The Ghosts of Christmas (in July) Future...

The very first thought I will give you in this post: I totally dig the new concept that the ICONIC Committee voted for on their totally awesome Droid X's, and I completely buy the fact that they came up with a ridiculously contrived pile of faux-showmanship to reveal this concept to the world. Remember: "Spectacle" is the word used to describe our favorite motor race, so lets not be afraid of spectacles (however silly they can seem).

Like many, I heard the word "Dallara" and my ears came close to refusing to listen to the rest of the announcement. That's all well and good, even if most criticisms against Dallara are somewhat unfair -- I don't like the fact that they priced a ton of teams out of contention through the 2000s, but it's not their fault Panoz made a lesser chassis then pulled out of the series, or that Brian Barnhart over-managed the development of the car to make it fairly useless.

As I listened, though, things started to make a little sense to me. The idea of having the base chassis be a spec piece is just fine by me; designing a full chassis costs money that lots of people don't have right now, but Dallara has the financial wherewithal to back the manufacturing process. The idea of setting it up so that, theoretically, anybody who can be bothered can build their own wings, sidepods, and engine covers is pretty brilliant in my opinion; the first in line, I think, to be their own car designer might just be Team Penske.

I REALLY like the fact that the manufacturing plant will be right where many Indianapolis cars were made in the teens and twenties: Main Street, Speedway, IN. One of the key points to the proposed redevelopment of the Town of Speedway was hoping that all the nice buildings they were putting up would be occupied by someone. Up until now, it seemed like the only businesses to commit to the new buildings were the ones that already owned real estate on Main Street. Now, an 80-employee, motorsports manufacturing facility will be planting itself in what hasn't been the prettiest part of town and spilling those employees out to Charlie Brown's and Dawson's and Mug N Bun. With some of the incentives that the series is giving out to invite teams to come to Indianapolis, perhaps we'll see even more development in Speedway.

The one single thing that I don't like about this concept is the fact that, apparently, the engine is supposed to be a stressed member of the car. The idea of the engine block as part of the chassis was fine when Cosworth built their DFV for Lotus in the spend-money-win-championships world of 1967 F1. In 2012 IndyCar, engine manufacturers might not want to spend money to develop an engine block to withstand the stresses of IndyCar cornering. The right way to go would be to have the ability to drop a 2-liter Ford Zetec or whatever (Global Racing Engine, anyone?) with some go-fast pieces on it and see how fast it can go. Instead, we'll only see engines that are specifically designed to fit to an IndyCar.

Overall: I'm calling it good.

Overall, other people aren't, and I think I'm going to try and explain it because that's what I've been trying to do in my head the past few days. I think the base thing that sort of scares people or is at least unfamiliar to them is the fact that, until May, 2012, we won't actually know what all 33 cars in the Indianapolis 500 are going to look like. In 1996, we knew it would be year-old Reynards and Lolas; from 1997 to 2005, we knew it would be an offering from Dallara or Panoz/G-Force; since 2006, we could be pretty sure everyone who mattered would be driving a Dallara.

Now there's uncertainty. Some team could look through the rulebook, set the wheels in motion, and make a modern-day Penske PC-23 (see: Indianapolis 500, 1994). Maybe someone else will have a modern-day Crawford-Buick that goes like stink until it destroys itself on lap 15. Perhaps some guy on some small team will have a brainwave and build a modern-day, giant-killing Belond Special (The 500, 1957-58). No, there wont be a full-on chassis competition, but there WILL be a competition to see who can make the IndyCar (because that's what it's called...not a "Dallara") go the fastest within a reasonable amount of cost.

And I love that thought.

If you don't, too bad; you'd better get used to it.

By the way, if this were the previous IRL administration, this idea would be doomed to failure. With Randy Bernard in charge, it's a lot easier to be optimistic about all of this.