How To Fix The Indy 500 And Make It Relevant Again

Which is sad to say, because the 500 miles used to have drama. '79 was my first year, and the big buzz was when Foyt clocked over 200 on the back stretch during the race. The next year when JR won in the Chapparal. '82 when Mears nearly came back to win against Johncock. '87 and Sullivan's spin-and-win. Michael Andretti, as the class of the field in '92 only to have the car fail with about 10 laps to go.

 

Those who know T. George say that's what it would take.

 

IMO IRL has a few issues.

The cars are uninteresting. They are much the same and anyone who is anyone pretty much sticks to the hot set up for that year.

Tony G wants to make it some larger than life event with celebs, etc. This takes away from the racing.

The race is about 490 miles worth of snoozing and 10 of run. It's like you watch hours of boredom just for the occasional crash and then to catch the ending.

With a bunch of drivers who participate just in this race, you lose much of the soap-opera-ness of the race. The battles between personalities, etc. If you're running a frickin OVAL race with essentially equal cars, you need SOMETHING to make it interesting.

 

hahahaha

Are you taking an RPG to the US GP this year?

 

DMC is referring to a plane crash in the late 70's that killed most of USAC corporate guys. The team owners stepped into the vacuum and created Championship Auto Racing which became CART, which T. George tried to destroy by creating the IRL. Or at least I thought that's what he meant.

 

Given today's "race", err parking, how about running in the wet?

 

According to the Firestone during "Tire Talk" they can't run Indy with wet tires because of the cement walls and someone might crash into it. My question in another thread is does this guy really have his head buried in the sand?

Carol

 

He has his head buried in a SAFER barrier.

 

Who wants to see a 'race' with 30 identical Dallarra (+3 Panoz), all with Honda engines, taking 800 left hand corners???

It's boring like hell!!!

I never said that when I watched Indy in the 60s, and they were averaging only 150mph!! But that was a proper show, with plenty of different cars and engines...