The last few days have left plenty of crumbs on the trail towards figuring out the 2011 IZOD IndyCar schedule. We'll try to start at the beginning and sort through all the breaded goodness that has been sprinkled on the way.
First, we have the excellent interview at Planet-IRL.com with IndyCar head honcho Randy Bernard. In his interview with Stephanie, Bernard says:
“I think we’ll be able to release it before August 30th. There will probably be one or two that we’ll hold because there’s some steps in there that we need to put in place beforehand, and a couple of them will require some board meetings, which would mean it would be into September. Mid-September, maybe.
Always a crafty one, that Bernard. Leaving himself plenty of room on the release date. I've got think that the schedule will come out on Labor Day weekend, or in the leadup to Motegi, to try and generate any attention on that race.
Shortly after Mid-Ohio, Bruce Martin mentioned that with the loss of the Kentucky Labor Day date, Baltimore would probably slide into that date. Of course, this is all dependent on the Major League Baseball schedule. Because, apparently people still go to Orioles games. I was surprised by this development, too.
To add to the confusion, Chicagoland Speedway received a new NASCAR date. In all likelihood, Chicagoland, along with Kentucky, are headed to the middle of the IndyCar schedule, sometime in June.
The loss of the late August Chicago race has Paul at Planet-IRL.com speculating that 2011 will be the end of IndyCar at the oval, which would be a major loss for the IZOD IndyCar Series. Hopefully the folks at Chicagoland can look through the ISC-tinted lenses to release that good, exciting, open-wheel racing can sell in the Chicago area.
Just for fun, New Hampshire Motor Speedway fiddled around with its NASCAR race dates, too, forcing the IndyCar Series off their intended date of July 31. According to USA Today's Nate Ryan, NHMS will see the return of IndyCars on August 14 now.
But that's in the middle of the road/street block of courses. Does this mean those are coming to an end? Let us hope so.
Then just, for fun, Brant James broke the news about a major press conference that Texas Motor Speedway would be holding on Tuesday. Per his twitter account:
Dual same-day races will be the Izod Series news from @ presser Tuesday. CART ran 126-miles x2 at Michigan 7/15/79
What does that mean? Who knows. It's tough for me to think that Texas would be run as a day-night doubleheader of sorts in early June. What I could see is Texas becoming an All-Star race of sorts, running two races at night and inverting the field (or some kind of gimmick) for the second race. Though with an inversion, if the field isn't, well, competent, that is positively frightening to think about on the banks of Texas Motor Speedway.
And we haven't even thrown in speculation of a finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway or the return of Milwaukee to the IZOD IndyCar Series yet. With 20 days until Bernard's first deadline, he's already creating plenty of intrigue about the 2011 schedule
Earlier this week (and just below this post), it was outlined why the blocked scheduling of tracks - both ovals and road/street circuits - needs to come to an end.
Now, it appears the first blocks in the wall are coming down. Per USA Today auto racing writer Nate Ryan's twitter account:
New Hampshire Motor Speedway moves its previously announced IndyCar date from July 31 to Aug. 14 to accommodate mid-July race.
As the schedule stands right now, that race falls directly after Mid-Ohio and before Sonoma. With rumors persisting that the Baltimore race will be over Labor Day weekend, it would seem that the blocked schedule is being adjusted rather sharply, though we should know more around Aug. 30 (though my money is on Labor Day weekend at Kentucky for a formal announcement).
(Note: this post has been updated to reflect recent events pertaining to the IZOD IndyCar Series.)
Watkins Glen. Toronto. Edmonton. Mid-Ohio. Sonoma. All challenging courses in their own right, but put them together over a seven week stretch, and they begin to blur together. By August 22, when the IZOD IndyCar Series returns after its second straight two week hiatus, all I know is, as a fan of the series, I'm worn out on road and street circuits.
This isn't a knock on any of the courses or venues - far from it as I believe that the series needs a balanced schedule in order to properly identify the best driver of the course of a season. But to stack the schedule with five consecutive road/street courses and to follow with four similar ovals, doesn't create the most exciting racing conditions.
I fully understand what the IZOD IndyCar Series was trying to do when they went to the "stacked" schedule in 2009. By pairing tracks and courses around each other, teams can save time and money by not having to convert chassis to road or oval configurations on a weekly basis. At its most basic, it does make sense.
But, from a fan's point of view, I'm not necessarily interested in what is easiest for a team. I want to identify the best team, whether that be Team Penske or HVM Racing. Let's see who can adjust from a tricky 7/8 of a mile ring at Iowa to a road course in a week (or two). The 2008 schedule started at Homestead-Miami and went to the Streets of St. Petersburg just a week later.
Over the course of the summer in 2008, the IndyCar Series went from a 1 mile (Milwaukee) to a 1.5 mile white-knuckler (Texas), back to a smaller course (the 7/8 mile bullring at Iowa), graduated to a slightly larger track (Richmond), before going road-oval-road over the next three weeks (Watkins Glen-Nashville-Mid-Ohio, respectively).
That kind of variety and mixing up of the schedule brings excitement to the series. In that span, the seven races were won by five different drivers, from four different teams. To the casual viewer, at least that looks exciting. In the last four races of 2010 - all road/street circuits, three drivers from two teams have won (though that is indicative of the state of the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2010, too).
With different types of courses, mixed in throughout the year, fans can see different drivers near the front. Unfortunately, by lumping courses together, the same drivers wind up being seen at the front of the field nearly every race. Since the 4th of July, fans have been treated to the Will Power Show. While that's well and good (watching a supremely talented driver is a fine thing), it gets repetitive over the course of six weeks. Unfortunately, when five street/road courses, or even four-five ovals, are strung together, that's what the IZOD IndyCar Series begins to feel like - reruns.
Furthermore, given the recent announcements from NASCAR pertaining to their 2011 schedule, it reflects the IZOD IndyCar Series' need to remain flexible in its scheduling. Blocking tracks together can put the series in a bind when it comes to creating the schedule. Right now, the apparent best date for a race at Chicagoland Speedway in 2011 comes when the series is entering its annual five-circuit swing on road/street courses. New Hampshire Motor Speedway, whose IndyCar race was originally slated for July 30, might not be able to hold that date if the rumors of a mid-July NASCAR race occur.
Breaking up the blocked scheduling allows the IndyCar Series to adjust to the whims of NASCAR and their track partners much easier. Until the IZOD IndyCar Series becomes a bigger draw at those tracks (and that day is a long way off, in all likelihood), they can't command dates the way NASCAR presently does.
With the 2011 schedule due out in a few weeks, avoiding that feeling of sameness is exactly what the IZOD IndyCar Series needs to avoid. Every race needs to feel fresh, exciting and new. Solid venues like Chicagoland, which brings exciting racing on a year-in, year-out basis, need to be kept, provided that the track is willing to work with the series. Mixing up the tracks, while more costly to teams, would go a long way to helping the series avoid some of the summer doldrums.
The IZOD IndyCar Series may be losing their VP of Marketing, John Lewis, but the announcement of Helio Castroneves' penalty for his actions following the Honda Indy Edmonton was a shrewd marketing strategy.
The news broke just before the 6 p.m. news, getting it into the evening news cycle across IndyCar markets. This morning, it is among the headlines on AOL.com. All this in a week in which the series is coming off of a bye week. Now the IZOD IndyCar Series puts itself back into the headlines, most of which conclude with the tag, "Castroneves and the IndyCar Series resume their schedule at Mid-Ohio on Sunday."
Let's be honest: I'm sure most fans, given the option of seeing an entertaining, post-race reaction (when warranted), and knowing that a driver would be $60,000 lighter in the wallet, would immediately sign up to watch the spectacle unfold. And they did, in droves. From Pardon the Interruption to ESPN.com to SportsCenter, Castroneves' outburst covered the ESPN family of networks. And when the IZOD IndyCar Series can garner attention on the Worldwide Leader, regardless of type (driver fatality excluded), it has to be considered good.
Now, I won't go as so far as to encourage driver arguments and physical altercations with on-track officials following a race, but Castroneves' display of emotion was far more welcome than watching tweets pop up from sparring drivers. And it got more coverage, too.
At the bottom of Curt Cavin's Friday article in The Indianapolis Star comes this nugget:
The Izod IndyCar Series received better news, according to Sports Media Watch.
Viewership on Versus has increased 24 percent over the past five races, with the average for those races 428,000. The media watchdog said that number is higher than the NHL's average on Versus (297,000) or the WNBA's average on ESPN2 (290,000).
Yes, having under half a million viewers still isn't where the series needs to be. But if viewership continues to increase, and the series can once again have a naturally suspenseful end to the season, it puts the league in a good position when TV contracts come up, especially when the key male 18-32 demographic is trending upwards.
Versus' coverage of the series has been universally praised, and if the Comcast-owned channel becomes a partner with NBC Sports after the NBC Universal-Comcast merger, the series is poised to return to network television. Increased ratings only help this argument for returning to network.
For more details on the ratings surge, click here.
With no aero kit manufacturers other than Dallara announced on July 14, 2010, worried speculation was that the IZOD IndyCar Series would remain a spec series. Thanfully, Lotus ended some of those worries today.
The auto manufacturer, who has sought a larger role in auto racing in the last year, financially backing the No. 5 car of Takuma Sato and giving KV Racing technical help, announced that Lotus would be designing an aero kit for the 2012 IndyCar chassis.
That's it for now as far as details go, but it's excellent news for the series.
The past 36 hours have seen an outpouring of thoughts on the finish to the Honda Indy Edmonton. Some view the blocking rule as arcane and ridiculous, but probably applied correctly, under the letter of the law. Others see the finish as a black eye for the IZOD IndyCar Series, despite the constant air time it received.
Now that Helio Castroneves' outburst has been the subject of the day, I turn my thoughts towards improving the series, as it comes to communicating with the fans. While the ruling itself was controversial, maybe the most upsetting part of it came in knowing that there were specific rules/lines for the race that no fan had an inkling of prior to and during the competition. With that in mind, here are five ideas to help reduce controversy the next time a blocking call (or any other rules violation) comes from Race Control:
- Make the rules transparent. Yes, Indy Downforce members can now purchase a rules book with enough membership points, but the issue is larger than knowledge of the rules. But who memorizes that? I do some part-time work in Indianapolis as an official scorer for the Triple-A team, and I'll admit that I don't have the baseball rulebook memorized. I keep a copy next to me during the game for reference, but to expect the average fan to understand the rule book is asking far too much.
Each road/street circuit has the own personality, passing zones, etc.. Prior to the race, viewers need to know what line(s) are allowed and which are considered "blocking" lines.
- This means opening up the drivers' meeting in some way, shape or form. At the very least, it needs to be captured on film, as it (thankfully) was in Edmonton. The Indianapolis 500 features a public drivers' meeting on Saturday, allowing fans to watch and get close to the field of 33. Would this not appeal to fans at other circuits? I think it would.
For those not at the race, stream it live on Indycar.com or make it part of the Versus pre-race coverage. The latter would be simple enough - on the road/street circuits, show us the dividing line when going over the course layout.
- Put a rules official in or near the TV and radio booths. For other sporting events, a rules official is often on-hand to answer questions that the viewer and/or TV crew has. Having a supervisor from the NFL explain a ruling helps the viewer further understand the events on the field. It does no one any good to have Bob Jenkins or Mike King scrambling to try and understand why blocking was called. Mike King was so confused/dumbfounded about the call that he suggested Castroneves drove off course diving down towards the checkered flags.
Additionally, a liaison from Race Control near or in both booths can answer any questions that might pop up. This person can easily pass along a note telling the talent who has been previously warned for blocking prior to an actual penalty being levied. They can also answer questions about penalties levied in the pits, the reasoning behind a long yellow flag, etc..
More explanation and details creates a more informed fan. A more-informed fan is more likely to become a "hardcore" fan, as they feel a greater connection to the sport. To finish the thought, the hardcore fan then becomes the consumer of IndyCar sponsors, creating the circular pattern that keeps sponsors coming back to the series and teams. They are also more likely to talk about the sport at the water cooler (Monday Morning Quarterback syndrome), hopefully causing more people to watch IndyCar racing, or at least figure out what the guy is talking about, as a result. The IZOD IndyCar Series is a winner with more informed fans.
- Consistently enforce the rules. Blocking, especially in open-wheel racing, is always going to be a contentious issue. But when questionable blocks are called in some races and obvious blocks are not called in others, it raises serious credibility issues for the competition administrators of the IZOD IndyCar Series.
Again, if viewers knew the rules ahead of time, and knew who had been warned for blocking, they might not react with such vitriol when the black flag is waved.
- Make a rules official available following the race as well. Whether they explain every ruling immediately following the race, or in an Indycar.com article or in a video that runs during the week, make the rulings transparent. Show the viewers replays and tell them why something was either called or not called. Explain why Mario Moraes was served a drive-through penalty in Toronto instead of being parked. If Brian Barnhart or someone else confirmed Rahal's "chrome horn" explanation from Toronto, does it not lend more credence to both Rahal and the series?
These changes are not major. As a fan of the IZOD IndyCar Series, it would be nice for further transparency from Race Control. The series has already begun the process of renovating its entire process, from its TV coverage to its sales and marketing to the actual look of its cars. New chassis and engines are on tap for 2012. Doing more to engage fans during the TV broadcast of a race with regard to the rules is just one easy step for the series to build its base.
