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

OK, Silly Season is in full swing.

Kyle Kirkwood gets Alexander Rossi's car for 2023. So where is Rossi landing?

Kirkwood To Drive No. 27 Andretti Autosport Car in 2023 (indycar.com)

 

Andretti tabs Kirkwood to replace Rossi in 2023

 

I saw a column on racer.com (I think that's where it was) about IndyCar needing to take a big swing to make the racing more competitive. Always a tricky balance for a sanctioning body.
As far as ROY, I'd go with Malukas. Midpack result, but he qualified one spot behind Johnson in a far inferior car, and had to race an untested backup due to a crash on Carb Day.
I'm not saying ABC's coverage was excellent, although Uncle Bobby and Sam Posey arguing was always hilarious. I'd forgotten about Todd Harris, but he wasn't much worse than that guy they had as lead (pre-Paul Page) when they first started covering the race live in the mid-late 1980s. And yes, count me as another who's glad Paul Tracy is gone. I'd still put him above Eddie Cheever. Damning with faint praise perhaps?
Great suggestion about Rutledge Wood. I'm not too familiar with him, is he just being his natural self or is he playing a Mickey Waltrip-type goofy role?

 

Is the ROY for just what happens during the race, or the race finish along with publicity-media work-social-fan engagement-other stuff?

I've seen reference to both.

 

I dunno about everyone else but I think the new cars look ridiculous with their fenders and their windshields and I doubt I’m the only one. I want to see helmeted heads racing around the oval behind open wheels.

 

Funeral directors in the Indianapolis area agree with your assessment.

 

After muting Jim Cornelison, I freely admit that I didn't have the sound on until the last 80 laps or pay attention until the last 20, but mostly because I was really invested in the Championship playoff final from Wembley.

I'm not THAT familiar with his work, but he tends to specialize in light-hearted features with a distinctly Southern twang. One of his side gigs was hosting a (very interesting) elimination cooking show for pitmasters on Netflix. Basically if you're familiar with the features Mary Carillo did during the Olympics in the 2000s and 2010s, basically that but for NASCAR. They then bring him and Dale Jr. to Indy mostly to get extra mileage out of their contracts since NBC doesn't pick up NASCAR for another couple weeks. I think a lot of people hate it because it's another 3-5 minutes devoted to not racing, which adds up very quickly given how many commercial breaks they're inserting.

 

Wow. With how all the other races this season have shown increases in viewership (and even a shitty two-hour qualifying recap a week ago), that's a swift kick in the balls. I'm going to blame all three entities for this one. And they're all relatively easy fixes.

Since I don't know the breakouts, I can't say whether viewers turned away because the commericals effectively negated any cohesive coverage, too many voices shouting over each other or the product itself. You've got 33 spec cars that are super-sensitive to hot and gusty conditions, which makes for a very boring race if you're not a 500 geek like me.

I listened to the race on the IMS Network -- as I have for the past 51 years -- and had timing and scoring running on the computer. But I'm not a casual viewer.

Pato O'Ward admitted he had the car completely trimmed out and foot to the floor, and still couldn't complete a pass on Ericsson on the white flag lap, because Ericsson was also flat-out for the last 20 laps. That's frustrating for both driver and viewer.

NBC needs to pare down the bullshit sideshow and treat it as a race instead of chopping it up into five-lap segments between commerical breaks. Yes, they have to make money but they also have to understand why people tune in. Dale, Danica, Rutledge and Tirico all subtract more from the event than they add.

IndyCar needs to solve the issue of why their oval racing package sucks, whether that's a Firestone issue, horsepower issue or a bodywork issue. I agree that it should be hard to pass, but not impossible, particularly for cars in the pack. Alex Palou and Scott Dixon had the two fastest cars in the field, but they had zero chance to make passes after restarting at the tail end of the field.

Roger needs to lift the local TV blackout because not all race fans want to fight traffic and sit in the hot sun all afternoon. It's great that he got 325,000 fans to show up. But he pissed off perhaps an equal number of potential viewers who weren't going to buy Peacock for one race.

 

All of it, not just the race. And Malukas’ reaction to not getting the award has been unseemly at best.

His run up to the race wasn’t spectacular, either. AP embedded a reporter with his team for the spectacle of homes tour or whatever it was, and that driver and his PR staff ditched him quickly. He had to get a ride back to the track with Stefan Wilson, and his assigned feature about the youngest driver in the field went up in smoke.