Indycar 2011

Well we have a 2011 Izod Indycar schedule that is official now after seeing dozens of leaks in the past two past days before it’s announcement. It brought a nice surprise that everyone had deduced to due the location of the announcement. Yes Virginia, the Milwaukee Mile is back on the schedule much to everyone’s joy. It also contained a few clunkers that I could do without that we will get to in moment. Indycar once again didn’t make it easy on it’s fans to get this announcement as the streaming to the web failed. I am starting to see what you people who don’t have Verses are going though and you now have more sympathy from me. This was the second most important announcement of the year and nobody thought to check early to see if the streaming was working. The web people either need to step it up or get replaced since the new car announcement also suffered from breaks in coverage. This needs to be fixed going forward if we can’t count on you for these announcements to getting to us how can we count on race day coverage via the net? I’ll get off the soapbox now and let’s look at the schedule and I’ll tell you the good, the bad and the ugly of it in my opinion. This is my blog and you are here so you asked for it.

March 27  Streets of St. Petersburg                  1.8-mile street course

April 10     Barber Motorsports Park                2.3-mile road course

April 17     Streets of Long Beach                    1.968-mile street course

May 1       Streets of Sao Paulo                        2.536-mile street course

May 29      Indianapolis Motor Speedway       2.5-mile oval

June 11    Texas Motor Speedway                    1.5-mile oval (two races)

June 19    The Milwaukee Mile                        1-mile oval

June 25    Iowa Speedway                                .875-mile oval

July 10     Streets of Toronto                             1.755-mile street course

July 24     Edmonton City Centre Airport         1.973-mile airport course

Aug. 7      Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course            2.258-mile road course

Aug. 14    New Hampshire Motor Speedway    1-mile oval

Aug. 28    Infineon Raceway                              2.303-mile road course

Sept. 4     Streets of Baltimore                           2-mile street course

Sept. 18   Twin Ring Motegi                              1.5-mile oval

Oct. 2       Kentucky Speedway                          1.5-mile oval

TBA          Season finale TBA

Let’s start with the Good.

1. The Milwaukee Mile is back on schedule! Yea! This traditional Indycar stronghold was one I thought we would never see again due the debt and promoter problems. In fact my friend Tim asked me if Milwaukee was coming back this year about two weeks ago and I told him it was 2012 or maybe not at all but that they we working on it. Randy Bernard gets mad props here from me after not knowing anything about the sport when we was hired then getting up to speed fast. He gets it. There is a large fan base there and around the country that wanted this track back and he found a way to do it his first year on the job. Let’s just stop and think about that for a moment. He overcame many large obstacles to do this and pretty much demanded the race be on the schedule. Many have been critical of him including some lunkhead owners who want to keep running the same damn cars for another 2 to 3 years. Guess you guys never get tired of Penske and Ganassi kicking your ass every week? Randy is the right man for the job. Let him do his work.

2. Watkins Glen is off the schedule. I know this is heresy Indycar faithful and before you accuse me of being a newb and not knowing its place in history please hear me out. I have been watching the Indy 500 since 1972 when I was seven years old. My parents bought me a checked flag when I was kid that had various winners throughout the years printed on it. I know who Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark are and why they are important. Unless we can magically bring these two back to life and teach some of today’s racers how it pass at the Glen then we can do without it. I have watched this race for the past three years straight and it is next to impossible to pass there in the current cars we have. Maybe the new aero packets will change that and we can return but until this happens I’m fine without it. I hate to lose the tradition and the rich history behind the place but I don’t enjoy televised paint drying or grass growing which is what this track is right now. This race is a snooze fest and is unpleasant to watch on TV. Let’s try our luck elsewhere. Before you think I hate all the street and road races I’ll tell you that the Brazil race was the best I ever seen. I love it.

3. ISC tracks are off the schedule. I really hate losing major market like Chicago and Kansas City but let me tell you something. The NASCAR folks that promoted this race dropped the ball and did NOT promote these races and I can prove it. I live in downstate Southern Illinois by St Louis about as far down the state as you can get from the Chicagoland Speedway. I am here to tell you that the three weeks prior to Danica’s running her Nationwide race there that there was plenty of radio advertisements trying to get the folks in St Louis to drive up and see the golden child Danica Patrick. She was mentioned prominently in all the ads and there we several race packages offered to entice you to see her race at the Nationwide race. Fast forward a couple a weeks to a month and she was back at her hometown track for an Indycar race. No ads ran on any channel in St Louis. None. We don’t need partners like this that don’t promote our product. Randy was smart to get rid of them. You won’t promote us well who needs you? I’ll miss the wide-open action of Chicago and Kansas but I can live without Homestead. It’s not that special. Frankly ISC tracks you can all go to hell for all I care.

4. Randy got us suitable replaced for the ovals we lost. We have some new tracks that for the moment seem to want us and are willing to promote us. It is a tough economic climate (I’ve been out of work over a year now) and he was able to get New Hampshire, Milwaukee, and perhaps Las Vegas if we can find a sponsor for it. I have to give mad props again to Randy for being able to pull that off. I am unsure about the alignment with Burton Smith but he’s our best ally right now. I know people are upset with the Texas race being split in half but let’s think about it a little. Last year the Texas was the race that got us the push to pass because it was painfully obvious that passing could not be done there without changes. Don’t start on me about the push to pass just let me finish. If you will remember Ryan Briscoe dominated this race like no race I’ve seen in years. He was halfway though the race with a lap lead on the entire field. If you will recall he didn’t win that race because he got passed in the pits late and could not lap that person. How many scenarios like have you seen in racing? How many times has an Andretti led at the halfway point at Indy? Now at least a dominate car that fades later gets a win. I’m not thrilled about the half points awarded for each race but I’m willing to give it a try.

The Bad

1. The Brazil race is the last race before Indy. I love this race but I don’t like teams being forced to go to Brazil and then back to Indy. That is too hard on the teams that attended and it likely to wear them out just like the Japan race did when it was there. I realize that there is a built in week break now since we lost 2 week of qualifying at Indy but I’d still like to find another date for this excellent race. The chaos of the rain this year and actually seeing Indy run in it like F1 was amazing. Plus the designers were talked into putting the longest straight way in the street course promoting passing and that is a good thing. Let’s hope those long straightways in Baltimore work like this.

2. One week of qualifying at Indy. Do I need to explain this to you? It sucks. I liked the pole day this year but miss two weeks of Indy car qualifying madness.

3. No season finale location announcement. I understand why this didn’t occur since they are looking for sponsors for Vegas. You’d think that would be an easy sell but maybe not. Just go ahead and book this before NASCRAP scoops you and moves their series finale there. You don’t want to damage the Sonoma market by having another race so close in California at Fontana. Then don’t do it. Why go to a track for one year knowing you are headed somewhere else soon, that won’t promote sales. Just go to Vegas. It makes sense since fares are always cheap to fly there and it would be a choice destination for fans to travel to a race. Randy is even talking about eventually having two races at Vegas as finales for oval and street and roads. That is certainly thinking outside of the box that I give him credit for but the events couldn’t be the same weekend could they? Wouldn’t teams have two cara sets up for both? How feasible is that for small teams?

4. More ovals please. If you add one more street race (like Houston) you need to add an oval to balance it. Look CART lovers you are controlling the series now and bitching for even more of your old street courses to be added (like Cleveland, give me a break will you?) and we’re dealing with it. Cut us some slack here okay? Can’t we all just get along?

The Ugly

1. Edmonton is still on the schedule. This track is perhaps the worst track I’ve ever seen for the inability to pass. Will Power has lead pretty much wire to wire both years and if it had not been for the Helio’s incident this race would have been forgotten and not talked about at all. This was the worst part of the season with the five road and street courses in a row for me. I was ready to put a gun to my head watching these five. At least the schedule seems a little more balanced this year. The only street course I enjoyed in this stretch was its mate Toronto because they were so many wrecks and wild action it at least made it interesting to watch. The fallout from the rough racing here led to many twitter wars of words between those who thought they had been wronged and that’s just too much entertainment to give up. You can keep Toronto but please get Edmonton off the schedule! I’ll trade you Road America for it since everyone is now screaming for it to be added now that we have Milwaukee back. I realize that they aren’t likely to break up the Canadian races.  PS I hate Sonoma too for the same reasons but it draws big crowds and they promote us so I know that it’s going nowhere.

2. Twin Ring Motegi is still too close to the end of the points championship. I don’t have anything against this race and in fact I like it. It’s marketing to a different fan base in Japan and I’m all for that. I saw many Japanese fans on my trip to this year's Indy 500 and they were as reverent about the place as I was. We may not speak the same language but we do in a way since you were taken a back as I was at seeing AJ Foyt’s car in person. I just don’t want the Points Championship decided outside the USA. This race needs to be moved up a race so we don’t have to worry every year about this problem.

3. Randy is talking about races in Australia and China? Why? Is there some big stronghold of Indycar fans behind the Great Wall that I don’t know about? The economy is down and having two more street course added to the schedule that are great travel expenses just doesn’t make sense right now. This also gives low budget teams like my girl Sarah Fisher even less places to race. The Brazil race makes sense since there is a huge fan base there and while I understand the desire to get back down under but let’s be realistic here. If you must have more street courses let’s keep them inside the US like the proposed Houston race. I’d like to reconnect with the Aussie fan base but I’d also like a job. Neither one is seems likely until things turnaround with the economy.

The Unknown

1. Will the races at New Hampshire, Baltimore, and Vegas be profitable? You’re guess is as good as mine. Will the 2012 package change the balance of power but not put teams like Sarah Fisher and Dale Coyne out of business. We can only hope for the best. Maybe Derrick Walker will return. Maybe Audi will build an engine. Maybe not.

Well that’s my view Indycar peeps, what do you think?