Q: I posted a comment to this effect in the comments of the Dec. 20th Mailbag, but I felt it needed to be expanded upon and given the opportunity to be presented to a wider reader base, so here we go…
Your response to Mike Talarico, though I disagree with the specifics — a great many of the younger fans I’ve spoken have quite a different view on the engine front — does hit at the problem a lot of the people who are freaking out are keen to ignore: The younger fans that IndyCar needs to attract are not necessarily going to be interested in what the old-school fans are. It is not at all crazy to acknowledge that things that would have been a death sentence in the past might not make any discernible difference today.
At the end of the day, change is scary, even to me. I do mask my own concerns with a veneer of optimism most of the time, but it’s not like I’m blind to the potential problems that both change, and a lack thereof, can cause. But here’s the thing: Look at the numbers. Unless their brain is short-circuiting due to sparking against their tinfoil hat, anyone can see that, while it is slow, IndyCar’s numbers have by and large been growing.
As long as those numbers are going up, IndyCar will be OK, even if its position is not ideal. And that means that unless those numbers begin to take a massive nosedive, IndyCar has time to figure things out. And given the widely positive response to IndyCar I see nearly everyone who gives it a chance tends to have (even if certain factors prevent them from becoming from a full-time fan), I can be pretty optimistic that we’re not going to have such a rapid nosedive without IndyCar signing a particularly idiotic TV deal.
The simple truth is that whatever is best for IndyCar’s future will likely not be what anyone on this site thinks it should be. Certainly not people who propose taking a step back and fitting old engines that, while certainly awesome, are still technologically outdated — and especially not the hypocrites who call for that while also claiming the IR18 is too old.
Funnily enough though, my own idea for what would be best for IndyCar does involve looking back to the past a bit… But not to revert to it, or to emulate it, just to help IndyCar find a uniqueness to accentuate what it has going for it.
The only thing I can say with confidence is likely to be true is something that will enrage many readers: The DTS crowd already has F1, they have no interest in F1 Lite. IndyCar needs to be its own thing. This in part means accepting that IndyCar is a domestic series first and foremost, and should only be pursuing foreign events when the money is too good to ignore.
IndyCar has all the components to be its own thing, even while still attracting F1 washouts. It’s just a matter of arranging the components correctly.
FormulaFox
MP: IndyCar is a great series that anybody could love. Just need to find a lot more people to introduce it to who weren’t born before 1990 because its pews are predominantly filled with those of us who were born before 1980, 1970, and 1960. That’s a giant problem when it comes to audience sustainability.
Said another way, when most of your audience responds to the names “grandpa” and “grandma,” there’s a hard and uncomfortable truth to accept with how much longer their fandom will last, hence the need to establish a big new audience with a super-long runway to follow and support the series.
For IndyCar to have a long future ahead of it, it needs to build a bigger fan base that’s visibly younger.
Q: I really admire Roger Penske and was very positive when he bought the series, especially his efforts ensuring the series continued though the COVID era, but not so much anymore. He and his team appear over their heads or heading in the wrong direction. It’s clear that he mostly cares about the Indy 500, to the series’ and fan’s detriment. I definitely had higher hopes. I have been involved for years as both a competitor and fan. These drivers and teams were gods to me, and I hope IndyCar continues.
There are a number of situations that have arisen in the recent past that indicate that the management of IndyCar is making poor or questionable decisions, which puts the future of the series in question. They have clearly shown time and time again a lack of a grasp of Management 101. The first and foremost is stakeholder management. IndyCar management has focused too much on the needs of the owners, and disregarded all other stakeholders. This is huge.
Following is a list of items that have come up in only the last few years that shows the consistent failure of the management of IndyCar. This list will be no surprise to anyone, but when looked at in total, shows the number of and magnitude the failures. If I or anyone else had a failure list as long and consequential as this, we would be shown the door very swiftly.
- Failure of the video game (selected company unable to deliver)
- Third manufacturer continued failure (total lack of confidence in the road map, or just lack of interest to involvement)
- Texas Motor Speedway’s cancellation (finally showing progress, then gone)
- The Thermal Club race (shows the series’ emphasis is owners, to everyone else’s detriment)
- The 2.4-liter hybrid cancelation (total failure, may have had major ramifications for lack of manufacturer support)
- Untruthful minions, continually showing disdain and the implied disrespect for fans (Frye’s B.S. answers in his Mailbag,)
- The 2.2-liter hybrid delay after delay (comment on hybrid setup priority days before delay announcement, probably known internally)
- Honda’s statement on ROI (clearly they are done and must have already communicated it to IndyCar management )
- The word salad Chevrolet non-statement (not even written by Chevy)
- Roger Penske’s lack of comment (says volumes, where is the future?)
- Antiquated cars and power train (unacceptable in racing at any level)
- Very long off-season (this may ultimately be the downfall; have to listen to this doom and gloom for quite a while too)
The future of IndyCar looks very dim indeed. The continued failure of hybrids just adds icing to the cake. That said, hybrid is old technology and at this point it has been in street car production for about a decade and is it basically yesterday’s news. If IndyCar wants to be on the cutting edge, which it was founded on and manufacturers clearly are most interested in, it needs to do something way beyond bringing a yet another hybrid to the race series.
All manufacturers these days are very much focused on battery electric vehicles, and I would recommend that IndyCar looks strongly at what this means for its series. I know the lack the noise of an ICE and have some other issues, but change is inevitable. Formula E, with its technology, has no shortage of manufacturer interest — this is a huge clue. I’d use Dallara’s design expertise and radically improve the performance, appearance and functionality of the Formula E concept. All else (Buick, etc.) is looking backward. We need forward and independent thinkers, and I’m just not sure the current decision-makers are up to the task.
I don’t have a clue about what is being done as no roadmap has ever been provided. An overall series direction/communication is badly needed. This silliness has gone on too long. The time is now to lead, follow or get out of the way.
What are your comments/thoughts? I am definitely interested in your take on the series future direction. Thanks!
Bruce
MP: At 666 words, that’s a hellacious submission, Bruce. We’ve had a number of letters on the same theme, and many have offered similar observations and asked for the same type of response, so I’ll keep it shortish.
IndyCar puts on a great show with its current package and could keep putting on that great show for another 50 years with the existing car and formula. But if Penske wants IndyCar to be great again, it won’t get there by staying frozen and doing the same thing over and over again because it hasn’t worked for more than a decade. I don’t consider a two-percent growth in TV audience to be a cause for celebration; it’s a positive number, no doubt, but it’s tiny at a time where something bigger is needed.
So, if there’s a true desire to restore IndyCar to the more prominent place it once held as one of America’s most popular forms of sport, IndyCar’s executive leaders will need to take more than baby steps to make that greatness become a reality. And if there isn’t a desire to make IndyCar great again, it should keep doing what it’s doing, accept the small, niche corner of the American sports landscape it lives in, and dedicate its dollars and energies to making its current fans as happy as possible.
I know what I’d like for IndyCar’s future to be, with cooler and faster cars for our incredible teams and drivers to wield for our enjoyment, but what I want genuinely doesn’t matter.