Q: There are 346K YouTube IndyCar subscribers, 8.93 million for Formula 1, MotoGP has 5.55 million, Formula E has 791K, and NASCAR has 1.03 million. IndyCar needs an improved presence on social media. Same goes for commercialization; it is ridiculous there is no hype around the Indy 500. IMSA’s GTP was a class of less than 10 cars and there was more hype around that. There should be several articles shoveled out every day about the Indy 500. (IndyCar, please spend the money to do it)
Why isn’t IndyCar an international presence? It should not be hard for the international stage to get access. I have read several times even across the border that Canadians are not getting coverage. I cannot remember when there wasn’t a Canadian on the grid (let’s not forget a race in Canada), even during the Split. IndyCar can tap into the different markets in South America, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and Asia. It has drivers from each of those continents. If IndyCar spent any money publicizing it, it will actually sell itself, without totally alienating its fan base.
Can IndyCar pay-per-view the Indy 500 internationally or offer it for free? I have an immense amount of respect for Mr. Penske, but after reading your article about Liberty entering or not entering the chat to buy it…. makes me wonder if selling and allowing a company to spend the funds to do it is best.
Paul Hirsch, Westlake, OH
MP: If shoveling out articles was all that’s needed to make the Indy 500 more popular, the shoveling would never stop. Sadly, that ain’t the solution. People have to know about something before they can care about it which, specific to the 500, is trying to be addressed with the series’ 100 Days To Indy docuseries. Whether that succeeds or fails in its mission won’t be known for some time.
As for the rest, Penske Entertainment will tell you they are spending a ton of money to market and promote the series and they don’t take kindly to suggestions that they aren’t. Ask me how I know…
Q: I am rooting for Jamie Chadwick to have success over here in the States, but so far, she has been at the back. I know, new cars and tracks, but with her past experience and being on a good team, I would have thought she would be running at the front. Do you think she spent too much time in W Series? I hope she quickly gets up to speed and shows her true potential.
Mark, Floral City, FL
MP: Happy to say it’s not a limitation of talent. It’s strictly a size and muscle thing, which Jamie is working hard to address. Jamie is comparatively tiny while standing next to her rivals and is pushing herself to pack on the upper body muscle to attack the high downforce/grip Dallara IL15-AER Indy NXT car. Simona De Silvestro did the same when she transitioned from Formula Atlantics to IndyCar, and did it again when IndyCar retired the old Dallara chassis for the super-high downforce DW12.
Next to Simona, Jamie is small, so this is just a case of needing to give her time to continue transforming her body to meet the needs of the fastest, heaviest, and highest downforce car she’s raced. Danica went through an identical process when the IRL turned itself into IndyCar and added road courses, but also keep in mind that Danica retired from IndyCar at the end of 2011, right before the DW12 was introduced, and never had to fight 5000 pounds of downforce at Barber or Mid-Ohio. Jamie’s Andretti teammate Colton Herta also comes to mind. He was a scrawny kid when he arrived in IndyCar and when I asked him on Monday, he said he entered the series at 120 pounds and has had to add 20 pounds of muscle to wrangle the things.
Q: With your many years of experience, which approach do you feel highlights a racing driver’s ability best? a) Run a fuel conservation race with less stops and bring the car home hopefully at the sharp end. b) Run flat-out with no mistakes to hopefully bring the car home hopefully at the sharp end.
I appreciate that my question is binary and that race circumstances can change a strategy. Maybe the answer is that they are two different skill sets but as a fan I wish we had more of b) and less of a).
Oliver Wells
MP: It’s really a question of whether we want to see the driver perform as a solo athlete or functioning as part of a team because in the first scenario, it’s maximum attack with no need for a complex strategy that calls on all of their skills. In the latter, it’s a case of the driver and strategist and possibly the race engineer working together to execute a plan that won’t succeed without their active and ongoing input.
I like both. Qualifying tends to give us a per-race thrill that’s all about the driver and in most races, we get a blend of the two as maximum attack could be the order for the day—or a stint or two—and calling upon a driver’s full range of skills with tire and fuel conservation can also come into play. As a basketball fan, I love a great slam dunk, but not for 48 straight minutes. Watching Steph Curry shoot 3s for 48 minutes would also lose its appeal, so give me a game where both are important factors in the outcome.
Q: Larry Miller was a very wealthy motor fan who owned a large collection of Shelby Cobras and multiple car dealerships. He built MMP in 2005 on land owned by the Tooele County adjacent to Salt Lake City for $60,000,000 ,and spent a further sum on a an 80 Mustang race school, which became the Ford Performance School after his death in 2008.
He intended for MMP to become a major marketing tool for his dealer group, but the first major event at the track killed that concept because he had no dealers in Tooele and has the Ford policy of dealers not marketing outside their designated area, so his dealers had to withdraw over 100 display cars on the first event Friday after local dealer complaints. This caused the Miller dealers to become violently anti-MMP.
Larry supported MMP’s major events, but when he died and the dealer group took control, they immediately cancelled them all and gave control of the facility to the school manager, then allowed him to run the track business into the ground before handing the venue to the Tooele County and closing the MMP as a business.
The track was purchased by the Chinese Geely group and they have turned it into a financially successful track rental facility that no longer operates any public attendance race events. They cancelled the contract with the Ford School because it undermined all other business activities and instead allowed multiple other track rental business activities to prosper.
It is now a stable but completely different type of business than that envisioned by Larry Miller.
AW
MP: Indeed it is.