Penske buys IMS, Indy Car

Charlie Spencer said:
Maybe it's just me but the temperature at a track, hot or cold, has never prevented me from going. I won't go to most night races any more because it's become too long a day for me, and often requires an extra night in a hotel. Again, just me.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'optics'. The sight lines aren't going to be any better night vs. day. The infield buildings will still be there. The inability to see is what's kept me personally from returning to IMS, far more than the weather. Moving the race to night won't fix that.
Click to expand...

It hasn't stopped me either but we aren't casual NASCAR/race fans.

And by optics I mean a frontstretch that is relatively full. I realize that they are not getting a full house anymore, but they can maximize a way to get the frontstretch relatively full and back to 60-75K like many of the other crown jewel races (Daytona 500, Talladega, Bristol Night Race, Coke 600 still do that from what I see). It looked like there was a fair amount of people in the grandstands under the shade this year.
 
It's going to take a lot more than 75,000 people to make the front stretch at Indy look full. Once again I will point out that the track is in residential area. The bright lights and the noise IS going to be an issue with the neighbors, and then you are going to dump the race traffic into city streets, and pretty much everything to the east is through less than stellar neighborhoods.
 
Not to mention the best seats are in the corners and will always sell first. That won't help make the front stretch look full. Of course, they could sell only the front grandstands, and then lose those people who know the view from there sucks.

Memorial Day is often a scorcher but the I500 overflows anyway. That's the one all the casual sports fans in the area want to attend.

If NASCAR wants the front stretch to look full, they'll have to sell 'em in bulk to the Boy Scouts or give the seats away to the USO.
 
I couldn't be more excited to see that the captain has purchased my favorite track and racing series. I think if anyone can make IMS more exciting it would be Mr Penske. I would love to see lights go up and Cup cars run a night race there.
 
I will admit, I am disappointed that RP buying the whole lot means that dropping IMS from the Cup schedule is now probably not never going to happen, I am just not a fan of this track for stock cars( I am not a open wheel one bit so there is that too).

But reading above, making it a night race might change my mind a bit .
 
jws926 said:
I will admit, I am disappointed that RP buying the whole lot means that dropping IMS from the Cup schedule is now probably not never going to happen, I am just not a fan of this track for stock cars( I am not a open wheel one bit so there is that too).

But reading above, making it a night race might change my mind a bit .
Click to expand...

I hear that. Just about anything Penske does will be an improvement. The George bunch hasn't done one thing I can think of to improve stock cars racing there.
 
StandOnIt said:
I hear that. Just about anything Penske does will be an improvement. The George bunch hasn't done one thing I can think of to improve stock cars racing there.
Click to expand...
I agree, I can see Roger making changes that will improve things, so it will be interesting to see what happens.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
If the biggest issue we can find to discuss about this transition is how the extra cars for the I500 are qualified, I think the series is in pretty good shape.
Click to expand...

Its not. Honestly **** this talk guys, how about the looming formula change upcoming by the old staff.

900 HP is F1 levels so it will be very interesting to see the massive changes 2021 brings and how Roger brings it in smoothly. It would not shock me at all to see parity come way down with so much power to be handled by these V6’s
 
StandOnIt said:
I hear that. Just about anything Penske does will be an improvement. The George bunch hasn't done one thing I can think of to improve stock cars racing there.
Click to expand...

What has ISC or SMI really done to improve racing at their tracks? Most of what has been done (Bristol, Texas) just made it worse. Indy shouldn't make any track changes to suit NASCAR any more than Daytona should knock down the banking to suit running Indy cars there. I will also point out that the George family spent a HUGE sum of money just to HAVE NASCAR there, including rebuilding all of the walls and catch fences and making changes to pit road. They also spent a ridiculous amount of money to host Formulas One, and have reconfigured the road course multiple times to try to suit whatever series is using it at the time. The road course still sucks, but it's not from a lack of effort. NOBODY has ever spent as much on their facility as the George's have. Roger Penske (and ISC after him) have never even managed to put up decent (or enough) garages at Michigan.
 
Formerjackman said:
that the George family spent a HUGE sum of money just to HAVE NASCAR there, including rebuilding all of the walls and catch fences and making changes to pit road.
Click to expand...

say it ain't so, the Indy series were pioneers for the safer barrier and first used for the INDY series.. BTW Nascar's first race at Indy was in 94, the safer barriers were installed in 2002. So I guess one could argue they were put there for Nascar's benefit. Now me, I look at an Indycar and I look at a full bodied Nascar, and I think I will go with those were installed for Indycar's benefit and they worked so well that other series including Nascar started installing them on their tracks.

Dean Sicking
It was designed by a team of engineers led by Dean Sicking at the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was developed from 1998–2002, and first installed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 2002.
SAFER barrier - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › SAFER_barrier
 
I'm not talking about the Safer Barriers, I'm talking about 2 1/2 miles of concrete retaining wall, which if you know something about the history of the wall structure at Indy was no small task, and it was replaced with a taller thicker one topped with much heavier duty catch fence to contain cars weighing twice as much. The outer pit wall was also completely replaced, as was the scoring pylon and numerous other upgrades. And as long as we are talking about Safer barriers, they went all in instead of the cheap ass incomplete way that ISC and SMI did, meaning that over a decade later, drivers like Kyle Busch were still getting hurt, and it's a small miracle Jeff Gordon wasn't killed at Las Vegas.
 
Last edited:
My only thing with Indy is they’re gonna have to replace Push to Pass with the horsepower increase in ‘21. Some of these road courses are going to have absolutely no passing opportunities running with that much steam unless they do a DRS
 
Mispeedway15 said:
My only thing with Indy is they’re gonna have to replace Push to Pass with the horsepower increase in ‘21. Some of these road courses are going to have absolutely no passing opportunities running with that much steam unless they do a DRS
Click to expand...

They aren't removing push-to-pass and the last announcements were that the new engine formula (now slated for 2022) will increase the HP boost of push-to-pass.

https://www.indycar.com/News/2019/08/08-01-INDYCAR-Hybrid
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom