Another year, another lost opportunity for IndyCar
The weekend would be perfect for IndyCar to start its season. No football, find a warm weather venue. In fact, instead of running Houston in the middle of football season, run it this weekend. You'd get a decent TV audience on ABC/ESPN and you wouldn't be competing with the Rolex next weekend. What sort of TV rating will Houston get in the fall? You got it, as close to 0.0 as possible.
St. Petersburg, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. and Sao Paolo, Brazil also warm enough to race this early in the season. St. Petersburg and Ft. Lauderdale in Florida should run in February and Brazil in March. Long Beach and Barber, AL can remain in April and Fontana can move up to early May as an oval track primer for the Indy 500. The remainder of the schedule should move up except of course the Indy 500, which would remain on Memorial Day weekend.
The season should conclude on Labor Day weekend, but where? At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, yes a 2nd race at IndyCar's biggest venue run under the lights on Saturday night in prime time.
It's not rocket science. Really.