Fixing IndyCar, part 1: Defining the sport
IndyCar, IndyCar commentary — By Steph Wallcraft on November 30, 2012 9:13 amLink back to:
Fixing IndyCar: An introduction
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When a tree is sick, the first thing to suspect is a problem at its roots.
Similarly, many of IndyCar’s problems lie at its most base level, at its very core.
On a global scale, motorsport has been a niche sport for some time now. The demonizing of the automotive industry, both economically and environmentally, has taken its toll.
Once upon a time, resource-guzzling racing machines and the death-defying heroes who piloted them would take to racetracks to make names for themselves by being better and faster than everyone else, and that was considered not only acceptable but good fun to watch.
Today, people expect more, and they ask more questions. Are these pursuits worthy of the finances it takes to run them? Of the environmental cost?
And, on the whole, people don’t really have a desire to watch their heroes defy death anymore. In fact, many of them would rather not even consider the possibility.
Plus, there are far more places for the average Joe to spend his sport spectating dollar these days, and there are far fewer dollars go to around.
So, how does motorsport find its place in today’s world?
The answer, it seems, is that each category has eked out a definition for itself — a reason for being that paying customers can accept, embrace, and enjoy.
In simplistic terms, Formula 1 can be billed as the proving ground for the world’s most talented road racers and most innovative automotive technology. (And the world’s biggest drama queens and deepest corruption, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
NASCAR is The American Series. It doesn’t hang its hat on its cars, but it doesn’t need to. It’s done such a good job of convincing people that watching NASCAR is the American Way that it doesn’t really need to concern itself with being anything else.
Similarly, V8 Supercars is The Australian Series.
ALMS took an interesting shot at billing itself as The Green Series and being a proving ground for earth-friendly technologies. (Apparently that wasn’t quite enough to keep it afloat on its own, though, since The Rich Guy Series swallowed it up. But it was worth a try.)
Where does IndyCar fall within this spectrum? How does IndyCar define itself? What does it consider to be its reason for being?
As someone who follows the Series quite closely, I should know the answer to this question without a doubt. It should be trumpeted at every turn. But it’s not.
If I don’t know the answer, then curious casual fans or potential sponsors don’t know, either. And how can they be convinced to invest in the sport if they don’t know what they’re investing in?
Randy Bernard tried, at least, to bill IndyCar as The Fastest Race in the World. The major issues with that were that a) no one was really sure what that meant, and b) it wasn’t true. (The Indianapolis 500 hasn’t been the Fastest Race in a long time, and drag racing is faster, anyway.)
He also took a shot at calling IndyCar the Most Diverse Racing Series in the World, pointing at the schedule of short ovals, superspeedways, permanent road courses, and street courses to which the Series lays claim. But there’s going to be a pretty big issue with that one very shortly, too: with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series going to both Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Eldora next season, IndyCar no longer has a very firm hold on that statement, either.
When current fans of the sport discuss what IndyCar should be, the response that’s given most often relates to technical diversity. People think back to multiple engine, chassis, and tire manufacturers and dream about the return of the glory days. One would like to think that this is a long-term goal of Series administration — and if it isn’t currently, it most certainly should be (and it might calm some fans down if that was explicitly stated and a plan was outlined) — but it doesn’t take much number-crunching to conclude that this is not at all a feasible immediate solution to IndyCar’s woes. It costs a lot of money to produce race car components in lower than full-field quantities, and the money that sponsors are willing to put into the sport right now simply won’t pay for it.
There are some people who would like to see IndyCar billed as The Indianapolis 500 Series. These people think that the strength of the 500 is such that all technical regulations and marketing efforts should hinge on it and that the rest of the schedule should be a footnote. (And, to be truthful, there’s an argument to be made that this is, at least in part, the way that things are already being run.) There is simply no way to make this work. Formula 1 didn’t get to where it is today by being The Monaco Series. NASCAR was never The Daytona Series. Those are legendary and sought-after jewels on their calendars, but those series recognize that their best events are nothing without a solid series and schedule to back them up. If IndyCar goes out of its way to convince people that the only thing that’s good about IndyCar is the 500, how could it simultaneously convince someone it would be worth their time to buy a ticket for Iowa?
To my mind, the only path that makes sense for IndyCar going forward is to shape it into The Most Challenging Series in the World.
It’s a bold claim, and being able to make it would require a few changes.
The calendar is already in place to support claims of the diverse skill set that’s needed to be competitive.
The cars, though, are largely perceived as being not particularly difficult for a professional race car driver to pilot.
Note that I didn’t say they aren’t difficult. I know they’re difficult because I follow the sport closely enough to know the nuances of it. But for a casual viewer tuning in to IndyCar for the first time, the challenge isn’t as easy to spot.
When a curious channel-flipper tunes into a race on television, they should see in-car camera views of drivers wrestling with their cars, balance them on the raw edge within inches of the walls and each other. It should look like what they’re doing is really hard.
Right now, it just doesn’t.
Oddly, the problem lies in the fact that today’s field is so exceptionally talented that they can’t help but make it look easy with the equipment they’re being given. IndyCar drivers are well-tuned athletic machines. They kick these beasts around all types of racetracks for hours at a time with no power steering to help them. Not nearly enough is made of this.
There’s another step that could easily be taken to seal the deal, and it’s one that every single one of the drivers is constantly begging for and that can be done essentially overnight: Give the engines more horsepower, especially on road and street courses.
This should be done in close consultation with the drivers, of course. IndyCar needs to treat them like the professionals they are and trust that they’ll know when the right amount of power has been reached. (Or, they could expect that drivers, being the way they are, will ask for just a little more than they can handle and dial the final number back just a touch from what they request. That would work, too.)
At any rate, agreement appears nearly universal that the number should be at is well above where it is now.
The goal is to give the drivers a car that they have to wrestle with more, that will make the skill needed to pass and to win more evident, that will allow the cream of the grid to rise to the top more often, and that will have the drivers climbing out of their cars winded, sweaty and drained every single time they race.
Right now, being a professional IndyCar driver looks too easy to the casual fan. And if IndyCar is too extravagant and too expensive and not particularly innovative and too easy, then what on Earth is the point of rolling it out 19 times a year?
If IndyCar can bill itself as The Most Challenging Racing Series on Earth — and can back it up with evidence that’s easy to spot — then the whole operation is instantly given purpose and has something worth selling to the world. It would have a grid full of drivers who today’s general public would be able to perceive as heroes.
That would be something people would go out of their way to tune into and that sponsors would want to pay to support.
***
In part 2 of Fixing IndyCar, we’ll take a closer look at the importance of making heroes out of IndyCar drivers and some other strategies that might contribute to that goal.
In the meantime, please join the discussion. In your view, why does IndyCar set up shop on 16 weekends of the year? What’s its reason for being? How should it define itself on the world stage? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Tags: Verizon IndyCar Series - Administration, Verizon IndyCar Series - Marketing, Verizon IndyCar Series - Technical
One of the main stumbling blocks to marketing the series is the very vocal minority that consider 16th & Georgetown hallowed ground. It’s just another race in a whole season of races. Granted it is the most visible and revered similar to Daytona or Monaco. People need to see the rest of IndyCar.
This is probably never going to change since the 500 worshipers definitely count the HG family among their members.
Oh well, I’ll just keep watching as long as it lasts.
Innovate and they will come. 🙂
Do you have any suggestions?
We know that innovation can’t be directed toward making the cars go faster because we’ve already found the limits of the human body (Texas 2001).
We know that it can’t be directed toward engine components because everything that falls into team hands is locked down, and the patent laws that govern such things today mean that won’t be changing any time soon.
Plus, innovation costs money, and that money simply isn’t coming into IndyCar right now.
Sadly, it seems that the days of using motor racing for innovation in any meaningful sense are behind us, which is why the entire sport has been foundering and new definitions are needed to justify its continued existence.
Increasing the power would be easy, but there is one thing to take into consideration. More HP = More $. A higher HP will make the action better, we really don’t have an idea of what that would do to engine life as a whole. If the teams had CART days money then yes I would say increase the power. But I think there are a few things that can be done easily. One is to decrease the down force on the S&R courses. Taking the downforce off would make them a bit faster on the straights, but they would have to work the cars more around the turns. The other two things that can be done is making the tire compounds softer and/or making them have a higher drop off in performance as they wear we have seen this year. The overtake assist could be given at least 100 HP increase in overall HP with the push and should also be increased in the amount of time the drivers have to use them. I don’t think 700 HP is a bad number for the S&R since Champ Car only had 750 HP at the end anyways.
You make a good point. But on paper, “less downforce” does a lot less to excite people than “800 HP” does. I think the technical team in IndyCar has a massive disconnect with the marketing team in that regard. Yes, more HP equals more money, but it’s one of the few places where a short-term cash infusion would yield quick returns… so long as people are properly made aware of it.
IMO, if that means that engines start popping, all the better. It’s good to give the impression that technology is being pushed to its limit. Plus, the added level of uncertainty adds to the drama.
Firestone doesn’t want to play along when it comes to more challenging tire compounds, unfortunately, so there’s no point in bringing that into the discussion.
Tires…everyone thought that F1 races were substantially improved when Pirelli came up with a tire that worked well then rapidly went to crap…and everyone seemed up in arms when both tires Pirelli brought to CotA were deemed to be “too hard”.
I thought it was massively entertaining to see how the drivers were fighting the cars with less than optimal grip, and there wasn’t the insane mess of klag off line that always creates more problems as the race goes on.
That leads me to wonder if moving to a harder tire–rather than a tire that degrades–makes as much sense to create greater challenge to the drivers. If Firestone’s resources are limited, it makes more sense to supply fewer durable tires to make things more challenging rather than more soft ones…or am I all goofy?
To be fair, the fact the current IndyCar produces less horsepower than a GP2 car probably doesn’t help the series’ placement in the motorsports world.
As for innovation in motorsport, sure the LMP1 category of what is now the WEC is a pointer than some – not many – are still interesting that aspect of the sport.
1. No matter how much it’s been neglected lately, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is hallowed ground.
2. Good point on making it look as hard as it really is.
3. Nobody in the larger fanbase they’d like to pursue knows or cares one bit about Cart, Champcar or the IRL.
4. Market the hell out of a really good collection of drivers.
5. Aero kits. Cars that look outrageous and distinctive and different and futuristic and fast and marketable. Cars that create interest and attract the younger audience. Car designs that can be marketed to kid’s (and adults). Cars with a distinct personality and look that fans can root for or against. I think Indycar dropped the ball by dropping aero kits. F1 cars all look alike, as do Nascar cars. This would have made Indycar unique, in that fans could root for cars as well as personalities.
I just can’t make myself buy into the hoopla that aero kits are the golden ticket everyone claims.
The likelihood that they’re going to make a measurable difference in performance is low. Most of the aero on these cars is being done on the undertray anyway, and there’s only so much that open-wheel wings can deviate and still be maximally effective. (And you can bet that IndyCar will place even further restrictions on them, too.) If all you’re really doing is spending a whole lot of money to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak, then what’s the point?
Look to V8 Supercars in Australia for an example. Their cars don’t look substantially different. All of the technical rivalry in that series has been based on one thing for years: a heated brand war between Ford and Holden (up until now, anyway — Nissan is entering the series next year, which will shift the balance somewhat). The formula has been very successful for them.
The flaw in IndyCar, perhaps, is that there isn’t a very large audience in North America that’s heavily invested in Honda as a brand (sorry, Honda). Pit Ford or Chrysler against Chevy and you’re really on to something — much more so than having a few teams bend a few slabs of carbon fiber in slightly different ways.
Current fans hang a lot of hope on the aero kits because they think it’ll make the sport feel more like it did in the late ’90s, and I think they’ll be mightily disappointed. The owners made the right decision that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
Of course, the owners also totally botched the way they handled interaction with the fans on the subject… but that’s a topic for another post. 😉
Aero kits that make the cars easy to distinguish from one another–in addition to promoting driver’s better and continuing to promote the engine competition–is another way to give fans a “favorite” to cheer for–or root against. Which is a big part of the reason people watch sports. And a way to market Indycar to a younger audience. I guess maybe it’s just something I personally would like to see and not necessary what other fans think would help.
Redcar, F1 cars don’t look alike. The aero kit deviations you’d get in IndyCar would probably be even less than the deviations in F1 – so if you already can’t tell those apart, you’ve got no hope of telling IndyCars apart.
I guess I should’ve said that F1 cars look the same to me. anyway, I would hope the differences with aero kits would be great enough to easily notice. because–from a marketing standpoint at least–that’s the whole point.
Lots of hard-core F1 fans think the current generation of cars look much more (and too much) alike than in the past so it’s only the liveries that make the difference clear. With some of the drivers changing helmet designs frequently coupled with my bad eyes, I have to rely on the TV crew to “remind” me who’s who as I started watching more F1 this past season than in previous years.
Distinctly different aerokits in Indycar could create more performance differences…but that means one almost certainly would be better, which only makes about half the teams/fans happy and does nothing for the remainder. Unpredictability is about the only quality that all race fan series agree is key to an interesting race and season and dominance is quickly boring.
Trying to determine what should remain absolutely spec versus open to some development in an “essentially but not totally spec” series seems to be a much more thorny issue than either a true strict spec series in which everything is nailed down, or what us old farts recall of the old “here are the dimensions allowed, now go use your heads” days where only the minimum was defined.
First off, Steph, an apology again for going off on you. I get extremely frustrated with many INDYCAR “fans”, as most in my eyes neither know anything about the sport or try to argue that “YOU BETTER DO WHAT I WANT OR I’M GOING TO TAKE MY MARBLES AND GO HOME!” I find a lot of comments made to be childish, immature and frankly, stupid. And sometimes I take things out on others when their comments seem like their heading in that direction. I apologize again for attacking you and I will try not to do so in the future.
Apologies aside, on to your post. I thought it was well written. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more on your “The Most Challenging Series on Earth” philosophy? I don’t know if I completely understood what that means. Maybe you did explain it and I simply don’t understand it, but if you could clarify that slogan a little more, it might help me and others to understand it a bit better.
As to my opinion, I’m really not sure. I agree with you that the cars could use more HP. Where I especially agree with you is the comparison between what Ford and Holden were in Australian V8 Supercars-you either were a Ford or Holden person, and when your driver or team changed affiliation, people started hating that driver/team .(For me, it was when Craig Lowndes left Ford for Holden, I hated him after that. Respected him, yes. Liked? No way.) Rivalry is important in sports-although it all too frequently goes WAY too far-and right now, INDYCAR lacks that passion. It’s hard to get excited-for me anyway-about Chevrolet vs. Honda. As far as how the series is defined, I really don’t know.
Haha. I have to laugh at an IndyCar site calling somebody else drama queens! I’m not saying F1 isn’t like that but honestly you can hardly say that when your ‘own’ series is filled with the most ridiculous drama queens, right from team owners to drivers to practically all of the blogs and fan sites and Tweeters. Just some examples of late:
‘Oh no, Bernie might set up GP2 Americas – everybody PANIC!!!’
‘Oh no, our favourite CEO is out, THE WORLD HAS ENDED!!!!’
Teams: ‘If you bring in aero kits, WE’RE OUT!!’
Fans: ‘If you don’t bring in aero kits, WE’RE OUT!!’
Lotus Teams: ‘We voluntarily signed up with a partner knowing they were months behind and under-funded, and they turned out to be slow and unreliable, get us out or we walk!’
I could go on. And on. And on.
I’m being facetious of course but the point needed to be made. It is difficult to put up with all this whining from the supposed hardcore fan base. If these are the core supporters why should anyone else bother? If the racing hadn’t had markedly improved in 2012 I may not have done, maybe next year I’ll just watch and not read the blogs or follow the Twitters any more.
Perhaps on an analytical level you replace ‘whiners’ and replace it with a ‘hair-trigger response to any and all exterior threats and criticisms’. The slightest mere suggestion that something might not go IndyCar’s way gets people all worked up over nothing. The result of years of angst and anguish and double-crossing, and yes, corruption.
INDYCAR team owners are greedy. Many team owners in all motorsports are greedy, none more so than in F1 which attracts all sorts of deluded fools into thinking within 5 years they’ll be competitive AND make money – few do and those that do have often gamed the system to their advantage. INDYCAR team owners are no different. They also try to manipulate the rules to their own gain, except in their case they are so far up their own backsides they think they can dictate who runs the series. Or.. perhaps they are right to exploit what has always been a weakness of whatever variant of NA open wheel you care to pick over the last several decades. Perhaps those series deserve it if they aren’t strong enough to resist.
Okay this is a broad brush and they aren’t ALL like it.. but in my view team owners are much the same in every series. They’ll never learn that working WITH the people running the series is considerably better than fighting a constant war with them. The only place any different right now is sportscar racing in various different series where unity seems the order of the day – we’ll see how that lasts.
There is not enough common sense and objectivity in IndyCar racing. That is why I’ve been looking forward to this series of posts and continue to do so.
Right now I see it this way:
F1: Globe-trotting fast cars with glitz and glamour and the pompous sense of seniority that entails, for good or bad. Personally I think there is a space for an aspirational series like that. Hi-tech but these days only really in aerodynamics which might be transferrable to aerospace but little else. Gimmicky PlayStation button-pressing passes.
NASCAR: Team America, f**k yeah, wooo! Anti-eliteness, if you ain’t got a beer and a fatty food don’t talk to their fans. Don’t dare strive to be better or we’ll neuter you and make you equal again. Racing communism masked with a thousand giant capitalist stickers and MASSIVE USA flags.
World Endurance Championship: Perhaps the most technically relevant series there is, especially with the new ‘green’ rules in LMP1’s future. On the rise. Will it last? [interestingly side note: a lot of Europeans racers (drivers/teams) disaffected by the way they were treated in F1 head to WEC/European sportscars with a nice chip on their shoulder about it]
ALMS/GA merger: *Should* become an intriguing mix of Le Mans tech and Daytona grunt. Could become one of the best series on the planet and it’ll compete directly with IndyCar fans for attention on their home soil. Despite what I said of whiners above, THIS is the one danger to watch out for. Or.. imagine it.. *work with!*.
IndyCar: The mix of ovals and road courses and street tracks remains compelling to me at least. The balance isn’t yet right but 2013 already looks better. Saying ‘the most versatile in the world’ is a bit too bombastic and unnecessary and open to criticism not just to Trucks but especially to something like WRC which visits asphalt, gravel, dirt, snow, ice. But that doesn’t mean you *shouldn’t* sell the versatility. IndyCar does a mix of track types faster than anyone other than F1 – and you can explain that away by saying they are dedicated road course cars that can’t do ovals. Okay so I get you can’t do that in a six word strapline. 🙂 But I tend to believe modern marketing needs to move beyond little straplines as the be all and end all of its purpose..
It is the mix of speed and versatility which should be key to their offer to potential fans. Saying ‘best in the world’ isn’t technically correct, but they can and should offer the best MIX in the world.
I just don’t know that that is a major selling point within the US. They already sell the versatility and people don’t seem to be buying.
I agree to an extent that IndyCars should be challenging to drive. Compared with F1 cars they always had more power and less grip. F1 cars these days have power steering. Perhaps it would make sense for IndyCars to have that (it shouldn’t be a competition of strength but one of driver skill) and make them tricky in other ways.
There is one thing I have decided. I’ve decided to ignore internet commenters insisting IndyCar should be all-Americans on all-ovals every week from March to September. 120k people at the USGP and big numbers at places like Sebring and Road Atlanta convince me there is a very large road course fan base and heritage in the US – and that’s before accounting for the attendance figures for IndyCar at disparate tracks excluding Indy which seem to point at the twisty tracks being favourable.
The sad thing is this road course fanbase and the oval track fanbase, the divide IndyCar has historically crossed since before WW2, that divide seems much bigger now. People seem set as either one or another. Perhaps the only way to get IndyCar popular again is to remind people that it is worth watching the other sort of race from time to time.. especially if those races are only IndyCar Series races and no other series
Sorry for the ramble and I hope it made some level of sense. I might crosspost it to my blog so I can edit it into something coherent.
Steph, you proposal is excellent. Drivers should look exhausted in the podium, not peacefully happy. Adding way more power is the way to go. Less downforce is the way in ovals, so cars hang around corners. But cars must be lighning quick in esses and hairpins in road/street courses.
Speaking of diversity, the World rally Championship runs on asphalt, gravel, mud, snow and ice. Now that’s diversity! More worringly, the Global Rallycross Championship will get to that point in 2014.
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having watched three IndyCar races last season, here are my ideas:
1. bigger numbers on the cars. even HDTV can’t show them adequately.
2. more oval tracks. street racing is too confusing for me.
3. finally: more night races. maybe Thursday? the NFL likes Thursday night.
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