Barnhart very happy with rule changes

UPDATE “Up until now, you could get within about two or three car lengths of someone and your car would get loose and you would have to get out of the throttle," Ryan Briscoe said. “Now you can run down under people and get aggressive. That’s what made the racing so good. The aero changes, the tires, the push-to-pass – I don’t think you can put your finger on one thing that made it better. It’s always going to be a combination of things. It was so close. I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to touch wheels with Ed Carpenter here.’ It started getting closer and closer. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited crossing the finish line. It was very hard-fought out there."

08/02/09 Brian Barnhart, President of Competition and Operations, Indy Racing League, expressed his satisfaction for the recent rule changes the league implemented to improve racing. The race was the first under new aerodynamic and power changes that revived an oval season that had been lackluster. Drivers used push-to-pass technology that allowed them 15-second bursts of extra horsepower, as well as several aerodynamic changes that helped the cars race side-by-side.

"I'm very pleased with the changes and the product we saw on the racetrack tonight. I hope the fans enjoyed it, because it certainly feels like the IRL is back, as Tony Kanaan mentioned there. It was kind of what we expected and hoped for, and at the same time it wasn't a surprised because it was known entities we were putting back on the race car, and the guys did a great job on the racetrack."

Can you, at this point, digest what might have been the biggest help in terms of improving the competition?

"I think it is a combination of things, and I don't know if you'll ever be able to know that because not everybody used the same things. Because the tire ramps, the side pod extensions, and the wheel (backing plates) were all optional, you don't know who had what on so you couldn't pinpoint all of them. And the push to pass – the overtake button – was a big help."

At this point, do you think we'll make any more changes or are we good for the year?

"I think we're always open to it, and I think the most important thing is, again, whether it's good or bad you don't want to make a knee-jerk reaction. Certainly what we saw tonight was very good, it's going to be doing our due diligence, and talk to teams and the drivers and continue to get feedback from them. We're always open-minded about what we need to be doing. Certainly it worked very well here at Kentucky Speedway. We go back to a road course next week at Mid-Ohio, then Infineon and then we come back to a mile-and-a-half at Chicago."

And keep in mind, the teams and drivers came into this race tonight with a very limited amount of track time.

"Well they did, and it shows you can do an event in one day with 75 (minutes of practice). Right away you saw that Ed had a great car tonight, the 20 car, he had a breakout race. It was as good a race as I've ever seen Ed drive, the team did a great job. Overall there was a lot of excitement to it, even the pit drama, the pressure on the teams in performing on pit road because in the last segment we had the top nine cars separated by about a second and a half. One little hiccup on pit road would have cost you a lot. But Ed was able to maintain his lead and the last 10 laps were quite a shootout."