Q: Following up on Formula Fox’s follow-up on my follow up on Formula Fox’s follow-up…. About IndyCar, Super Formula, and F2:
There’s some very notable examples of people racing in IndyCar and then moving (or moving back) to F1 in the ’90s and ’00s. I’ve also noticed that when a driver wins an F2 championship and has to leave the series, but can’t go directly into F1, they tend to do a year in Super Formula.
My question is, if IndyCar started going one-two seconds a lap faster on road courses, making them clearly faster than F2 and Super Formula, would international interest and investment in IndyCar increase along with IndyCar/F1 crossover?
Will, Indy
MP: The follow-up to the follow-up of the follow-up is making my head hurt.
I don’t think road course speed increases would do anything to change anything. Those in European open-wheel know we do 240mph at Indy, and we’re plenty quick everywhere else.
We’re a domestic championship, so that’s why IndyCar is dominated by domestic teams. F1’s asshattery on closing its paddock to new teams is why IndyCar is drawing new interest from those at the F2 team level and, increasingly, among F2-level drivers who have years of evidence that winning a title is nearly meaningless when it comes to landing a race seat the following year. We’re the land of opportunity in more ways than one.
Q: My question is about TV coverage for the upcoming WEC season. I have contacted Motor Trend+ and they have confirmed that they will be streaming this year’s races and the 24 Hour of Le Mans, but they are owned by Warner Brothers/Discovery and its streaming service Max will also be streaming the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
My questions are, if you are in the know, will Max also be streaming the entire 2024 WEC season, and when they stream the 24 Hours of Le Mans, whose feed will they use? If you can answer or provide a resource that will answer my questions, thank you in advance.
Eric
MP: The WEC haven’t announced their U.S. TV plans for the year, but I continue to hear Max will be a place where all rounds are aired. If we’re lucky, they’ll use the official WEC commentator feed, but I don’t know if that will be the case, or if Eurosport’s dumpster fire will continue as the chosen LM24 feed.
Q: I was listening to Speed Street this morning. During the discussion, Conor was talking about sponsorship, as Conor usually does, which got me thinking: Could you imagine a scenario where one of the other pro sports leagues would be interested in sponsoring a car/team? Imagine Ferrucci flying around in a car with the NHL logo on it, or Jack Harvey in an MLS-branded car? Rahal in an NFL car? Conor himself in a WWE car?
I realize it’s an utterly preposterous idea, but it seems like relatively cheap advertising for that league, and who knows, maybe more folks wind up watching those sports as a result.
Steve, Wisconsin
MP: Fairly confident we had some WWE-themed NASCAR Cup stuff back in the day. My first Indy 500 in 1997 featured sponsorship from MLB and the new Arizona Diamondbacks team, which was cool.
I also thought back to Long Beach in 2006 or ’07 when I was running a car in the World Challenge GT race and Toyo Tires (I think it was Toyo) had a booth inside the big vendor auditorium right next to where we were paddocked. The UFC, which had only just started to take off, but was by no means mainstream, had future HoF fighter Georges St. Pierre and another fighter I’ve forgotten — I was a huge UFC fan, so seeing GSP was surreal — in a random corner of the Long Beach Convention Center signing the occasional autograph at the Toyo booth. Back then, the UFC would have gotten real value from partnering with a Champ Car to raise its awareness, but today, IndyCar would need to pay a fortune to the UFC to have its name associated with a much bigger sport.
Q: I stumbled a YouTube video about Laguna Seca. Is the information in the video accurate?
Doug Meyer
MP: Hi, Doug. Watching other people’s videos and reporting on the accuracy of the information isn’t a thing I do, but I did share the original story on the topic right after it was published by a respected media outlet, the SF Gate, which I think was then picked up by all the other outlets and YouTubers who used the info from the story to make their versions of it. For accuracy, I’d go to the source.
Q: While I appreciate the existence of “100 Days To Indy,” I feel IndyCar management (once again) is missing the boat. The show should be 365 Days to Indy. Start with the post-race and go through the off season leading in the 100 days till the race. It could air monthly in the off-season. Not only would it keep IndyCar somewhat relevant during the long off-season, it would also provide better opportunities to showcase the human side a bit more through the off-season activities and certainly the driver/team dramas that seem to pop up every year. Any thoughts?
Vincent Martinez, South Pasadena, CA
MP: I’ve offered the same sentiment — something longer than the lead-in to the 500 — and have been told this is exactly what the series wants.
Q: My girlfriend and I have been to the Milwaukee Mile several times in the past, and enjoyed it. Being old, I appreciate the history, and it’s pretty cool that you can see the whole track while the race is on. But I’m a bit puzzled by its resurrection. It struggled to get a crowd for the last several years it ran, and now they’re going to run two? And it didn’t have to contend with a Road America IndyCar race back then. I’ve heard it said this area of the country can only support one IndyCar event a year. We will probably go to one of the Milwaukee Mile races and RA, but if we had to choose, it’s RA, hands down. Your thoughts?
Angelo Mantas, Skokie, IL
MP: In the absence of new ideas, going back to the ones that once worked is a pretty common thing; seems like a lot of what I see advertised on TV or in the theaters falls into the category “Night Court,” “Mean Girls,” “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” etc. — so trying to revive an event that’s died a few times isn’t totally unexpected.
Like most who’ve been there, I love the place and region, so from a viewpoint of nostalgia, I love that it’s back. What we’ll know later this year is if all the reasons we heard or came up with for the event’s most recent failures were valid. The marketing was terrible or nonexistent. The event went up against major local sports or trade shows that drew the crowds away and soaked up all of the good hotels, and so on.
I’d rather go someplace new in the hope of attracting new fans in an underserved region — hello, Louisville! — but IndyCar, which is centrally involved in putting on the Milwaukee race, has chosen to try and re-ignite something with an old flame. If it succeeds, we hail Penske Entertainment for greenlighting The Mile. If it fails — and a failure could be something as simple as half-full grandstands — we’ll hope Penske learns from the misstep.
And yes, given the choice between Road America and any other non-Indy 500 race, it’s always Road America.