It’s the month of May in Indianapolis, and that means one thing. Unless you have no idea, this is the month that is all about the Indy 500. Wait… The later half of the month is about the Indy 500.
It used to be the entire month, but it’s been whittled down to half of what it was. While it’s not as a result of this shortening, I fear that the race (and the Indy motorsport mystique) is much less than half what it was.
I’m a little in the midst of it all, so objectivity is like Palin talking about oil. But it’s no surprise that the Indy 500 in general is a shadow of what it once was up to about the 1980′s.
The reasons as to why such a decline happened are numerous. The most popular is the CART / IRL split that fragmented open wheel racing in the US. Some point to the rise in popularity of NASCAR at around the same time the decline in popularity of open-wheel racing.
Big deal, right? To most, is is kind of a “who cares” type of thing. But this is a really big deal here, and the 500 is the biggest reason why anyone knows of the existence of Indianapolis outside of this country. It means millions upon millions of dollars to the local economy both in the month of May and year round since a lot of race teams are located here.
So far, non of this is opinion, and it’s all been beaten to the ground around here. My little perspective is that the spirit of Indy is dead in that the 500 is a highly regulated sporting event more about minutia than technological progression as it was for many, many years. You used to have teams testing and trying so many different technologies to win the race. A turbine engine would have won the 500 in 1967 if it weren’t for a $6 ball bearing. That kind of victory and press could have had an impact on the evolution of consumer cars.
Can it change? I don’t think so. The 80′s show why. It became such a big deal race teams were so far apart depending on the amount of funds available to a team for better engines and other parts. The result was the CART / IRL split where the IRL wanted to try to become a more regulated sport with standardized parts to make it more competitive all around. And it was, for a few years.
Now that CART has gone the way of Lehman Brothers, the IRL has been rebuilding its image and fan base. The Indy 500 is still the most popular part of the series by far. I really don’t see a manner in which it can change to get back to where it was. It unfortunately needs to be highly regulated in order to attempt to be a competitive event / series. My point is that there should be something associated with Indy or even the 500 that is a link to its progressive past.
I can think of a few things off the top of my head that could be cool to do at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that would show a nod to the progressive past. One is a race with real, consumer cars like the ALMS which has a few classes of real cars racing alongside prototypes that have seemed to produce real consumer technology. How cool would it be to have the 12 or 24 hours of Indy race? Another would be starting a new race or series of races that rewards new technology. Have a race on the track for electric cars or hybrids like the Formula Hybrid Competition at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway [NMHS or WMUR]. Include a social aspect to a race to engage fans more with the drivers and the cars.
I love the 500 and hope it’s always around. I just feel like there used to be a nice relationship between racing and innovation where it’s now just a relationship between racing, marketing and racing innovation. There’s a massive disconnect with the audience that NASCAR was able to capitalize on for awhile. While Indy and the IRL are doing better, there’s nothing to say that whatever progress has been made can’t be erased very quickly based on how the wind blows. I want something better for Indy than it currently has.