MFW podcast episode 42
More Front Wing podcasts, Podcasts — By More Front Wing Staff on May 11, 2011 12:55 amOn this edition of the More Front Wing podcast, Paul and Steph discuss their initial thoughts on the recently unveiled models that may or may not resemble what fans can expect to see on track during the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series season and how the owners’ recent vote against aero kits for next season has backfired in the face of public opinion. Next, the crew is joined by Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian Donald Davidson to reflect on the early origins of the Indianapolis 500 and profile some of the former champions that many of today’s race fans may know little about. Finally, Steph challenges Paul’s knowledge of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 with listener-submitted questions.
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Tags: Donald Davidson, ICONIC Committee, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indy 500, Verizon IndyCar Series - Technical
Only part way through the podcast (I’m a couple days behind…could you guys take a couple days off with the CIS so that I could catch up? 🙂 ), but I just gotta weigh in to say that I agree with Paul on his take as to why it’s a good idea to roll out two cars now that are supposedly 75% of what we’ll see from Dallara next year. Unveiling a banner to a client (or whatever it is that graphic designers would give to a client, I have to plead 100% ignorance there and throw myself at the mercy of the MFW court) is basically the same on any day of the calendar, unless that client is trying to put it in stores before Christmas or (insert that client’s most important day of the year). For IndyCar, that “most important day of the year” is the next 2 weeks. If you wait until Dallara has their “100% done” example of the car, they’re probably unveiling the thing at Iowa or Edmonton, and then you’ve cut the number of eyeballs that get to check the thing out either in person or on TV by over 75%. Best to get a pretty good example out now and let a whole bunch of people see it, even if it’s not 100% correct.
As to Steph’s assertion that maybe it’d be a good idea to show a car with the aero pieces stripped off, I do agree there, though it does increase the number of pieces that needed to be turned out by the factory by now by 50%, which might not have been doable. My guess is that they were scrambling just to get the two cars out the door that we got to see this week. Maybe they could take one of the show cars (the road course car, maybe) and just for a couple days this week take the aero pieces off, so that we can see the bare bones safety cell. Well, unless some of the internal pieces are missing, in which case, it’d be like seeing what’s behind the curtain when you go to see the wizard, i.e. a little underwhelming.
OK, that’s all I had. Great show as usuall, guys!
Well, crap. This is what I get for leaving a comment before I’m even done with the show: a reply to my own post.
I do agree with Paul that the IRL/IndyCar did not set out to be a “spec” racing series, which is something that I feel like a lot of people ignore and the Series gets wrongfully maligned for. The fact that one component (chassis or engine) supplier had a better product than the others drove the competitors out. It happens, and in fact, Dallara’s done this in F3 several times over the last 20 years. But, I do have to agree with Steph that the idea of starting out with 2012 with a guarantee of a “spec” situation in an area (this being the aero kit area) where there was previously announced to be competition, this is what has me and a lot of other fans upset. Mind you, I’m not upset about the fact that the tub and other core components are going to be spec. Going back to the days where CART had 3-4 different chassis manufacturers all doing their own similar but 100% different tubs for greatly increased prices (what happens when you’re only making a dozen tubs per year instead of 50+ like Dallara will be doing), returning to those days is not economically feasible today. Going with a single supplier tub is the only way to go for the next few years, I think. But, aero kits, an area where teams will need to spend a little money anyway (Paul rightly points out that you do get an awful lot of carbon fiber for that $75k; you’d probably nearly spend $75k just to buy front and rear wings, sidepods and an engine cover for today’s car), this is a potentially economically sustainable area of “non-spec” development, car differentiation (however minor it might be) and car branding. The fact that the car owners want to lock in a year of “spec” parts where there could easily not be spec, for not much more money and which is optional, to boot, that has me riled up. It’s true that the kits will probably look pretty much the same, and most fans will probably not be able to tell them apart without an entry list in front of them telling them “the Penskes are Chevys, the Ganassis are Hondas and so on”, but they’re also an avenue to get the cars performing different from each other.
If we wind up a “spec” Chevy/Dallara series again come 2014, fine. I get how free markets work (heck, this happened in CART as well, as Lola drove Reynard, Swift and Eagle out and all the engine manufacturers except for Ford jumped ship). I just don’t want to be deprived a season (or more, should the kit maunfacturers change their minds before 2013 arrives and decide to just skip making them in the first place) of potential competition when I don’t feel like there is a valid argument against it.
OK, I’m off my soapbox. Well, until Donald Davidson says something in 5 minutes that I disagree with. At which time, I’ll be back with 5,000 more words.
Never feel you have to justify yourself for leaving comments in any number or length. We appreciate all feedback!
You make some very valid points here. The only thing that crossed my mind as I read your thoughts on the 2012 car unveiling was that while you’re right about wanting maximum exposure, I very highly doubt that anything presented that day was outside the box enough to move the needle outside of the hardcore fan community (and the fact that they did the unveiling on INDYCAR Open Wheel Weekly suggests that they knew such would be the case). Given that, they could have catered to that audience a whole lot more. However, Tony Cotman did mention on Twitter when asked that a chassis with the aero kits removed is not yet ready for display, so it’s safe to assume that these had the pieces glued on in a way that wouldn’t be real-life functional and that a safety cell demo couldn’t have been ready in time.
Thanks as always for sharing your thoughts!