Brabham switching to stock cars???

Instead of chasing money to buy a seat in a sport with no commercial value, Matthew Brabham appears to be looking for the opportunity to get paid to drive a race car. We wish him the best.

This SpeedCafe.com article notes that 2012 U.S. F2000 Champion and 2013 Pro Mazda Champion Matthew Brabham tested a Late Model car for David Gilliland Racing yesterday at Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina.

Will Brabham, the son of Former Indy Car driver Geoff Brabham and grandson of three-time World Champion Jack Brabham, and holds dual citizenship in Australia and the United States fall off the Mazda Road to Indy ladder due to a lack of funding? Will he find a safe port down south in a sport that is commercially sound, and IndyCar lose another potential prospect to the stock car set?

We don't know. Maybe, Brabham was just taking the Late Model for a spin. Or perhaps, he realizes that if he wants to be a professional racing driver, his best bet is down south where they actually pay people to race.

After all, how can Brabham or anyone for that matter sell sponsorship for a sport that has 0.3 ratings for the top-level series, and essentially zero television viewership in its Friends and Family junior categories?

And what answers do they have at 16th and Georgetown? Certainly, not investing in a proper ladder system or nurturing the future stars of the sport. No, they'd rather just not be bothered with it, so they just cast that off to someone else. Certainly, not investing in growing the sport commercially by putting races on network television. No, they'd rather just bank those piddly NBCSN checks, while their teams hemorrhage money trying to make ends meet.

Their brightest idea for reinvigorating Indy Car racing? To implement a concept ripe with all the excesses of engineering arrogance and glue random, dangling shards of carbon-fiber to the already hideous Dallara DW 12. Oh yea, and then make the cash-strapped teams pay for it.

Yes, while INDYCAR was busying managing the mess they created with the hideous, unnecessary, and expensive body kits, a promising future open-wheel star with a recognized pedigree, was looking to improve his career prospects by testing a Late Model on a 0.363-mile track in the sticks of North Carolina.

Need I say more?

Brian Carroccio reporting for AutoRacing1