Yes, it's hot at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The heat is sufficiently oppressive that it is radiating through my television screen.
Still, given the amount of promotion that was dedicated to this three-way championship battle, the crowd has to be considered something of a disappointment. As I have written before, it is clear that the IRL can't sell these guys.
The product - the whole product - is the problem. We know this because not enough people are buying it. A product that is not in demand is by definition flawed. This must change.
Let's hope for a safe and entertaining race.
Roggespierre
OK, I am going to be very negative now...
ReplyDeleteThis "race" is a joke. Seriously. A JOKE.
3 cars on the lead lap not even halfway through? 3 freakin' cars?
Why would ANYONE watch this stuff? Its not entertaining. Its not interesting. Its not watchable.
This is class racing, at its absolute worst. 3 cars and the rest of the field just trying to get out of their way, laps and laps down.
And just think how lame it would have been without Barnhart and company "fixing things" before Kentucky.
And what is worse....even if I wanted to watch it, I couldn't. I have Direct TV. Another sterling move by the IRL.
Put this thing out of its misery and just end it already.
The "race" is over. Fitting end to a forgettable season. I (for some reason) followed along on the internet and lost interest about halfway through. I literally could have cared less which one of the 3 drivers won either the race or the championship. Its Penske and Ganassi. Hard to truly "root" for either one.
ReplyDeleteA guy who got his ass handed to him in America's premier racing series and couldn't run back to Indy Car soon enough, wins the final race and the series championship on fuel miledge (which fans just looooooovvvvve to watch; the excitement of saving fuel!!!) because there were only 2 other cars on the lead lap and the other 2 decent cars had to pit near the end.
I think its "Adreniline Amplified" (as one bankrupt series once said...)
What the hell happened to the IRL? It was never close to perfect, but above all else, at least most of the races were watchable. Now, the racing makes F1 look "racey" most days. This wasn't "a race". It was a joke.
They literally have NOTHING to stand on. Boring, unmarketable drivers. Fewer ovals each year. No American race winners. Few sponsors anyone has ever heard of. Budgets that are completely out-of-whack. Old equipment. Too many bad racetracks. No leadership/vision at any level. On a 3rd tier network, that Direct TV doesn't show anymore. Should I go on?
Maybe 2010 will somehow, someway be better. Maybe it statistically can't be any worse, so it almost HAS to improve. Maybe TPTB (whoever that is now?) get their heads out of their anus's, and realize what most of us know (and this race only punctuated it)....the sport is dead. And it will NEVER come back or get back on the track to "come back", until almost everything associated with the current mess is either replaced/changed/flushed down the toilet/all of the above. And at this point, it might already be way too late.
Not under this formula!!! Expect more of the same next year!!
ReplyDelete"What the hell happened to the IRL? It was never close to perfect, but above all else, at least most of the races were watchable. Now, the racing makes F1 look "racey" most days. This wasn't "a race". It was a joke."
ReplyDeleteI would argue (maybe alongside TD) that if you took all of this race's data (car positions, speeds, etc.) and simply dressed it up with variegated cars and championship-contending drivers that resonated emotionally with fans, there would be very few legitimate gripes. A gripping battle between two guys that just blew the field away, trading better cars between runs - only to be outfoxed by the fuel strategy of the third contender's team.
Insert names like Foyt Unser Andretti Mears etc etc into this race, and it's just a totally different thing.
Oh, and I'd say it's very telling that in lieu of everything else Indy racing has ever been about, putting on "The Show" has become the only compelling pursuit. Because "The Show" was not put on today, and that in itself is viewed by fans as a failure.
ReplyDelete"I would argue (maybe alongside TD) that if you took all of this race's data (car positions, speeds, etc.) and simply dressed it up with variegated cars and championship-contending drivers that resonated emotionally with fans, there would be very few legitimate gripes."
ReplyDeleteBC- I kinda agree with you on one point....One of the key reasons this season finale was so boring and "anticlimatic" was the fact that the 3 drivers competing for the championship are not interesting characters and none are Americans. Add in the fact that the race was on a Saturday afternoon, after a long break between United States races, on a network many now could not see (because of the Direct TV deal), and it turned into a total cluster-you-know-what.
But the actual RACE itself, was AWFUL. They literally should have just told the other 20 cars to stay home and just run the race with the 3 legit car/driver combos of 2009. 6th place, was 2 laps down. 9th place, was 3 laps down. In this day in age, with spec everything and it only being a 300 mile race, that is ridiculous. It also looks silly, when NASCAR regularly has 25-30 cars on the lead lap, at the end of 400 mile races. With NASCAR now being the boromoter of everything in American racing, today's display only hurts AOW's cause in relating to Americans.
Yes, the championship battle was a bore because of the utter domination of 2 teams all year and because of the "who cares" aspect of the 3 drivers competing. But today's final 2009 race, was in many ways, an even worse display. Ridiculously poor competition. Limited drama. Class racing. The widening gap between the haves and the have nots. 5th place in the championship being 223 (!) points behind the leader (that is amazing when you think about it, with this points structure and with so few cars in these races). And winning a race and a championship in the least compelling way possible (although 100% fairly, I will agree), on fuel strategy (or "saving gas" as Dixon usually puts it).
It was just a rather symbolic way to finish a udderly forgettable season for Indy Cars. In almost every way, the season was a real downer.
I hope "the sisters" were FORCED to watch what THEIR money has purchased!
ReplyDeleteWould you give the IRL more money?
One of the rules of economics--is cut your loses, please "sisters" listen---cut your loses, before it sinks the "mother ship".
This was UNWATCHABLE--and worse yet totally PREDICTABLY UNWATCHABLE!
Makes me sick to think of all the great races and drivers that made open wheel racing GREAT and now we have this "crap"!!
osca
BC said: "Insert names like Foyt, Unser, Andretti, Mears, etc. etc. into this race, and it's just a totally different thing."
ReplyDeleteAnd that points up why this "anchor" series is expendable: It cannot create stardom necessary for public attention to its outcome. Over 13 seasons, who is the name the general public associates with the game? Danica, with Helio second. Neither is publicly acclaimed for their driving, rather Go-Daddy and SI. And Helio for Dancing with the Stars...a three-time 500 winner, no less.
The IRL sells close, exciting racing. As Trick Dickle points out, this race wasn't that. It exhibited the vast difference between two dominant teams and a near-hopeless supporting cast.
In terms of "names" like Foyt and Andretti, and even using legacy drivers like AJIV, Marco and Graham Rahal delivered nothing. Mergification, the holy grail, delivered zip. The decline of traditional championship racing will continue until total collapse unless/until the 500 is restored as the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
For anybody complaining about only 3 cars being on the lead lap at lap 79 when Briscoe lapped Kanaan, just think back to all those Indy 500's in the 80's and find those boxscores to see how many cars finished on the lead lap, you'd be surprised at how few there LL finishers there were.
ReplyDeleteIn 1989, you had 9 cars on the LL at lap 50, with AJ Foyt putt-putting around in 14th place, 2 laps down.
By lap 96, only 3 cars were on the lead lap, with 4th place Rick Mears a lap down and 5th place Jim Crawford a staggering TWO laps down. If you hated the Homestead race because it lacked competition, what would you say about the 1989 Indy 500?
By the way, Raul Boesel finished the 1989 Indy 500 in 3rd place, 6 laps down. Mario Andretti finished 4th, 7 laps down and AJ Foyt finished 5th, 7 laps down.
ReplyDeleteDamon- Yes, and that sucked too.
ReplyDeleteThis is SPEC RACING. Its a 300 MILE RACE. Everybody is supposed (wink, wink) to have the same stuff and the competition (like it was for the better part of 8 years in the IRL) is supposed to be CLOSE, with different teams being able to at least see the front-running cars/teams.
Its what the IRL was SUPPOSED to be about, when it was trying to wean its away from those days in the 80's and 90's, when the gap between haves and have-nots was astronomical and the racing generally predictable and stale.
Its 2009 and we are right back to those days. And that ain't gonna work now, in this "NASCAR-World" we live in.
When 5th place in the championship is 223 points behind the leader, that says all you need to know.
Dick Trickle wrote:
ReplyDelete"Its what the IRL was SUPPOSED to be about, when it was trying to wean its away from those days in the 80's and 90's, when the gap between haves and have-nots was astronomical and the racing generally predictable and stale."
Frankly, I don't care about the gap between the haves and have-nots IF the context is open competition, not defacto spec racing.
Throughout "500" and National Championship racing history, the contenders were limited, while the variables were endless - and that led to excitement. Then one-third of the field had a credible chance to win. In today's case, the number is significantly less.
I was looking at old newspapers this morning. I noticed an ad from 1959 promoting "death defying speeds" at a California big car race. When is the last time anyone heard that phrase used? So, what does a promoter sell these days? Close racing and celebrity - and that's not Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon or Ryan Briscoe on an interstate billboard.
And what did Franchitti win? Something called the Indy Racing League Championship... meaningless to the general public. It should instead be the historic National Championship. That one can also promote.
Trick Dickle said:
ReplyDelete"NASCAR now being the boromoter of everything in American racing, today's display only hurts AOW's cause in relating to Americans."
Hmmm.... boromoter... was that deliberate or a Freudian slip... in either case it is accurate.
As the title of an old movie starring Jane Fonda and Gig Young goes: "They Shoot Horses Don't They?"
Did anyone notice that one of the most prominent TV ads during the race was for Enztye. Now not to further stir the pot on Indycar not being worth advertsing on, but the founder of this fantastic company is now serving time in a Federal Penitentiary. So the best they can come up with for the first half hour of coverage is a company that used to extort its own customers because of privacy fears. Couldn't they at least get a decent low-rent casino in Biloxi or maybe a medium sized pyramid scheme?
ReplyDeleteWould Berie Madoff make a good poster boy for the IRL? If I had known what he was up to, I would have pitched an Indy Car deal to him. Only shows how bad we have gotten as a country. Spec racing and arbitrage finance....What a country!!
ReplyDeleteAn interesting aside:
ReplyDeleteComcast (the owner of Versus) is making a bid for NBC Universal which would give Comcast the NBC's sports assets which control the rights to the 2012 Olympics and Sunday Night Football through 2013. This would allow Versus sports channel into a potent competitor to ESPN.
Suddenly the "excuse" for poor IRL TV coverage, would disappear---let's hope that the IRL won't disappear first!!
osca
From a 4 May 09 interview with Ryan Briscoe:
ReplyDeleteQ: The old story was that open wheel racing needed reunification. A year after reunification ICS still doesn't seem to catch the fancy of casual motorsports fans like NASCAR or even ALMS. From your perspective, what is the ingredient missing from Indy Car-style open wheel racing?
A: Ryan Briscoe - I don’t know if anything’s really missing right now. We just need to get it out there to more fans. Work on promoting the series and getting people involved, because I believe we have one of the best forms of motor racing in the world. IndyCar is great, the variety of the tracks and stuff.
Q: Seventeen of 24 current IndyCar series drivers are not from the USA. Five of the past six series champions, eight of the last ten 500 winners, and eight of the last ten winners at Milwaukee were not Americans. From your view, as you help promote, how does that matter in terms of interest locally and in the series' primary market, the United States?
# A: Ryan Briscoe - You're asking a foreigner. But I just go out and try to promote the series as best I can and try to keep a positive outlook and try to interact the fans as best I can.
Rocketman53,
ReplyDeleteThe reporter's allusion to ALMS is hilarious. That is, perhaps, the one U.S. racing series that might envy the IRL's network television ratings. That series is not in any way a successful product.
Briscoe was clearly at a loss when he tried to explain why "IndyCar is great." Somehow, "the variety of tracks and stuff" seems a bit hollow.
Combined with Angstadt's ideas about "increasing the value of the series," none of this bodes well.
Yes, the split hurt the Indianapolis 500. But it might just be the Reconstruction that kills it.
It is all very depressing.
Best Regards,
Roggespierre