The fans cannot see it

During a stop Tuesday in Milwaukee to promote June 14-15 Milwaukee IndyFest at the Milwaukee Mile, IndyCar champion Ryan Hunter-Reay was asked about the balance between power and down force in the DW-12 IndyCar that debuted in 2012. Here's what he had to say:

"We’re still dialing it in. You hear some teams say, ‘give us more down force,’ and other teams saying, ‘take off more.’ All I know is every oval we had last year was a handful, which is how it should be. The fans want to go to the track and see human beings sitting in those cars struggling to get them around for two hours. And that’s what we’re doing.

"Fontana was tough. And that’s a big track. Usually, in the old IRL formula, that would have been foot on the floor for 2 ½ hours, no-brainer. It couldn’t have been any more different. My rear end was sore at the end of that race, and it wasn’t from sitting down." JSOnline.com

[Editor's Note: The fact the new IndyCar is a handful is all well and good but to the fan watching on TV or from the grandstands the cars appear as if they are going around the track on rails. There is not enough there in the way of excitement to engage the fans. What are two main senses a fan experiences at a race track?

1. Sound – ever been to an NHRA, F1 or NASCAR race? The sound is exciting. In NHRA the ground shakes and your ears want to fall off. In F1 the cars scream and in NASCAR they rumble. With the new V6 the IndyCar just doesn't have the sound like the CART IndyCars did.
2. Sight – The cars have to look fast and look good. The new IndyCar looks like a Walrus. It's ugly and it drives fans away, which we saw last year when the new car rolled out. And some of the paint schemes are as boring as they come. ]