All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

I will desperately try to condense this so it doesn't sound like a Big Ragu post.

Until 1960, when John Brabham brought the rear-engine revolution to Indianapolis, the traditional way for getting to Championship cars was the midget-sprint car ladder, racing on midwest short tracks. Which explains why F1 champions like Jim Clark and Graham Hill won Indy in the mid-60s while U.S. drivers were trying to make the conversion. The Golden Age might have been the early 1970s, when NASCAR drivers like Bobby and Donnie Allison, and Cale Yarborough made the 500 field.

The deaths of USAC's top officials in a 1978 plane crash led to a power vacuum in the sport. Roger Penske's famous White Paper led to the creation of CART two seasons later, in which car owners ran the sport. Eventually, the second-generation of U.S. Indy stars (Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., Danny Sullivan, Bobby Rahal) came up through karting and formula car racing, particularly the Can-Am Series. And as the series grew, it added more road course racing events.

Enter Emerson Fittipaldi in 1984. Four years after retiring from F1, Fittipaldi renewed foreign interest in Indy. Now other Brazilians found a parallel career move that didn't require the money or experience needed for F1. Suddenly guys from all over the world with sponsorship deals ($$$) could fund a season in CART for a fraction of the cost of buying an F1 ride.

Tony George's IRL was a flawed concept because the ladder between sprint car and open wheel was permanently broken well before then. But CART went public, couldn't organize a two-car parade and eventually had to admit Indianapolis was bigger than any series.

Instead, having experience with high horsepower, low downforce front-engine cars was a ticket to NASCAR, as Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne and others showed. In fact, the traditional NASCAR ladder system is somewhat fragmented. Dominating a weekly short track is no longer a good way to get the attention of a NASCAR owner. Even doing well in the Whatever It's Called Now Used To Be Busch Series is no guarantee of a Cup ride. Which is why most of the young crop is composed of second- or third-generation drivers, or guys with $$$.

Racing is no longer about what you know, or where you learned it. It's who you know, and how much dough they have.

 

And by my calculations, drivers from five continents led a lap at the 500 this year.

 

It comes as no surprise that one of theIndy Lights up-and-comers is Colton Herta.

 

Is there something that should separate Colton Herta from Spencer Pigot or Connor Daly who were once the Indy Lights up-and-comers, but haven't been able to translate that to full-time IndyCar rides?

 

Karam, too.

 

Big fan of Karam. Might be my second favorite current driver, behind Newgarden. But he doesn't have the family name like Connor, Spencer, Colton, or even Graham and Marco.

 

Exactly.

Although he and Marco did go to the same high school.

 

I don't really have a bucket list of races I'd love to attend, but if I did, Monaco would be at the top of the list, especially if I could get a photo credential. Just for the scenery and the atmosphere. As for the race, it's usually pretty bad.

 

Finally got through Indy. DVR didn't work right, so I found it on YouTube.
1. The Franchitti thing at the beginning was good stuff.
2. The overhead shot of Daly's crash showed a bunch of empty seats in turn 3.
3. I'm all for tradition, but when you have only 33 cars show up, the quality of some of the drivers can be, um, lacking. Howard was a prime example this year. Dude was SEVEN laps down and it doesn't occur to him to get out of the way? Then he blames the crash on RHR? It reminded me of the spring 1990 Darlington race when Irvan was 10 laps down but battling leader Ken Schrader hard. Irvan causes a big wreck, then puts some of the blame on Schrader for racing him hard.
4. Dixon walking away from that wreck was incredible.
5. Castroneves got some rear wing damage in that incident, plus his front wing was buffeting quite a bit at the end. Not sure if that was from the wreck or something else. But it makes me wonder if he would have won without that damage.
6. Alonso runs well, leads laps, but drops out because of a blown Honda. That's cruel. But I'm curious to see how he plays the contract game now so he can be back in Indy next year.
7. I'm hoping IndyCar and the FIA can work out the schedule so Monaco and Indy are on different days, bringing more F1 drivers to Indy. I believe I read they've been on the same day since 1987. As a fan it's great to have two of the biggest races on the same day (3 if you count the Coke 600), but it would be awesome to have Alonso battling the IndyCar guys plus the likes of Vettel at Indy.
8. Amazing Castroneves was the only Penske guy running well most of the day. Power was good in spurts, but the other three were no-shows.
9. Kudos to Sato, but I can't help but think it won't move the needle for IndyCar much, as others have referenced. A fourth win for Castroneves or a win for Alonso would have done wonders for the sport.