Where Has All The Racing Gone?

Just for a little reference into what I and many others are on about, this is what the finish to an IndyCar race is supposed to look like:



Visions like this are the reason that Scott Goodyear drives into our heads the notion of "side-by-side at 214 miles-per-hour". It's what IndyCar racing became known for in the late '90s at venues such as Texas, Charlotte, and Atlanta, and on into the '00s as the series moved into Kansas, Kentucky, and Chicago. Even when the IRL made the switch to a new chassis formula in 2003, the racing did not suffer one bit, as shown by the above photo or by this bit of low-quality YouTube goodness (don't bother with the misspelling of "Meira"...this is not my doing):



For better or for worse, the IRL became all about the side-by-side racing and it has certainly led to some of the most exciting stuff ever seen on a paved road. The expectation became that IndyCar racing would ALWAYS look like this and ALWAYS provide some sort of drama and excitement so the fans could go home happy when all was said and done. CART even tried to capitalize on it by sticking a gigantic piece of metal onto the rear wings in order to ensure that the leader would be at the back of the pack by the end of lap one promote drafting at their oval races.

Now, all of the sudden, the side-by-side racing is sorely lacking from the IndyCar series and it has become darn near impossible to pass on ovals with any kind of regularity. The Texas race, which has always been ridiculously exciting and is one of the IRL's most marketable events, was a complete snoozer for 2009, having been decided on pit lane instead of by bumping wheels in the quad-oval or slingshotting around the outside in Turn 3. The IndyCar community, which eagerly tuned in to VERSUS and put butts in seats at TMS because of what they'd seen in the past, was completely disappointed in what they saw. Kansas and Indianapolis were also difficult to watch at times because it seemed like passing had become a complete impossibility.

"Why has this happened," you ask? Well, there are several factors involved here that are all the fault of a single person:

Factor 1: Though he was using it as an example of how to keep the cars pointed in the right direction and keep them slow enough to actually run at Texas, Jon Beekhuis pointed out the dearth of silly little flaps attached to the rear wings of the cars. While providing a tremendous amount of drag to keep the cars from pulling 5 vertical and 4 lateral Gs in the turns, these flaps also punch a gigantic hole in the air behind the car. Now you might be saying, "Well, wouldn't that promote drafting and passing like the giant piece of metal on the CART cars?" One might think so, but it provides a nice lead-in for my second issue with the cars...

Factor 2: These cars are far too aero-dependent. This is a problem that Formula 1 had for years and years because the cars had been put in a wind tunnel for a few weeks, sprouted little winglets and thinglets, and could run very, very well -- assuming they were running in unspoiled air. In situations such as, I don't know...a race, there wasn't enough air pressure on the winglets and the cars didn't work. IndyCars, while not having sprouted all of the little additions that F1 cars did, rely far too much on the front wing/needle-nose area to plant the wheels into the ground and make the car turn. If you draft up behind another car like you might do on the backstretch at Texas or going into Turn 1 at Indianapolis, you suddenly lose downforce, you lose grip in the front wheels, the car understeers, and you have to lift off the throttle -- all of which means you don't pass the guy in front of you.

Factor 3: This ties into the last item: the cars seem to have relatively little mechanical grip in the front end. I don't know if this is down to tire construction or the suspension or what, but the front wheels simply cannot overcome a lack of downforce. The simple fact is: if the tires are grippy enough or the suspension shoves them into the ground enough, they work better. I'm not a hundred percent sure on how the IRL enforces suspension pieces and the extent to which they can be adjusted, but I have a feeling it's way too much. I also have a feeling that the IRL has messed with the suspensions and hardened up the tires to take away grip and slow the cars down. Unfortunately, all this has served to do is bring us back to the last item: too much aero dependence -- air over the wings is what's keeping the cars planted.

Factor 4: Everyone has the same engine, and that engine is tuned to top out at 10,300 rpm, come hell or high water. The Honda Indy V8, while certainly a competent engine, has obviously been neutered in the interest of not blowing up and creating bad publicity. When the Honda was put up against the Toyota and the Cosworth/Chevy back in 2003-2005, it was the cream of the crop -- it made Andretti-Green and Rahal-Letterman the teams to beat in IndyCar. However when the competition went away, so did the power; cars are slower now and, as I said, they don't rev past 10,300. Which means that, even if there's less air resistance pushing against the engine, it doesn't have any reserve power to compensate. Instead, you're left with an engine on its limiter and you can't get past the guy in front of you to even avoid washing out when you arrive at the turn.

All of this comes back to the director of competition for the IRL, Brian Barnhart. He's the guy who makes decisions like making Dallara the de facto official chassis supplier, what the profile of the car should be, how much power the Hondas can put out, and how much side-by-side should be allowed. Now, Mr. Barnhart would obviously like to keep the racing safe and keep things like Kenny Bräck's 2003 crash or Dario Franchitti's flip at Michigan in 2007 from happening again. However, you have to take into account the commercial side of things and the fact that, if your product isn't interesting, people aren't going to buy into it. Of course, Barnhart doesn't care how many people are actually watching his races; as long as it goes off exactly how he wants it to, everything is completely fine in his world.

Terry Angstadt is out in the world, working his butt off (and doing a damn fine job of it, I might add) to get sponsors, racetracks, and fans to join in with the IRL. When he wants to promote the IndyCar Series, he'll reach for something like the above video from Kansas or the video of that three-wide finish at Chicagoland. However, when you try to market yourself as the most exciting thing on four wheels, your current product had better stack up.

Barnhart needs to get together with Angstadt and come up with some sort of compromise that will allow for safety at levels like those in 2003 or 2004, but still be fun to watch like 2003 and 2004 were. Sure, there were some dangerous crashes at that time, but that's part of the sport. I challenge you to find a sport that's not dangerous in some way (and no...poker is not a sport). Injury is part of the game and, if both Kenny Bräck and Davey Hamilton have been able to race after what they've been through, the danger is nowhere near the level that it was just 15 years ago. Bring the excitement back to racing!

My personal solutions: On the current Dallara/Honda package, change the suspension to shove those tires into the ground and let the engines go to 11,000 rpm or even further. That will give the cars more grip, and it will give them more power to actually use the draft.

For the next car formula, give us some (bleep)ing ground effects! Yes, the idea of downforce without drag is a little scary from the speed department, but that can be fixed with the engines. What ground effects will do is stick that car to the ground no matter what's going on with the front wings and the cars can actually, y'know, race each other better.

It shouldn't be so hard to take what is essentially the same package we've had since 2003 and make it do what it did up until just recently. Let's put the "racing" back in the Indy Racing League.