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

Milwaukee (w/regards to RA) and Infineon (Laguna) have territorial exclusivity until the race date (I believe both contracts expire at the end of the year), so the series can start talking to Road America on Sunday, but can't start talking to Laguna until after the Infineyawn race.

Eddie Gossage seems to be interested. On one hand, you've got a track that annually delivers your second-most attended race of the year, but it's going to be a month before their second Cup race. On the other, a trip to NHMS (where Jerry Gappens is from Lafayette, IN and an IndyCar supporter) or the Glen would allow an opportunity to revive old markets, and both have had some good races. I'd love to see the Indy road course (and given the Hulmans own both the track and the series, the sanctioning agreements would be pretty easy), but that seems like a last-ditch effort if they need a race at the last minute.

 

Pocono was built for Indy Cars and that's the track I'd be most excited to see back on the schedule. If they could pull it off this season, that'd be awesome.

Richmond, which I realize isn't likely as an ISC track, would be my second choice.

This year's schedule is already heavy on street circuits and road courses. While there are a few out there I'd like to see on future schedules, I want more ovals and would like to see IndyCar use this mess as an opportunity to get one more in this year.

 

I love Pocono. The Mattiolis have said it's not going to happen this year, but the changes they've made to the track would make it IndyCar-friendly, and it's a place that could put together some spectacular racing in open-wheeled cars. I'd like to see the return of the Triple Crown, with 500-milers at Indy, Pocono and Fontana (using the Fourth of July, Labor Day and of course, Memorial Day, as the weekends for the major events).

 

Is there a reason Portland has never gotten serious consideration from IndyCar? I would guess it's because the facilities in the garage area are bush league, but CART/Champ Car apparently didn't too much since they race there 20+ years.
Mind you, I much prefer ovals to road courses or street circuits. But it seems like Portland has never gotten a serious look. That's a pretty big population area to be missing out on.

 

Yeah, I really like the track. Only been there a couple of times for small events, but it seems to me they'd have upgrading to do for any kind of significant race these days.

Weren't they having some neighbor issues? I think they were dealing with noise complaints that were endangering the track's future, but I haven't heard anything about it in ages.

 

Milwaukee was pretty enjoyable, even if Ryan Hunter-Reay pulled away at the end. He had, by far, the strongest car. Looked like Michael Andretti's attempts to revive a dead event have worked out really well -- decent crowd in the main grandstand (the upper half was full) and solid racing throughout the field.

However, one big blemish: if someone can give me a reasonable explanation as to why Scott Dixon was penalized for jumping a restart that everybody (including RHR) jumped, they deserve a million bucks, because I didn't see it (and I'm not sure anyone else did, either). That was probably Barfield's strangest call of the season (also, one of those things only we notice, Dixon basically blowing off Bruce Martin in front of a camera after giving his TV interview).

 

I didn't get the Dixon thing either. If he jumped the restart, he certainly wasn't the worst offender. The drive-through seemed absurd.

 

So, an update on the Dixon thing...

IndyCar now admits it made a mistake on the penalty. When they looked at the video they accidentally looked at an aborted restart and did not review the actual restart, which was clean.

IndyCar is run by apes.

 

So, is it going to rescind the penalty and give Dixon a few points for positions on the racetrack they docked him? That was a HUGE mistake that I would have expected to have been cleaned up after the chief officials were changed last year.

 

Nope. They say it can't be rescinded.

 

That type of penalty can't be rescinded, because without it, he'd be in a completely different place on the track.

But that is a bad officiating blunder. Not 1981 Indy 500 bad or 1997 Texas bad, but still not good.