IndyCar solution – open it up to mothballed cars?

UPDATE I have to respectfully disagree in the strongest terms that we learned a single owner for a series is the way to go. When the owners controlled the sport, as dysfunctional as some of their management was at times, they produced the best product in North America, a product that was ahead of NASCAR and starting to rival F1. That is until someone decided a single owner of a series was the way to go. That single owner of the series is the reason the sport of IndyCar is in ruins and team owners are pleading with the series to not burden them with increased financial costs of a new car b/c it just doesn’t make fiscal sense. I mean you think the ride buyer state of the series is sickening, increased financial stresses will all but assure most if not all teams will have to rely on drivers who bring a large bank account with them. Solution?

I have to agree with the owner who is saying the new car is just a cleaned up version of the current car, so why not just tweak and standardize the aero packages and run the V-6 turbos in them? It would get rid of that hideous hump on that back of the car, get rid of the Jimmy Durante nose looking front, lower the center of gravity of the car, plus the greatest sound in motorsports would return. I wrote AR1 after the car selection was announced stating they are just getting the same type of car this series has run with since the 1980s, and if they were going to spend the time and money with a new car, go for something revolutionary, which only the Delta Wing offered. I know that the Delta Wing is being minimized as far as what the owner reaction is really about, and obviously the long term solution for the success of the series comes down to driver identity. However, short term, something as radical and space-age looking as the Delta Wing would do more to catch the eyes of folks who either never have watched the sport, or used to but left in part because someone thought it would be a good idea to have a single owner of the series. So delay the car another year, or maybe 2, and get real with the need to radically reinvent the sport of IndyCar series and bring back the character that used to define it, being the cutting edge of North American motorsports, which is only possible with the Delta Wing. The series would have an extra year of development, and from rumors that are going around, a Delta Wing prototype could hit the track well before the new IndyCar Dallara will. When that happens, I have a feeling those strongly opposed to the Delta Wing will be regretting as much as I do IndyCars squandered what I feel was their last chance to get out of this rut a single owner of a series put it into. Andy Fogiel, Lansing, MI

08/30/10 A reader writes, Dear AR1.com, This new car thing has me fired up. I check in with speedtv.com the other day and see a headline "IndyCar: Owners Reject New Car." Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that what we just spent the last 15 years destroying Indy car racing to resolve? Owners running the sport? Did we not at least learn that it was better to have one person with final say on all decisions, instead of letting the inmates run the asylum?

Apparently not. I guess Penske, Ganassi, Foyt, et al can still tell the boss to go pound sand and concoct their own plans behind his back. I guess we actually solved nothing and killed the entire sport in doing so. While Bernard and Cotman needed to do more with the new car, and I'm a die hard CART/ChampCar guy, the owners as a union must be broken. In the meantime, Bernard and Cotman have a play they can still make, and they may end up saving this thing.

Let the owners keep running those Dallara Crapwagons with those lawnmower engines if they so choose. However, give them and manufacturers some options by allowing older equipment to be used. This would mean the 2.65 liter turbos that Honda, Toyota, Ilmor, Cosworth, Porsche and even Alfa all have somewhere in their warehouse. Allow the Panoz ChampCar, Lola, Reynard, Swift, Renskes back in. Let people use those cruddy old G Forces. Heck, manufacturers have those old screaming V-10 F1 engines. Why not allow them? Put some regulations in place to help bridge some performance gaps and go racing. Basically, open up the formula and get more people involved. If Dallara is gouging people on price, open up them up to competitors.

I know the answer though. Penske and Ganassi are ruling the roost right now and they'll never go for it. That's exactly why you do it. Brian Carroccio