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Is Indycar's fanbase even large enough to justify running a longer season? They seem to struggle to sell tickets as it is, and running a longer season would cost a lot of money for the teams as well when there isn't much money out there at the moment. They could stretch the season out by spreading out the races but then you lose momentum with too many off weeks.

I don't make any effort to watch IndyCar outside of Indy anymore. The racing is as good as ever, but it just doesn't click for me.

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It seems everyone managed to miss Beaux Barfield quitting as race director.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115718

So when do we hear that Brian Barnhart's back in that role?

Randy Bernard? The same guy who lost almost all of the ISC tracks from the schedule, gave us the failed Qingdao race attempt and couldn't get the 2012 season back up to 16 races with a try at Road America in the summer? Bernard also came up with doubleheader street course events instead of actually adding venues. Can I have some of what you're smoking pal?

The season shouldn't be as compressed as it is, but the alternative (without adding more events) is having large gaps between races, particularly in the second half of 2012 and 2013. What would the series have in September-October other than Houston and Fontana? The TV ratings improved for 2014 in part because of back-to-back weekends. Indy 500 qualifying actually had a worthwhile number of viewers to report (ie above 1.0) so the facts suggest the changes worked.

...which mostly were some of the most poorly attended events...



...which mostly have been a success story....



His push of the DW12 also ended up being a good idea. At least that car is giving us good racing, for what it's worth.

Good ideas or bad ideas from Randy (he was very, er, aggressive and did have some real stinkers, yes), the Indycar management / car owner's alternative seems to be... Pay a consulting group a lot of money to come up with even worse stinkers. Like that compressed schedule thingy IMHO. I don't know whether that helped TV attendance or not, to be honest, I'm kind of doubtful there... but I do know that the compression resulted in some very questionable scheduling dates, weather wise (eg LOL Houston street race in the middle of summer) that IMHO depressed *race* attendance.

Hawksworth and Sato will run for Foyt next year. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116530

ah ya beat me to posting it. anyone know what time the schedule is supposed to be released today?
?

It's supposed to be released tomorrow last I heard. But who knows with these guys.

Randy Bernard thought running 30 cars at las vegas was a good idea so that proved he knew nothing about the sport.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

The old Las Vegas track was fine for IndyCars.

calendar

March 8     Autodromo Internacional Nelson Piquet
March 29    St. Petersburg
April 12    NOLA 
April 19    Long Beach
April 26    Barber 
May 9       Grand Prix of Indianapolis
May 16-17   Indianapolis 500 qualifying
May 24      Indianapolis 500
May 30      Belle Isle
May 31      Belle Isle
June 6      Texas
June 14     Toronto
June 27     Auto Club
July 12     Milwaukee
July 18     Iowa
August 2    Mid-Ohio
August 23   Pocono
August 30   Sonoma

Will not miss Houston.

Couldn't be bothered if Dubai was in or not.

Too bad the season ends so early again.

Good that the additions are proper road courses.

Bad that there is no Road America.

I understand that ovals haven't been a hit for a while, but I wouldn't not mind more of them.

Only one double header? Too bad.

Perhaps, but people constantly whine about the lack of ovals (and Watkins Glen), yet in the same breath praising Bernard when he was the one who cut ties with them.

The DW12 has\had a lot of critics too, despite the ease of passing with it. I'm curious as to how the 2015 changes will affect that.



Houston did have some good racing at times (like Hawksworth vs Montoya) but the track itself was garbage (topped by Dario's crash at a flat-out sweeper with no run-off and a spectator stand on the outside).

It's worth noting that some of the CART seasons were also 6-7 months and ended at Laguna Seca...

Got my renewal for Pocono today... And promptly renewed them. See you at the Tricky Triangle in August

'Tis a bit stupid to have them run a 500 miler, then pack up shop, haul 3000 miles across the country and race on a road course...

No Road America, COTA, Phoenix, Laguna Seca, Portland

Not a bad calander, really confused at finishing at Sonoma though, really needs to be an oval finish imo

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"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I loved so much the 500 miller at Fontana as an championship ender. On a Saturday night. ONLY race I bothered watching live instead of by a torrent. Really nice to camp in front of the TV deep into the night, with the intensity of a championship finale.

Heh, yeah, some people whine nostalgically... nostalgia alone doesn't generate revenue. If certain nostalgic ovals / road courses are only getting 5000 or 10000 people, yet Barber can get 60-80K... well, it seems to make sense to focus on what sells better. (Or look at figuring out why attendance at certain nostalgic ovals / road courses is so poor... either way, empty seats year after year does not look good).

The only ovals that seem to do well these days are Indy (even reduced a bit) and Iowa. Texas used to do well, but that has fallen downhill pretty quick too. I don't think I've seen any other oval track do very well since the split.

Yeah CART ended at Laguna Seca several times from what I remember, so ending at Sonoma isn't that weird to me.