How to make the Indy 500 relevent again?

[Dan Barlow]

I'm with you on tony wasn't the problem, although he wasn't the cure. The real problem was the tail ( team owners ) wanted to wag the dog (Race track owners) you know the people providing the track, the spectators and the purse.

[Cyclone03]

Easy......
"A New Track Record!"

1996 was the last time those words were spoke at Indy.....

Indy was about SPEED. The old Ontario should have been the fastest track,more banknig same layout as Indy,but Indy allowed more Boost,POWER.

Lap time must fall each year for it to be THE RACE.

[SpiderGearsMan]

maybe people are bored with spectator sports

[bishir]

How about this?

1. Use the box idea.

2. Make it like the Olympics where each driver represents a country.

Imagine the fun trying to decide who represents the US etc...

[Gary 351C]

I don't know what the answer is but my friends and I used to spend weeks gearing up just to watch it on TV. When Brian posted the "live streaming 500 practice" thread I had totally forgotten the race was even coming up. Sad!!

[Deaf Bob]

The point of my earlier post about Art Pollard is he was from a place that probably didn't have much in the way of shops to do the work.. A true back yard team and did not do too shabbily... Need more entries like that to make it fun... We all like rooting for the home town boy/underdog...

[oldsman496]

Indy cars? hmmmm... I remember watching about a half hour of one race recently... aren't those the "Open Wheel" cars that have fenders? ...... seriously - don't they have a bunch of body work almost completely covering the back tires? and a big 'ol sidepod sticking out right behind the front wheel? correct me if i'm wrong (as usual) but this is not what an open wheel car is in my book. they look like spec bodied cars in my opinion - like NASCAR. and the point of watching NASCAR has morphed into watching them wreck. - so maybe they need to make the footwells a bunch more heavy duty and safer, enclose the cockpit with a heavy roll cage and sheetmetal to increase the safety and concentrate on getting them to wreck a lot.

oh an girls in lingerie... not neccessarily driving... just - hmmmmm - CHEERLEADERS yeah - like indoor football has. maybe a squad of them in each turn... or they could use 'em as pit crew members and put 3 gallon gas tanks in the cars for more stops.... yeah that sounds cool. i mean girls an cars just go together - right?

[dieselgeek]

I'm with you on tony wasn't the problem, although he wasn't the cure. The real problem was the tail ( team owners ) wanted to wag the dog (Race track owners) you know the people providing the track, the spectators and the purse.

I've never once been able to comprehend or understand this opinion, or how anyone can have them, although I realize George has a number of incredibly loyal fans in Indiana. I mean, how could we not blame Tony George given the sequence of events? It's not like he kicked Penske and others out of indianapolis BEFORE them turning down his demands to be on the FIA board. How is the ruin of the Indy 500 NOT Tony George's fault again? His loyal followers think he SHOULD be allowed to stomp his feet and cry his way onto the board of directors of the largest racing automotive sanction body, even though he had basically no qualifications to be there?

I wish life worked that way for me. I want to DEMAND my way into a Board of Directors seat on the NHRA, then when they laugh at me for being a prick, I'll not allow them to use my track, or I'll schedule an event on the same date as one of their events... then have a million people feel sorry for me.

[JeffMcKC]

For all the Tony George haters-he had the idea of turning the clock back where there was a progression of grassroots racers like in the days when USAC sanctioned the series. He failed, for whatever reason I don't want to debate but I like that idea of having drivers with names I can pronounce.

This was Smokie Driven. And it started long before.......

[JeffMcKC]

There are people who defy convention by necessity. There are people who do it for fun, and then there are those that do it to prove a point, no matter how costly the potential victory may be. Drag racing folks seem to think that they have the market cornered on smart, rulebook-savvy racers. As you are about to learn, that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are scads of stories about racers flying the one finger salute to convention, race officials, and even common sense. Those guys go in straight lines, circles, and through the twisties. Take this as a motorsports version of “Profiles in Courage” with a side order of “Animal House.”

The Defiant Ones is a four-part series of stories about four very different ways of “sticking it to the man.” Part 1 was Marcelus and Borsch at Pomona, Part 2 Was Mario Rossi at Daytona, and Part 3 was the story of Trans-Am's Gray Ghost. And now, here's our final installment of The Defiant Ones.
Smokey Yunick at Indy with a Twin-Turbo Small-Block Chevy

Well, you knew this was coming. There’s no way to talk about defiant racers and competitors without talking about Smokey Yunick. His Stock Car exploits are well documented, but his Indy stuff is a little different.

By all accounts, Smokey Yunick liked Stock Car racing but loved Indy. To many of his generation Indy represented the pinnacle of the motorsports world. It was quite literally the space program on wheels for several generations. Then the invasion began. Traditional guys like Yunick hated the fact that foreign chassis and foreign drivers were showing up and, unlike in the years and decades past, competing strong. “I see Indy, the Indy I loved so much, disappearing,” said Yunick reflecting back on his mindset in the early 1970s. “Foreign cars, engines, and drivers will soon kill the American flavor of Indy and its 45 American racer heroes in American cars with American engines and American tires.”

His last stand at Indy lasted three years and it was spearheaded by a 208ci, twin-turbocharged, iron block, pushrod, small-block Chevy. Yunick was on a mission to “save” the race, in his words. He’d show the world that there was not need for all those extra camshafts, all those engineer types, and all of the piles of cash necessary to develop their combinations.
The car, updated with a new transaxle, new fuel injection, and more fairing on the body, qualified for the 1975 race after missing the 1974 contest. Sam Sessions drove the car to a 10th (or 12th place depending on who you ask) finish in the rain shortened race. This really proved Yunick’s point. The little Mouse motor could hang with anything in the world. Unfortunately, this was its undoing.

Gearing up for the 1976 race, the engine was on the dyno, and arrangements had been made to test with Goodyear. All was looking good until late August of 1975 when USAC (then the sanctioning body behind the race) announced that the stock-block motors had no place at Indy. It was over, in more ways than one.

Yunick never returned to Indy as a competitor. He had proven his point so well that it ended his career. Dean Wormer dropped the big one. His car is now at the Indy Car Hall of Fame in Indianapolis…in the basement.

[BBR]

Equip the cars with 'reverse steering' boxes. You know, turn the wheel left to go right, etc.

I'd pay to see that.

[A/Fuel]

I get all geared up every year to watch it, sit down, watch a few laps, fall asleep or get distracted, wake up or come back to see the last 5 laps.

[skullbucket]

I wish Danica Patrick was racing at Indy so they could tell us how good she is racing with only being 2 laps back in the field!

[Beagle]

I get all geared up every year to watch it, sit down, watch a few laps, fall asleep or get distracted, wake up or come back to see the last 5 laps.

You just described NapCar for me - I admit to watching Daytona if I'm around the t.v. but that's exactly what happens. Them Busch kids make Sports Central so I never miss that. cough.