Hockey tape, aluminum would solve IndyCar problem

IndyCar's flying wing parts fractured the skull of a spectator. If they ever kill anyone the insurance companies could shut the sport down.

As the result of a woman being injured by a piece of carbon fiber that flew over catch fencing and hit her in the head during the St. Petersburg IndyCar race last Sunday, I assume the series’ brain trust is working on what to do about it.

If they aren’t, they should be. This is a bigger problem than they think it is.

They have two choices: 1) Close their eyes, bury their heads and pray it never happens again, or, 2) come up with a solution.

I think I can help. But first, here’s a quick recap.

IndyCar announced in 2013 that series engine manufacturers – Chevrolet and Honda – could introduce aeronautical modifications to their teams’ cars for the 2015 season. Why? To encourage technical innovation, they said, as well as to enhance safety. Oh, and to make the cars go faster.

The aero packages (or kits, as they’re called, made mostly of space-age carbon fiber) were unveiled and given to the teams in the two weeks before the first race. They were certainly innovative – the Honda aero kits in particular – and the cars did go faster.

Two out of three ain't bad – except the one negative involved safety. From the second the first green flag was thrown at St. Pete last Sunday, there was so much carbon fiber flying around that it was reminiscent of flak seen during World War II bombing runs.

There were several lengthy delays to sweep the track – carbon fiber can snap apart like dry chicken bones and the edges are as sharp as razors – and, unfortunately, at least one spectator was hit and injured.

IndyCar has enough problems without having to worry about pieces from race cars assaulting their customers. And don't pay any attention to news stories in which drivers say they will be more careful and try not to run into each other, now that they understand how fragile their race cars have become. Street races, in particular, have always been brawls and always will be. So how to fix the problem?

Here are my two suggestions – one short term (for the next race) and then the long term.

Short term: Wrap the carbon fiber with hockey tape, electrical tape or duct/racer's tape. It won’t add much weight, shouldn’t interrupt the air flow and while it won’t prevent the carbon fiber pieces from snapping off in the event of a collision, the tape will prevent the stuff from breaking away from the cars and flying over fences.

Long term: Scrap carbon fiber and go back to good, old aluminum. You can bend aluminum every which way, so the aeronautical engineers should be able to work the same magic. Plus, aluminum will crumple, rather than snap off, which will make it safer for spectators. It shouldn’t weigh much more either.

So there you go. Hockey/duct/electrical tape and/or aluminum. Either one will be preferable to long delays to sweep up the carbon fiber (you can hear the channels changing en masse when that happens) or having paying customers conked on the head by the stuff.

Over to you, IndyCar.

Moving right along, the race at St. Petersburg scored a network television rating in the United States of 0.8. Translation: less than 1 per cent of all the TV sets that were on in the United States during the time period of 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (approx.) last Sunday afternoon were tuned to that race.

IndyCar officials, of course, will be encouraged by that number because the St. Pete race a year ago only had a rating of 0.6. But at end of day, the 0.8 rating is — and there is no other word for it — disgraceful.

I don’t watch American sports channels, so I don’t know how much chatter there is about Indy car racing (as compared to – say – NASCAR). I do know that the AP national newspaper wire service covers all the races, with pre-and-post race stories. Potentially, every newspaper in North America that subscribes to the AP has access to those stories. I know USA Today, a national newspaper, ran a solid pre-season advance story that started on their first sports page last Thursday before turning inside. There was another story in that paper Friday. Nobody can say the series is being ignored.

So, what is it? Why won’t people watch what – once they get going – interesting and exciting racing?

I think IndyCar has got to sit down with its TV partners, whether it’s ABC or the NBC Sports Network, and schedule races when – and I’m serious about this – there is a minimum of competition.

Take the next IndyCar race at New Orleans a week Sunday, April 12. The race is scheduled to go on the air at 3 p.m. Guess what's also on TV that day and at that time? The final round of the Masters golf tournament. Mmm. IndyCar won’t race past Labour Day because they worry about the NFL but then they turn around and go head-to-head with the Masters? NASCAR is racing on Saturday night that weekend. Gee, I wonder why?

It's this sort of thing that drives those of us who love this sport absolutely bonkers. They have to do something about this and the longer they take to do it, the harder it is going to be.

One last thing. The people who run the sport have to get the people who participate in it onside.

IndyCar wants an eight-month season but won’t go past Labour Day. Rather than – and I know it’s not easy but it MUST be done – starting the season in January at Phoenix or the Auto Club Speedway in California, the sanctioning organization is hoping to race offshore until March when the domestic season kicks in.

They took a baby step this year by scheduling a race in Brazil that blew up in their face. They should have taken that as a hint, you would think, but apparently not.

Meantime, you have Roger Penske saying publicly that IndyCar should give up on their "pre-season" brainwave and concentrate only on races in the United States. The U.S. is where the sponsors want to be, says Penske – and he’s right.

And when he says "only" in the U.S., by the way, he isn’t (sad to say) including Canada. The truth is that most of the sponsors couldn’t care less about racing up here. As noted above, the U.S. TV ratings are miniscule, so not many people “back home" are getting the sponsors’ messages. Series (and Penske) sponsor Verizon doesn’t do business in Canada and Target (Chip Ganassi) botched its expansion into this country and is pulling out. Except for Bowers and Wilkins on Bryan Herta’s team cars, and Ric Peterson, I’m not sure there’s another sponsor who would care particularly if the series didn’t race in Canada.

As I've said again and again, the racing is great. It’s the people in charge of marketing, PR, race scheduling and TV times who need help. Norris McDonald/Toronto Star