IndyCar has that familiar NASCAR feel
Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS
Controversial new rules. Grumpy drivers. Back-room deals. Twitter feuds. Upstart outfits trying to make a name for themselves.
Is this IndyCar or NASCAR?
The lead-up to Sunday’s 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500 has taken a page from NASCAR’s unique mix of soap opera and speed. When team owner Michael Andretti isn’t taking heat for buying Ryan Hunter-Reay’s way into the race, his son Marco is being attacked for taking to twitter to defend the old man.
Simona De Silvestro — arguably the best female driver in the series — is making fans say “Danica who?” for her cheek-biting toughness as she tries to drive with two badly burned hands. Unlikely pole-sitter Alex Tagliani is breathing much-needed life into a sometimes staid garage with his blunt and heavily French-accented honesty.
And then there’s double-file restarts, implemented this spring a year after it was introduced by its stock car brethren, the latest step in what some purists consider the “NASCAR-ification” of open-wheel racing.
The move was designed to create added drama as the 33-car field thunders down the front stretch to take the green flag. Whether it works on an oval remains to be seen, though the across-the-board blowback from the normally laid-back drivers has been considerable.
Tagliani calls it “a terrible idea.” Former 500 winner Dan Wheldon thinks it could lead to the race “being remembered for all the wrong reasons.” Defending race and series champion Dario Franchitti believes it’ll turn the 500 into a “lottery.”
Team owner Chip Ganassi understands the concerns. His advice? Get over it.
“I go back to when you watch an NFL game and then you watch a college football game, it’s the same game; they play by pretty much the same rules,” said Ganassi, a three-time 500 winner as an owner. “To a certain degree I think we need to appeal to all auto-racing fans. When you’re trying to appeal to all auto-racing fans it has got to look the same so they know what they’re looking at.”
IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard defended the move, arguing several high-profile owners came to him with the idea, not the other way around.
“I’m talking to team owners and drivers who have won out there on that track many times, and they always say ‘We race to the rules and what they told us to race to,”’ said Bernard, who recently completed his first year on the job. “The team owners wanted this, and some of the biggest racers ever, four-time Indy 500 winners, have told me that it’s a good change.”
Ganassi, who also runs a two-car NASCAR Sprint Cup operation, isn’t against any idea that could help make IndyCar relevant year-round, no matter where the idea comes from.
“The good thing about NASCAR is they’re not afraid to tweak and refine and really get to the core answer, it’s something the fans want to see,” said Ganassi. “We can’t do it overnight, but it’s something we need to work on.”