Event Coverage Are you as boored with the Indy 500 as me

To me it seems like every form of racing is just a marketing tool now. Interveiws are always the same rambling of sponsors. Yeah you need them to race but when it gets blown up to what it is now thats what takes the interest out of it for me.

 

amen x 2---i quit watching all the left turn crap and am growing sick of John Force and his 12-15 entries---to me, modern day drag racing IS NOT hot rodding. if i'm full of crap to some, i'll take the title. it's almost as bad as the description "homebuilt" and how that seems to have a stigma. back when hotrodding was real, it was ALL homebuilt.

 

Started watching it as a kid in the late 60's. IMO, CART took away the fizz and the corporate influence has just ran it into the ground since. Stopped watching it a couple of years ago. Forgot that it was even on this year.

Maybe a visit in peson is in order.

 

I still like it,just not as much as the old days,all the racing I did was with out radios and super $$$$$ or computers,computer tech and $ has screwed up a lot stuff,can't be helped,as they say time had come.
Have as much fun as you can now,it will be def the next day

 

Since a few people mentioned it, to clarify there is NO traction control/stability control/etc. on Indy cars. No more fuel knobs either, you have one setting for yellow flags and one for green flags and that's it...all the fuel setting and traction control is in the driver's right foot.

Growing up in Indiana, the 500 was a very big thing every year, even though I always watched on TV -- only went to practice/quals as a kid. Now I work at IMS and live in Speedway, designed the 500 logo this year...so it's a pretty huge deal to me. I can see where the same chassis/tire/engines could be getting a little boring, but there's a new chassis coming in 2012 with new engines (4-cylinders and 6-cylinders, turbochargers allowed), so hopefully things will get more interesting.

 

The TV coverage disgusts me. They treat it like a celebrity reality show. There is no technical coverage at all anymore. I don’t think they actually know anything about cars or racing.

 

Dragging this a little further OT...but Tony Kanaan was on Wind Tunnel with my hero Robin Miller last Sun. Tony was asked about the lack of obvious rivalries in Indycar today compared to NASCAR or even years ago in open wheel. He said something to the effect that they have to cool it because the sponsors don't want to be associated with someone who has a bad reputation. What a load of crap. Guess it's all about image management today...

I still say that if they would have let Danica punch Ryan Briscoe in the face on pit lane at the 500, it would have given Indycar a whole new lease on life...

 

I remember a long time ago when Dale Coyne ran a small block, and the sound of the V-8 was distinctive among the pack of factory 6's, or when Roger Rager ran a cast iron small block, allegedly from a school bus, and qualified, or when Barney Navarro tried to qualify with a Rambler 6 and a turbo? I would watch it again if they let hot rod motors back in with rules that would allow them to be competitive with the Hondas and such.

 

Pretty much the way it is here too. To much corpo and marketing. I cried in 1966 when we were on the road and the station kept losing contact.
Something about AM radio and New Mexico.
Today, I go to the Veteran's stone garden and be thankful. Then BBQ.

 

Not true. Drivers have a "push to pass" button that gives them something like 20 extra HP but they can only use is 15 time per race.

These days racing is about the drivers not they cars. NASCAR started the trend and the former IRL followed. Grand Am sports car racing (owned by NASCAR) is the same way. They want fans to idenify with the drivers not the car. This sucks for us car guys but that is the way it is.

BTW here is the new car called the Delta Wing that they are talking about using as the new spec car.......