. Name the track at which A. J. Foyt got the final of his 67 Indycar wins.
12. Which engine manufacturer is currently credited with the most pole positions and most wins in Indycar history?           
13. Which currently active Indycar driver has the most career Indycar wins?
14. Of Indycar drivers with more than 20 wins, name the one whose average starting position of 1.98 is the best.           
15. Name the Indycar driver whose final career Indycar win was also the site of his first Indycar win at Long Beach.    
You may have noticed a bit of a pattern – 5 questions on the 2013 season, 5 on the Indy 500, and 5 of general Indycar history. Of course this was on purpose, OCD rarely relinquishes it’s grip once taken hold. Below are the answers to the quiz:

















…nope farther down still…


















1. Tristan Vaultier
2. 3 (Barber, Toronto 2, Fontana)
3. Marco Andretti
4. Pippa Mann
5. 8
6. 12th
7. A.J. Foyt Jr.
8. Bobby Unser (’68, ’75, ’81) and Rick Mears (’79, ’84, ’88, ’91)
9. Eddie Cheever Jr. (38.119 sec. / 236.103mph, Lap 78 of 1996 race)
10. Troy Ruttman (1952), Parnelli Jones (1963)
11. Pocono
12. Offenhauser
13. Scott Dixon (33)
14. Mario Andretti
15. Michael Andretti