The 2024 running motorsports thread

Ferrucci has talent, especially at Indy, and he does have a personality that should, and often is, engaging, but his mouth and his on-track demeanor are going to hold him back from the serious-minded stakeholders who don’t want to put up with his bullshit.

It’s also a massive stretch to say Kirkwood turned into him.

 

Detroit Grand Prix was awful. There are sections of the circuit that aren't wide enough to host the Olympic 100M.

 

Cup race wasn’t bad. You could get in the standard mid-race nap and still catch a crazy finish.

 

But on the plus side, the track layout really shows off the abandoned lots and parking garages of downtown Detroit.

 

What is Penske’s hard on about having the race downtown?

I know there were mixed thoughts on Belle Isle the course, but it always provided a spectacular view of the area.

 

Belle Isle essentially got NIMBY'd out of existence didn't it? Folks were tired of having a massive city park inaccessible for a few days a year.

There's probably a decent layout that can be done in downtown Detroit, but Penske seems to want to incorporate the Ren Center into the layout, probably for GM PR purposes, so that decent layout is not happenin'.

 

I believe YMCA is mostly correct. Belle Isle is a state park, which many people think should be used as a park, and the Grand Prix makes it inaccessible for several weeks in the early part of the summer. It's also narrow in places, has some upkeep problems and is rather cut off from the rest of the city.

 

There's a perfectly good race track a few miles away in the Irish Hills that Roger used to own, and it would make for better racing.

 

Now that's just crazy talk.

 

I assume you're both talking about Michigan International Speedway.

It would be cool from a racing point of view, but from what I understand, the place is barely breathing. NASCAR is down to one date and it is apparently one sponsor defection away from disappearing. Of course, it draws nowhere near what it did in the salad days, which means, IndyCar ain't drawing flies there either. It's also in the middle of nowhere. The days when fans would flock from Ohio, Indiana and the Chicago area are probably long gone.

From what I've read, even though the Detroit race was farcical, it was a hit with the people who matter - sponsors and big-wigs who spend cash. Sad, but I don't think MIS is the balm some might think it is. Plus, the last thing IndyCar needs is a 10K crowd at a 70K facility or whatever MIS is these days.

 

Sad to hear MIS is struggling, but it's not altogether shocking. It's a 90-minute drive from Detroit on a random Tuesday afternoon and there isn't a four-lane road anywhere near there much less a freeway.

As for the racing, it's always been almost too good of a racetrack. Anyone can run practically any line, which means cars are rarely racing each other closely, either top to bottom or front to back.

 

RIP Parnelli Jones

https://racer.com/2024/06/04/parnelli-jones-1933-2024/