A little while ago, I put together a post about the fact that six of the eight oval tracks on the schedule this season are 1.5 miles in length and four of those are roughly the same shape. BO-RING! It seems someone has been in one Randall Bernard, CEO, Indy Racing League's ears on this subject (or, indeed, he's come to the conclusion himself) and he's possibly looking to instigate a little change. He's said flat-out that the series should be half-oval and half-not-oval -- and not this one-third oval, road, and street thing that Tony George used to somehow differentiate roads and streets...I know the differences, but I'm not buying that.
Anyway, apart from the new street twisty in Bawlmer (Baltimore), all of the schedule talk seems to center around tracks of the all-left-turn variety:
First on the list is the one that seems to be confirmed: the Magic Mile at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The key thing with this track is that track president Jerry Gappens wants the IndyCar Series to be there, and has for the last couple of years. For reasons that are completely beyond comprehension, the league saw NHMS' advances to appear on the 2010 schedule and said, "ehh...no thanks". You have fans complaining about ovals disappearing, you have your only mile oval getting shut down because its finances are handled by drunk orangutans or something, and you have a beautiful track in an untapped market actually trying to get you to come to their track. We weren't sure what would happen when mighty Tony stepped down from his post, but it turns out that it would make room for someone with the sense to make halfway decent business decisions. I'm sure the NHMS people weren't feeling too happy this time last year, but Mr. Bernard has sewn up the wound and placed the Magic Mile on the schedule for 2011. By the way, Sunday, 1PM eastern, TNT is the place to be to get a glimpse of NHMS in action with the "stock" cars.
Another track that's been mentioned is the 1.5-miler at Las Vegas. This is one of those tracks that, by all acounts, Mr. Bernard is in the "talking stages" with at the moment. However, given the fact that Homestead barely draws the flies that buzz around its floodlights, which is more pathetic when the race becomes your championship conclusion, the last race of the season needs moving. The reason IndyCar has tried the Homestead experiment for their championship conclusion in '09 and '10 is that they can have their big championship banquet at Miami Beach. Well, one of the few places that's more interesting than Miami and has more banquet space than just about any city on the planet is Las Vegas. Put the cars under the lights on Las Vegas' oval, which is more akin to Chicago's side-by-side excitement than Homestead's endless drudgery, crown a champion, then hand out checks somewhere on The Strip the next night. I'm not saying Las Vegas would draw a better crowd than Homestead for a finale, but with SMI ownership and a much better location, it stands a much better chance.
The Milwaukee Mile has been relegated to the status of constant wild card. There's still no official operator of the facility, and I have a sneaking suspicion that, should the calendar flip over to January before an operator is found, the Milwaukee Mile won't see its 108th year of existence. HOWEVER! If an operator is found in the next month or two (and I'm pretty sure the Wisconsin Fair Board would like the money the Mile is capable of bringing), the first call will probably be to West 16th Street in Indianapolis. As much as some purists would probably like a date the week after Indianapolis, I think a better draw would be a night date during the Wisconsin State Fair in August; there will already be people on the grounds eating brats and drinking beer, so they can just wander over to the track, pay $20, and watch the race. An IndyCar series without Milwaukee almost doesn't feel complete -- get this one back on the schedule!
Another track that an IndyCar championship feels somewhat incomplete without is the Diamond in the Desert just southwest of Phoenix. The main issue the IndyCars have had with this track is a mess of lame-duck promotion and an operation group that seemed hell-bent on driving open-wheel cars off the schedule. I think that occurred because, four years ago, NASCAR sold out all of their races and a Sprint Cup race was like winning the lottery for promoters. Times have changed, and even Bristol is struggling with ticket sales; perhaps PIR will be a little more receptive to bringing in IndyCar now that this is the case. Still, I don't see this one as being terribly likely until the tide really turns for IndyCar because of that International Speedway Corp. connection and the rough divorce this facility had with open-wheel.
And then we come to one of the stranger names I've heard in the rumor mill: Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA. Sure, the IndyCar Series probably needs one of those 2-mile D-shaped tracks on the schedule. But is this the right one? Sure, Auto Club is a nice facility, was built right across the road from what used to be Ontario Motor Speedway, and it serves the biggest metropolitan area in the country, but nobody in that metropolitan area seems to care that the facility exists. The NASCAR races there, in spite of the fact that two of NASCAR's best drivers are Californians, had trouble drawing fans even when there was no such thing as an empty seat at a Sprint Cup race. IndyCar races there drew even fewer fans and somehow were nowhere near as exciting as the races on ACS' sister track in Michigan. Really, the only notable open-wheel events at this track were Gil de Ferran's brilliant qualifying lap in 2000 with CART (still a closed-course average speed record), and Greg Moore's fatal accident in 1999. Oh, and IndyCar already has a pretty big event you may have heard of in the L.A. metro area. I really don't see Fontana happening; if IndyCar wants a 2-miler, check out that track up in the Irish Hills.So, one of these ovals is already set for 2011, and I could definitely see a situation where two more of them find their way onto the calendar (Las Vegas and Milwaukee). I certainly understand why Randy Bernard is chatting with the ISC tracks, and I think those guys might be finally coming to the realization that "the rising tide raises all boats," but I'm still not sure if they're willing to play ball. Let's add to the equation the fact that there are two ISC tracks that could well find themselves off the calendar for 2011: Kansas and Homestead. Kansas seems to be poorly promoted and that track is doing the same thing Phoenix did: pushing for a second Cup date while seemingly brushing off IndyCar. Homestead, as I've stated, can't bring fans due to lack of promotion and its poor location relative to Miami.
If we lose those two ovals, add Loudon, Las Vegas, and Milwaukee, and toss the Baltimore race in there, and that's a 19-race schedule with 10 twisties and 9 circles. Like I mentioned, I have a hard time seeing either of those possible ISC tracks playing ball and making it a 10/10 split, but you never know. What I do know is that it looks like the League may be giving the oval lineup a much-needed shakeup.
Oh by the way...
The #24 car, which has had two different drivers in the two races since Mike Conway was pitched into the North Chute catch fence, will have its third different driver at Watkins Glen -- a driver that the Canadian contingent will be pretty happy with. Paul Tracy will pilot the rolling advertisement for the Toronto race in upstate New York for Dreyer & Reinbold. Now, I'm going to get a little convoluted here, but stay with me: Paul, a perfectly competent road racer, had a terrible race there last year because he was given a terrible car; Paul moves to a team that, while not spectacular, has had decent results; throw into the teammate mix the guy that won this race last year and his engineer. Might the #24 Honda Indy Toronto car be a challenger next week? It wouldn't surprise me.
and I almost forgot...
One of the biggest announcements in the history of open-wheel racing in the United States is supposed to happen either the 30th of June or, more likely (in my opinion), the 2nd of July when everyone's arrived at Watkins Glen. The presentations to the ICONIC committee have been made by the different potential chassis manufacturers, the final deliberations are being made, and the deadline is arriving next week. The next IndyCar should be known to the world by the time the current cars hit the track at Watkins Glen.
That race goes off on the Fourth of July, and I should be somewhere near a TV when it happens. Until then, cheers!
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