Butt ugly

AR1.com has long maintained that part of the reason for IndyCar's drop in TV ratings last year was the fact that the new car is Butt Ugly and the team owners won't agree to fix the problem with body kits.

Now a reader writes, Dear AR1.com, You'll like this. My brother (not an IndyCar fan at all) called me yesterday out of the blue. He had been looking at some of the pictures on AR1, and said to me "I can't believe how ugly the car is. What is that hump in front of the rear wheels? The car looks pregnant.

However, the concern to me is my brother, potentially a casual fan, is turned off. My wife, who is forced to watch IndyCars thinks they're ugly. Likewise my father, a hard core racing guy, is turned off.

I'll give you one more car thing: A high school freshman came into the office the other day, I had AR1 up and he saw the McLaren P1 on my computer, then proceeded to tell me EVERYTHING about it. The kid literally spoke for ten minutes about the McLaren P1. That's the kind of person IndyCar should be trying to appeal to. But no, they prefer to race pregnant looking cars. Mordichai Rosen, Los Angeles, CA

Dear Mordichai, And the car will remain ugly yet another year, and yet another year IndyCar will lose customers. Race fans hate ugly looking cars. They simply do not get it. Penny-wise and pound foolish. As for that hump in front of the rear wheels, rumor has it they told Dallara to make the car as ugly as they possibly could so the team owners would agree to body kits. It didn't work.