Driver Development Programs Key in IndyCar's Momentum

"Momentum" may be the most despised word in the IndyCar fan's vocabulary. An overused term on television broadcasts, describing an abstract concept that ebbs and flows unbeknownst to us all, nine times out of ten it's nothing more than a cop-out to explain something quickly without having to get into too much detail.

Of course, when you apply that term to the sanctioning body, the typical IndyCar fan might change his or her tune.

Yesterday's State of IndyCar meetings went swimmingly, if the many folks tweetcasting from the proceedings are to be believed. The sport and sanctioning body - especially its top two series, the IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights Series - have plenty of new positive concepts to build upon. IndyCar is especially doing its part for future generations of racers and race fans, expanding its marketing to karting, opening up 16 of the 17 garages to fans as young as nine years old, and further bolstering the Road to Indy with incentives to move up.

The most immediate thing that most fans will notice, however, is Indy Lights coverage of every Versus-broadcast event, to be shown the Wednesdays following the races at 6 PM Eastern time.

No top-tier racing series can remain strong without a devoted grassroots program and a development series that continues to produce top talent. The past decade has been hit or miss for Indy Lights; since IndyCar founded its own development series in 2002, the only champions to secure full-time employment in the big cars have been A.J. Foyt IV, Alex Lloyd, Raphael Matos, and J.R. Hildebrand. Especially after this year, which saw some of the smallest Indy Lights fields since the series' inception, everybody knew that things had to change.

And change they did. The new IndyCar regime, led by Randy Bernard, implemented bonuses for the Star Mazda and USAC Triple Crown champions to move into Lights. The Star Mazda champion brings about enough money on his own to run all of the road and street course events, while the USAC driver receives enough funding for the ovals. Those programs will result in the dream combination of Star Mazda winner Conor Daly and Triple Crown winner Bryan Clauson for 2011, paired in the Sam Schmidt Motorsports car that won the 2010 Lights title with Jean-Karl Vernay.

Add the Versus deal to that, and you have what was a left-for-dead development series, one that had been treading water, beginning to establish itself as legitimate.

Of course, that won't prevent some of the drivers from coming into the IndyCar Series through other career paths. Katherine Legge (DTM and Champ Car), Giorgio Pantano (GP2 and Auto GP), and Andy Soucek (Formulas 1 and 2) are among the European talent looking to IndyCar as a career option for 2011. None will end up in Indy Lights if they do, as all have proven themselves at higher levels than that. But that's to be expected - and any big name is a good thing to have.

At least IndyCar's top development series is on steadier footing than NASCAR's premier development league, the Nationwide Series. For the past ten years, a lack of regulation on Sprint Cup drivers have driven that series into the ground, with its past five champions double-duty drivers. NASCAR has announced a rule allowing drivers to collect points in only one of its top three series, but that may not keep the double-duty drivers out entirely. Imagine the black eye that would come with an ineligible Sprint Cup driver "winning" the Nationwide championship once again.

It's just one of the many situations where IndyCar has the edge on NASCAR right now. The TV contract shows signs of improvement as Versus may become the NBC Sports Network. The lack of a contrived championship system is another obvious plus. New drivers, tracks, and most importantly, sponsors are eyeing the series with keen interest for 2012 and beyond, as NASCAR continues to lose its audience.

After a few years of intense struggling, IndyCar clearly has the momentum necessary to become as strong as it was before the split. And now the sport has the driver development program to keep it that way.

Sealing the Cracks That Caused the Split

My good friend Tony Johns over at Pop Off Valve likes to say that bantering over Twitter enhances social media usage by those of us who like to create content for the web. I've always been a little more wary of it.

Part of it is because I always like to have a hard-news-only option (hence the creation of a site account @OpnWhlAmerica), but part of it is because I don't feel like some of the more mundane experiences of my life really merit tweeting about. (I have to admit, I love Graham Rahal as a driver, but following his account isn't particularly enriching.)

This all changed for me over the holiday season.

With no other outlet to express the frustration and comedy of a Christmas Eve dinner gone somewhat awry, I took to the Twitterverse with the story of my 92-year-old grandfather figuring out that he was, indeed, home. One of the more entertaining stories I've ever had to tell, even in its simplicity and lack of two-way dialogue, it opened me up a little more to the idea of using social media to bring people into my life.

Then, in the wee hours of Boxing Day night, I let loose an even more frustrated nugget go: "Never letting longtime dating partners try to work out their shit in my apartment again. Sitting outside wondering what the fuck happened."

Throwing all caution to the wind, three of my closest friends had a small party in my apartment last night, spending an hour traveling to Boston in the midst of a noreaster that has proved catastrophic for any car unfortunate enough to be parked on a public road and most airports. Most of the night was a good time - fun, games, a lot of cathartic stories told between a bunch of people who have known each other for a long time. It would also be a good night for the former couple of two years to spend time with each other in the company of friends, perhaps providing an impetus for them to work out their differences.

Then, of course, things started to go wrong. The differences that caused the couple to split up in the first place, nearly a year ago, came back to the forefront. They tried to be better than one another. They complained about little things. The cracks that caused the split were only widening once again.

Things got heated, with the other friend and I removing ourselves from the room so the couple could do their thing, before we split them up to talk to them individually. The rest of the night was a big mess of awkward, bothered folks who didn't sleep very well or have their senses about them for much of the morning.

We basically concluded this: they need to figure out how to close the book, or at least come to a satisfactory point of renewal, because although things are on the road, they need to tie up some loose ends and get things right. Each side has their strong points and their flaws, but somehow every festering wound needs to be aided, every unplugged crack needs to be sealed, every broken lamp needs to be superglued back together before both sides can be satisfied. Both sides need to respect each other as equals, complete and inarguable equals, and until then, that can't happen.

Now, at the risk of going Roy Hobbson on you all, the question at hand here is simply: What the HELL does this lengthy anecdote have to do with IndyCar?

You've probably heard by now that the sport is finally taking two huge steps to bring it back where it once was. The first, of course, is bringing technology back to the forefront, making it matter, and making higher standards a possibility (if not immediate reality) for a new generation of fans. That's big - it brings back many of the people who bought into the open-development of CART and Champ Car, the technological advances that those series liked to bring to the table, and perhaps our first new track records at Indianapolis since the very beginning of the "split."

But the second step is to finally combine all American open wheel records into one record book. USAC or CART, IndyCar or Champ Car, they're all being brought together officially for the first time. Less physical than psychological, it's just another important instance on the road to complete unification.

For a long time, American open-wheel racing was torn apart by two very distinct schools of thought. One was the Tony George opinion, that the sport should be more like NASCAR, with more ovals and American drivers. Those in power in CART in the early 1990s were greater proponents of bringing in European drivers and fashioning the sport into an American Formula 1. George created the Indy Racing League as a backlash against it, and for 12 years the "split" festered.

When IndyCar bought out Champ Car in 2008, it was only the first, biggest step. There were still hard feelings. Four or five race teams went out of business, and some top Champ Car drivers to this day struggle to land rides. The Champ Car teams, having no more use for their cars, setup notes, and some equipment, were faced with a major competitive disadvantage. Now, they're not so much disadvantaged as they are still viewed differently; generally, owing to their road-course-only heritage, they mostly hire road course specialists, and former IRL teams often do the opposite.

Of course, we've made plenty of progress in these past three years. I say enough about Randy Bernard and Mike Kelly and what they do for the sport - while that's important, let's focus on some of the smaller things for a second. Some ex-IRL squads, like Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, have employed road course specialists like Justin Wilson, while Conquest Racing and Dale Coyne Racing have embraced development drivers from Firestone Indy Lights instead of the Atlantic Championship, Champ Car's former development series. The schedule is now an even mix of ovals and road courses. And with the record books being fixed, putting everything in one place, it's just another step forward, eliminating yet another point of contention.

American open-wheel fans are much like the feuding couple in my apartment from last night. Both sides want the same thing - complete unification - even if they may hesitate to admit it. It's best for both of them. Except, of course, each side wants things to go their way and not the other's, so things remain heated and some problems stay unsolved.

But enough time has passed that they should come to some mutual understanding and try to get it right. There will still be some fights and bitterness, but by this point, it's really time to put it all in the past, come back together, and start anew.

Maybe I'm a couple years too late with this post. Maybe not. I still see the dividing line in the sport between the IRLers and the Champ Car folks rear its ugly head now and again. There are still some loose ends to be tied up. Embracing the old sanctioning body's philosophy on car development is great. But combining the sport's record books recognizes the defeated series as the victorious one's equal... well, you can't ask for much more than that internal validation.

That's what the feuding couple needs, and it's what IndyCar needs, too, before things can be completely fixed - for both sides to recognize one another as equals. We're on the way, we're getting close, but we're not there yet.

Like Tony's hashtag said when he tweeted about the combined record books, it's about time it happens.

Opinion: Why Is IndyCar On The Upswing?

It wasn’t too long ago that NASCAR was on the biggest power play in professional motorsports. It had all the top tracks, was culling drivers from the best of the rest of the country, and had the most fans (and money) behind it by far.

None of this could make it more apparent than the increasingly silly nature of the sport’s “silly season,” the time of year when drivers started announcing future plans. When I was growing up, usually drivers knew no earlier than October or November where they’d be the next year. Now, stars were signing multi-year contracts as early as May.

It even still borders on the ridiculous, as the concept of signing a contract for “the season after next” still comes into play (Kasey Kahne, anyone?). But the absurdity of the NASCAR silly season has been toned down as the money’s stopped flowing quite as freely through the garage.

During that time frame, IndyCar was on the bottom of the American motorsports food chain. Yes, the Indianapolis 500 still mattered, as it always will. But NASCAR was the top dog, and the Daytona 500 had arguably surpassed Indy. The NHRA had political stability. The split between Grand-Am and American Le Mans was hurting sports car racing, but not as bad as the still-divorced IndyCar and Champ Car hurt open-wheel racing; Grand-Am and the ALMS catered to different niches of sports car racing, and shared a majority of drivers, as they still do.

Most open-wheel drivers weren’t signing contracts until February, right before the beginning of the season. Many had to bring their own sponsorship. Now, we’re in the midst of an offseason that is seeing almost every worthy driver get a ride, and plenty of teams secure funding on their own.

What changed?

The keys here are political stability and room for growth. IndyCar eventually bought out Champ Car, the first action to help bring the sport back together, but just because the two warring factions have unified doesn’t mean that their supporters have done the same. To this day, old Champ Car fans resent the Dallara chassis, calling it a “crapwagon;” meanwhile, fans of the original all-American, all oval Indy Racing League despise the addition of road courses and foreign drivers.

But it was the decision to bring in Randy Bernard as IndyCar CEO that began paying the highest returns. Current fans in the know deify Bernard as the sport’s savior; while one man can’t take credit for everything, it’s easy to understand why.

Before Bernard left Professional Bull Riders, IndyCar was stuck with an outdated car, an underperforming schedule, no marketing charisma whatsoever, a star driver with only one win, and little positive momentum. Since he’s come in, all of that has changed. There’s a new car on the way with multiple manufacturers, some new races with great potential, a fresh look, the potential for some new (and, importantly to some, American) superstars, and things don’t look to fall off track soon.

Clearly, Mike Kelly and the folks at IZOD are to thank for the boost in marketing savvy, and no fan can thank them enough for helping revitalize the sport for other potential sponsors. They’re cool, trendy, and really seem to understand the heritage of the Indianapolis 500 and the essence of what makes open-wheel racing so great. But they can’t be the ones to go around and solicit new engine manufacturers or commercial partners; they are their own entity. That’s the new IndyCar administration’s job, and they do it well.

Compare that to NASCAR, which has seen a whole bunch of bad news under Brian France. The list of problems reads like a nightmare. Declining attendance at overbuilt tracks. Declining TV ratings with broadcast partners who undermine the races with poor coverage or excessive commercials. A divisive racecar that has improved safety at the expense of entertainment. A Chase format that the folks up top still can’t seem to get right. An underachieving Dale Earnhardt Jr. and five-times-consecutive champion Jimmie Johnson. It goes on.

It seems that the only thing that Brian France has carried over to NASCAR from his father’s and grandfather’s leadership is an iron fist, a strong-willed belief that the fans will eventually take what you give them, no matter what. France’s comments at Homestead this year implied that he was woefully out of touch with the common race fan, the people that NASCAR built its success with, implying that the sport was absolutely fine and hinting at even more alterations to the Chase, including a second potential points reset in the final few races to guarantee a big finale every year.

While France tries to impress the media in hope that the fans and sponsors will follow, Bernard has taken the opposite approach. So far, it’s been working out. Fans are beginning to rediscover the sport, and the subsequent new list of partners would make any race fan drool. Witness Chevrolet, Lotus, Mazda, Sunoco, and Verizon Wireless. Witness the addition of a dozen official partners this year alone, from car rental services (Avis) to gourmet popcorn (Just Pop In).

Verizon, shut out of NASCAR due to restrictions on wireless service providers in its Sprint-backed top series, will shift over $10 million to IndyCar sponsorship activation. That’s kind of a big deal.

This just leads to another crucial observation: IndyCar has almost infinite room for growth. “The split” left the American open-wheel world with a bunch of scorched earth and a long regenerative process. But now that the soil is a bit more fertile, and the costs are still relatively low, the sport should be able to support a renaissance.

Again, compare that to NASCAR. The days of 50 fully-funded teams are long gone. Sponsorship costs are so high that most companies consolidate with the biggest teams and share space on top drivers’ cars instead of giving some of the little guys a chance. The sport is overvalued and underperforming, and it shows with the loss of longtime, big-name sponsors like Old Spice, and the minimized roles of sport mainstays like Kellogg’s, Interstate Batteries, and Valvoline.

What’s the result of all of this?

With NASCAR now deemed “untouchable” by many potential sponsors, their funds are shifting over to IndyCar, which is able to welcome them in with open arms and significantly lower prices. The racing may not be much better than it’s ever been since moving to a spec vehicle, but the buzz is infinitely more positive.

It leads to drivers like Tony Kanaan landing on their feet within a month of losing a major backer. It leads to a bonanza of sponsorship deals for Team Penske. It leads to young drivers like James Hinchcliffe, Pippa Mann, and Charlie Kimball getting deals to move up, or at least being considered to. It leads to major funding for Simona de Silvestro, the sport’s biggest overachiever and perhaps its next female race winner.

And now we have 16 drivers and teams locked in before the new year – almost a 25% increase from where we were at this point last year. That will comprise the majority of the field, and that’s a huge step forwards from where we’ve been.

IndyCar has never done things the “NASCAR way,” and likely never will as long as Bernard is in charge. It can’t, and it doesn’t have to. There’s no reliance on the past - just the opportunity to build a better future for open-wheel racing in the States. And with NASCAR's list of problems growing yearly, it may not be as hard as you'd think for the Indianapolis 500 to become the crown jewel of American motorsports once again.

Opinion: Captain America a "Charging Star" for IndyCar

2010 was a bleak year for the American open-wheel driver. The only two full-timers confirmed at the beginning of the season were Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti, although Ryan Hunter-Reay pieced together a full season on a race by race basis. Meanwhile, 2009 full-timers Graham Rahal and Ed Carpenter had to be content with limited schedules, and the development driver pipeline sprung a leak somewhere between Indy Lights and the Indianapolis 500.

Today, we learned that 2010 was merely an aberration.

Panther Racing will unite an American driver with their National Guard sponsorship for the first time in 2011 as J.R. Hildebrand, the 2009 Firestone Indy Lights champion, will move up to the IZOD IndyCar Series and compete for rookie of the year honors. Dan Wheldon's replacement parlayed a two-race audition with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing last season and a successful test with Panther at Phoenix earlier this month into multi-year job security.

The goal for any IndyCar team is to hire the fastest and most skilled driver possible. Hildebrand, with his successful Lights experiences and Formula One test at the end of 2009, fits the bill. He's had success thus far in just about every formula he's competed in, and leads an impressive class of young American drivers moving up the ranks - one that also includes Jonathan Summerton, Josef Newgarden, Alexander Rossi, and Conor Daly, among others.

But Hildebrand offers something else to the series, something that had previously been taken for granted: a distinctly American superstar.

The IRL used to have Sam Hornish, who won titles for Panther in 2001 and 2002 with the stars and stripes running down the side of his car. But as the CART contingent began to move in, the series moved more and more away from its original modus operandi, the employment of American-born oval specialists. No American has won the title since Hornish did in 2006. This year, Ryan Hunter-Reay finished seventh in points to represent the best finish for an American-born driver; that represents an all-time low.

Hunter-Reay, Patrick, and Andretti have all done their part for American open-wheel racing, of course. Hunter-Reay's wins on the road courses at Surfers Paradise, Watkins Glen, and Long Beach over the course of his career help dispel the notion that only foreign-born drivers excel on the road courses; Patrick has become a household name, perhaps IndyCar's best link to the general public until her NASCAR forays this year; no name better defines American open-wheel racing than Andretti.

But none of those drivers have earned the nickname "Captain America." None of them carry the flag on their car (and while some American drivers do on their helmets, the helmet isn't as distinctive or identifying for the driver as it was in the past). None drive a red, white, and blue car. Hildebrand will do all three in 2011.

Hildebrand's got two other qualities that make him unique. First, he's a racer, pure and simple. You name it, Hildebrand's done demonstration runs in it, from old Formula 1 cars to high-powered street cars. Before signing the National Guard deal, his Twitter background featured a picture of the great Steve McQueen.

Second, he's almost universally liked and respected in the IndyCar community. Patrick and Andretti are occasionally lambasted for their celebrity. Not Hildebrand, who is one of the friendliest faces in the garage. Who else would take to Twitter to personally thank every single person who sent him a congratulatory message? Not many drivers.

For too long, the personable, all-American IndyCar driver has been missing from a series that desperately needs something distinctly American in its identity. It's part of the reason why the series has dropped off so much in the eyes of the American motorsports fan. In fact, any true IndyCar fan should be rooting for Hildebrand to succeed - there's no driver better equipped to solve that problem than he is. He might even replace Hornish as the series' next American champion someday.

For now, Captain America will keep charging to the front - but it won't be long until he's the sport's next star.

Opinion: IndyCar Fans Need To Bring The Hate

Twitter is a fabulous distraction when you're bored - or, alternately, during the commercial breaks of football games on Sunday. It's especially fun to peruse through your follower list and see the strange bedfellows that are made during some matchups, none of them strangers than some of my blogging colleagues (and Indianapolis natives) rooting for the New England Patriots during their matchup with the Chicago Bears yesterday.

Now, being a Boston native, I found this hilarious. The Patriots and the Colts, despite the odd geographic combination, comprise one of the best rivalries in all of sports right now, up there with Yankees-Red Sox, Steelers-Ravens, LeBron James and Brett Favre-the world, and so on. These are intensely polarizing matchups; each side's fans paint their team as a group of heroes, while the other side is rendered as villains worse than Kim Jong Il.

Seeing some of these diehards jump ship for a day, if only to root against a team they somehow hate even more, is humorous and interesting at the same time. Sports psychologists could probably write a book on it.

But it brought me to an important realization: we don't really have a "bad guy" in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

NASCAR has Kyle Busch, the mercurial wunderkind who carries himself with all the grace of a raging alcoholic. Busch has a checkers-or-wreckers attitude that frequently gets him into hot water with his competitors; it's hard to walk through the NASCAR garage and see somebody who hasn't been pissed off by a Rowdy Busch outburst or daring move in the final laps of some race.

That hatred sells, though. Because of that strong contingent that loves Busch, me included, his souvenir sales are among the tops in the business. He's handsomely paid, or at least paid well enough to have started his own Truck Series team. And because of all the boos he garners week in and week out, he's a constant media presence, one of the few drivers in the sport that is always in the middle of a story.

It's not the nicest thing to say in the world, but let's face facts. We sports fans love to hate. Colts fans hate the Patriots. Celtics fans hate the Lakers. As a lifelong Boston Bruins fan, I despise the Montreal Canadiens organization with all my heart for their dirty play and tendency to employ thugs. Pick a sports team, any sports team, and ask one of their fans about a hated enemy, and see if you hear anything different. Hatred - and the necessity of subjective analysis - are the two things that separate sports from the other major news subjects of the world. (That would explain why so many sports blogs exist.)

But what do we have in IndyCar for a true rivalry? The closest thing that's come up as of late is Danica Patrick-Tony Kanaan, and that's got too many issues with it. Open wheel lifers love Kanaan; he's been a full-timer since 1998, has won championships, and is a friendly (if intense) guy. Patrick brought in an entire new fanbase to the sport, and while she may draw the ire of more fans in this rivalry, she can't be the villain per se because of how much marketing money is spent on her. It just doesn't make marketing sense to paint your most popular driver as the bad one, does it?

The closest thing that we have right now to hatred is our dislike for the dominance of Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing. Many bloggers refer to them, somewhat derisively, as the "Red Cars" or the "Death Star." It's a start, I suppose. But of the five drivers on those two teams, there's nobody with a really abrasive personality. Helio Castroneves is one of the sport's most popular drivers, rarely caught without a smile on his face. Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe are generally personable. IndyCar fans are still getting used to Will Power. Scott Dixon is comically neutral, at least if you read the old Silent Pagoda posts on him.

It's the wrong kind of hatred. We can't just have everybody rooting against the concept of domination, because it happens in every form of racing. But what else do IndyCar fans really have to hate? ESPN, particularly Marty Reid and/or Nicole Briscoe? The International Speedway Corporation? Danica's threat to jump ship to NASCAR - even though some of us want her gone?

Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing here. It is pretty cool that a newcomer can step into the sport, pick just about any driver as their favorite, and share a mutual respect for the rest of the field after watching a race or two. Maybe that's part of what makes us unique. But I'm not so sure.

Somebody's gotta step up and become that universal villain, much like Kyle Busch in NASCAR, to take us to the next level. They need to be just as talented on the track as they are abrasive off of it, they need to get under people's skin, and most importantly, they need to win races, or challenge for the championship.

Could it be a reinvented J.R. Hildebrand, as a hotshot rookie with Panther Racing? Could Marco Andretti live up to his family name? Could it be Alex Tagliani, Mario Moraes, or Paul Tracy? Hell, could it even be Danica? There are plenty of possibilities.

But until somebody steps up, I guess we have to focus our disgust on corporate entities. That'll totally get us somewhere.

Opinion: A Quantum Leap Back Towards Legitimacy

Those of you lamenting the recent unqualified ride-buyer trend in the IZOD IndyCar Series, take note.

IndyCar's TEAM program - which allocates about $1.3 million to full-time teams in lieu of purse money in 16 of the series' 17 events - has been restructured to accommodate 22, instead of the previous 24, teams.

Those sitting on the sidelines? The second cars of Conquest Racing - which saw five pay drivers take the reins this year - and Dale Coyne Racing, who employed the relentlessly mocked and embarrassingly slow Milka Duno.

With that single step, IndyCar drew a hard line in the ground between who deserves to be there and who doesn't.

Granted, the reality is slightly more complex than that for Conquest. They started the season with Mario Romancini and added Bertrand Baguette in a second car after missing the series' first two events. As the season went on, Romancini yielded to other drivers with more money, and Baguette became the team's lead driver, the two cars' numbers - 34 for the lead car, 36 for Baguette - swapped in reflection. But in the end, the 34 (now Baguette's team), the more deserving team, got paid, and the 36 didn't.

Of course, it seems like a slap in the face to longtime owners Dale Coyne and Eric Bachelart, ex-CART drivers and Champ Car owners. And in a way, it is. These guys have their own side of the story - neither are big-time owners with multi-million dollar sponsorship contracts like Chip Ganassi or Michael Andretti. Neither can afford to employ too many drivers that don't bring at least some money with them.

But, at the same time, they chose to bring on drivers who were clearly miles off the pace. Duno drew the ire of competitors for her consistently slow times, as she has since joining the series. Meanwhile, Bachelart brought on the previously unknown Francesco Dracone, who wasn't much faster in his brief audition with the team, and followed him with Tomas Scheckter and Roger Yasukawa.

Understanding that drivers like this weren't going to cut it if IndyCar ever wants to approach NASCAR again in legitimacy, Randy Bernard and Brian Barnhart had to act quickly. They started by putting Duno on probation over the summer and threatened not to renew her license for 2011; she's not likely to be back. Now the TEAM parameters have been adjusted to penalize the two owners most guilty of hiring unqualified talent last season.

Don't think the rest of the sport isn't taking notice.

While Jimmy Vasser is attempting to retain all three drivers from last year's horror show at KV Racing Technology, he's also talked enthusiastically about putting Paul Tracy, the 2003 CART champion, into a full-time ride after two years of limited schedules. Panther Racing is looking at J.R. Hildebrand, the 2009 Firestone Indy Lights champion, for their lone seat. Chip Ganassi appears poised to start a two-car satellite team out of ex-drag racer Don Prudhomme's shop with young American standouts Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball.

And perhaps best of all, after a dismal 2010 that saw the team suffer through poor runs with Hideki Mutoh and only employ Rahal for five races - a long way to fall from their seventh place performance in 2009 - Newman/Haas Racing is testing 2010 Lights runner-up James Hinchcliffe and longtime Champ Car stalwart Oriol Servia at Sebring International Raceway in mid-December with the intent of bringing both to the series in 2011.

There's not a single driver on that list that doesn't have the confidence and respect of the majority of the IndyCar paddock. Most have taken victories in IndyCar, Champ Car, or Indy Lights. The only one who hasn't, Kimball, had four runner-up finishes in Lights this year.

That's a huge jump forward from Duno, Dracone, and Mutoh, and an even bigger jump forward from past backmarkers like Marty Roth, Kosuke Matsuura, and Enrique Bernoldi.

It also puts potential sponsors in a bit more of a pressing position. It's still a free market, under which they can shift money to whomever they please. But in order to tap into IndyCar's highly populated markets, desirable fan demographic, and recent positive momentum, and to make sure that the team they work with gets paid at the end of the season, they have to hire a driver with the chops to put on a good show and not stink up the back of the grid.

And, like it was in the sport's heyday, the only ones lamenting will be the ones who aren't fast enough to make the cut.

Opinion: Sarah Fisher's Groundbreaking Transition

Today's big IZOD IndyCar Series news came out of the Sarah Fisher Racing camp, as team namesake Sarah Fisher announced her retirement from IndyCar competition. While her No. 67 Dollar General Dallara-Honda will return to competition next season for nine races, Ed Carpenter will be its new driver.

Fisher steps aside after 25 years competing in various forms of racing, dating back to her early childhood. Ever since her early start, she's been a go-getter and an overachiever, scoring everything from multiple World Karting Association championships to IndyCar drives, all the way up to a Formula 1 test with McLaren-Mercedes in 2002. Off the track, she's even written a book, entitled "99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Getting Behind the Wheel of Their Dream Job". You name it, she's done it.

She first began contemplating a transition out of the car earlier this year, when she gave Graham Rahal a three-race deal to drive the No. 67 to keep him in practice as he looked for more consistent employment. With three full seasons gone by since her last top-10 finish, a seventh place in IndyCar's first Iowa event, and a family-owned team running a part-time schedule against such superpowers as Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske, her prospects for taking the checkers as a winning driver were slim.

But Fisher showed that she could still hang up front with the big boys at Chicagoland this year. She took the lead under caution thanks to an alternate pit strategy, holding it for 10 laps. Although Ryan Briscoe got by her soon after the green flag waved again, she managed to hold her position in the top five for quite a while afterward. If anybody ever doubted that she still had the skills to run up front, even after her brief NASCAR sojourn in the middle of the decade, Chicagoland was their rebuttal.

Now, Fisher transitions into her most difficult and important role yet: full-time team owner.

Yes, this will be Sarah Fisher Racing's fourth IZOD IndyCar Series season, so it's not as if Fisher hasn't had to face those difficult ownership decisions before. Things will certainly be less tense around the SFR shop than they were in 2008, when she and husband Andy O'Gara formed the team out of pocket. That year, a sponsorship disaster with RESQ Energy Drink and an Indianapolis 500 accident nearly sidelined the team for good before it could even get off the ground.

Things have been looking up ever since Dollar General stepped in for two late 2008 events. The team expanded to two cars for 2010, adding Jay Howard to a limited slate of events, and of course had the popular Rahal compete in three events.

Now with Carpenter behind the wheel for the team in 2011, and the elimination of the perpetually off-the-pace second car, Fisher can fully focus on building a strong race team that will compete for IndyCar wins and championships for years to come. Carpenter and Fisher alike have been featured in successful and popular IndyCar marketing programs over the past few years; while Fisher has become a prominent face in Dollar General marketing, Carpenter has represented longtime Indy sponsor Menards and newcomer Fuzzy's Vodka in the past few years. The tandem of two affable American racers with old-school roots (both came from USAC backgrounds) should prove interesting to new potential sponsors.

Of course, Fisher's transition to full-time ownership represents a step forward for IndyCar for more reasons than that. Most forms of motorsport have never seen a top team led by a female owner, IndyCar included. Fisher has the potential to do that with SFR.

IndyCar has already asserted itself as a predominant form of racing for minority drivers, especially women; a record five female drivers attempted to qualify for the 2010 Indianapolis 500, with four - Fisher, Danica Patrick, Simona de Silvestro, and Ana Beatriz - competing on race day. But of the four, only Fisher was financing her own car (not counting Patrick's equity stake in her Andretti Autosport team). And Fisher almost put two cars in the race, with Howard only failing to make the race due to faulty Bump Day strategy. That's a big deal for such a small team, no matter how many cars show up.

Fisher has been embracing the ownership role more than that of driver as of late, anyway. Putting Rahal in the car was a solid move that led to the team's first-ever top-10 finish, a ninth place run at St. Petersburg. It was a decision to improve her team's performance, not to feed her ego and keep her in the car, and it paid off. Fisher gave her sponsor a top-flight driver and a chance to make some noise in their brief time together, and garnered a lot of respect from IndyCar fans and competitors - not only for employing the best driver not to have a full-time ride, but also for knowing when to step aside for the benefit of her team.

Now, the team has a chance to score some underdog oval wins with Carpenter, who came tantalizingly close to pulling out another surprise Kentucky victory this year. And Carpenter has another chance to learn the road courses, his longtime Achilles' heel in IndyCar competition.

Who knows, a strong 2011 season could attract enough sponsors for full-time competition in 2012, when new chassis and engines debut. And in the mess that comes with a blank slate, you never know what a little team could pull out of its hat.

Could Sarah Fisher be the first female owner to win an IZOD IndyCar Series race? Perhaps even the first to win an Indianapolis 500? Don't doubt it. She's never been one not to accomplish her goals.

RIP, Silent Pagoda

I don't normally write this way on this blog. I go for the newsy-type stuff, the occasional opinion piece, some ill-received photo posts, you know, stuff like that. It is with great infrequency that I write as myself, but this is one of those days.

Today, the IndyCar community welcomed a brand new race car factory to Speedway, IN, as Dallara broke ground on a factory that will produce the safety cells for the sport starting in 2012. It was a monumental day for the company, the city, and the sport, helping bring all three into the future.

But for us bloggers, this beautiful sunny day was not without a subsequent torrential downpour. Today we received word that the Silent Pagoda, that wonderful bastion of humor that was "only vaguely related to IndyCar", would be shut down, its proprietor Roy Hobbson posting a fond farewell to the blogosphere this morning (or, mourning, if you prefer).

The loss hit us all like a ton of bricks. To call Roy a "valued member of the community" would be a grossly inappropriate statement for two reasons: first of all, because his posts were absolutely batsh*t INSANE, and second of all, because he was far more important to us than that.

We call ourselves fans of an intensely political sport, which has seen its share of problems to that end for decades. In my lifetime, we've seen everything from this year's Twitter wars between the Briscoes and EVERYBODY to the CART-IRL split way back when I was in preschool. We've seen all sorts of controversy, from the Penske Mercedes 500I at Indy in 1994 to the Delta Wing this year. And we've seen good races, like those at Chicagoland and Road America, say farewell, while boring races, like those at Infineon and Mid-Ohio, remain on the schedule.

To Roy, a self-proclaimed IndyCar outsider, nothing was sacred. He spent the better part of three years tearing apart all of the idiocy that exists in our sport, and he created some amazing characters along the way - most notably of all himself. He turned Cameron Haven into a world-changing time-traveler, E.J. Viso into The Most Interesting Man In The World, and Scott Dixon into the subject of a mood finder. And most of that was just in the second half of this season.

We'd been keen on the possibility of losing the Pagoda for a little while now, since about the day of this year's season finale. "It's not 'in question.' It's over. (Probably.)", he tweeted to one person. But we held out hope after reading this year's Paggies, the annual awards post detailing the best of the best (and the worst) in the sport this year.

But we heard nothing else about it for a while. "Everything's up in the air right now with the Pagoda," he tweeted to me last week. "Indecision is fun!" Then came today.

Personally, I idolized Roy. Maybe it was because I'm a college-aged male, or the perfect candidate to do plenty of the stupid things described in his posts. Maybe it was because he never had anything but nice things to say to me, even as I felt my own comment contributions to his wonderful site were subpar. Maybe it was because the man could turn a post about remodeling his bathroom into a call to IndyCar fans to get over all the damn politics and pretense and get excited for this season's finale at Homestead. Maybe it was all of that and then some.

I want to reference a favorite Pagoda post here, but there are too many that I want to link to. It was consistently absolutely hilarious. And in the few instances when it wasn't, it was because it had something to say that none of us in our narrow IndyCar-based worlds would have come up with in a thousand years. Humor was the Pagoda's forte, like the Coyote chassis was A.J. Foyt's. But Foyt built engines... and the Pagoda had plenty to teach us.

So Roy, if you're reading, know that we're going to miss your wit and the Pagoda. She WAS a good site. And if you don't tag onto somebody else's site for next year, and are looking to get back in the game, give me a call - I'll buy the damn website, and all the trademarks, from IndyCar for you, and she's all yours. I mean it.

Chris

Opinion: Andretti Going Out on a Limb for 2011 and Beyond

Ryan Hunter-Reay chose to break the news on Twitter.

"Thanks to all of you! Very happy to continue with a great team. Lots of work to do now, we're up for it," Hunter-Reay tweeted to his nearly 10,000 followers, after signing a two-year deal to remain in the IZOD IndyCar Series with Andretti Autosport, the team that picked him up at the beginning of this season.

Hunter-Reay will look to improve on a 2010 season that saw a victory in the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and a career-best seventh place points finish. To that end, he will spend time testing at Barber Motorsports Park for the next couple of days. "Testing in October is a first for me," he joked, referring to his longtime career path of signing one-year contracts just before the season's start.

But as Andretti retains one of its top two drivers from the previous season, the other one says farewell. After eight years spent driving the No. 11 7-Eleven Dallara-Honda, Tony Kanaan will say goodbye to the team. Kanaan leaves behind a record of 14 wins, over 100 top-10s, and the 2004 IndyCar championship.

Kanaan was, for the past few years, the undisputed leader of the four-car Andretti brigade, at least as far as seniority was concerned. His help with car setups proved immensely valuable to his teammates, and he is perhaps the best mid-pack starter in the sport, frequently passing half a dozen cars on the first lap after subpar qualifying runs.

This year, however, was an unpleasant one to say the least for the Andretti brigade. After a winless 2009 season, an offseason restructuring was designed to strengthen Andretti's racing operations. The team scored two wins, but as had happened for the past few years, driver infighting threatened to tear the team apart.

The Andretti dream team of 2005 they were not. Kanaan, Marco Andretti, and Danica Patrick once again proved that they were an unstable combination prone to feuding on the track and off. Kanaan's frustrations with Patrick - and vice versa - were well-documented all season. Only Hunter-Reay really managed to keep out of the mess and go about his business while maintaining solid relationships with all of his teammates.

That's why he's back for 2011 and beyond. Unfortunately for Kanaan, he became a victim of the money in racing. Despite being the bottom two performers on the Andretti team, Patrick and Andretti have two of the biggest sponsorship contracts in the sport tied to them.

Hunter-Reay, like Kanaan, went into the offseason with no sponsorship, with both of their 2010 primary backers shifting their marketing dollars to Patrick's car, allowing them greater exposure at a lower price. But at a similar level of performance and assumedly a much lower price, Hunter-Reay was easier to retain.

Therefore, it was easy to figure out whose $3 million contract was going to be terminated.

Now Kanaan becomes the most coveted open-wheel free agent in years. Just about every mid-level team in the sport is looking at him with designs on how he can take him to the next level. Kanaan is a warrior that knows how to set up a racecar, weave through traffic, and take a car to the end. Plenty of teams would love to have him to mentor their young drivers.

He'll be in IndyCar in 2011, undoubtedly. KV Racing Technology has two fully-sponsored seats open for next year, carrying the Lotus backing, and after this season's crashfest, owner Jimmy Vasser would certainly love to have a driver that doesn't tear up equipment in one of his cars. Brazilian countryman and Kanaan's former CART rival Gil de Ferran, who leads de Ferran Dragon Motorsports, would love to have Kanaan to mentor another young Brazilian, Raphael Matos, who could really use a teammate. The possibilities go on and on.

The real question is, what will Andretti do without a bona fide lead driver?

Let me rephrase. Performance-wise, Hunter-Reay is lead driver-caliber. He's a proven race winner and will be a championship contender for years to come. But he doesn't quite fit the leader role the way that Kanaan does, in that he's not at the stage of his career where other Andretti drivers are going to look up to him as their mentor. He's been at Andretti the shortest amount of time, for one, and he's also only been in IndyCar about as long as his teammates.

But Andretti doesn't look likely to find a replacement for Kanaan in the fourth car. There is no setup driver anymore. There's one championship-caliber race car driver and two decent drivers that have less than stellar reputations with the IndyCar faithful. Marco still gets criticized from time to time about his level of commitment to the sport. Danica gets it no matter where she turns, especially with her NASCAR experimentation.

Simply put, team owner Michael Andretti has a lot of guts going with the team he has right now for 2011 and beyond.

Perhaps it won't matter. Perhaps with less infighting, the entire team will take its performance up a notch. Kanaan was a different breed of driver than Patrick and Andretti. He was undoubtedly the best driver, statistically speaking, on the team. But he had different expectations and needs than everybody else. Not that those needs were any better or worse intrinsically than those of his teammates, they just didn't mesh.

And perhaps, as the undisputed leader on another team, Kanaan will take somebody else to the upper echelons of the sport, or at least a top-10 spot in the final standings. Maybe Raphael Matos, Mike Conway, or some other up-and-comer will benefit far more from Kanaan's advice and leadership. Maybe they'll be more patient and easier to work with than Patrick and Andretti were.

It's always sad when any sort of long-term relationship ends. But maybe, just this once, things will work out better for both sides. Maybe the current Andretti trio will mesh beautifully. Maybe Kanaan will be more appreciated elsewhere.

And maybe, we'll see one of the best rivalries that IndyCar has had in a long time next year.

Opinion: 2011 Schedule Slightly Incomplete

IZOD IndyCar Series drivers and personnel gathered at the Milwaukee Mile this morning to announce the series' 2011 schedule. CEO Randy Bernard, flanked by current drivers Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe and a handful of key track executives, announced the 17-race plan for next year.

As Robin Miller unveiled to SpeedTV.com a couple of days ago, the new schedule dropped all traces of events at tracks owned by the International Speedway Corporation, replacing them with events at Baltimore, New Hampshire, the Mile, and a to-be-announced oval season finale that will likely go to Las Vegas.

It's a solid schedule that captures many of the sport's historic best tracks. It sacrifices the intense pack racing of Chicagoland, something akin to a superspeedway race in NASCAR, for the trickier, more demanding short and flat ovals at New Hampshire and Milwaukee. It preserves many of the sport's best events while also adding Baltimore, which (if all goes to plan) will become sort of a Long Beach East, and a Labor Day weekend staple. Even more interesting is the choice to make the Indianapolis 500 the first oval race of the year.

And yet something feels missing with a 17-race schedule.

It's true that the past few years have featured some of the largest schedules ever sanctioned by the Indy Racing League. But recall that the IRL was for many years the underdog to CART, a more established series with many bigger names. If you consider the heyday of modern American open-wheel racing to be CART under FedEx sponsorship from 1998 to 2002, you'll notice that the schedule always featured at least 19 events. The series even went up to 21 races on some occasions.

A lot of CART's best tracks - Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, and Road America, to name three - have been left off of this year's schedule, to the disappointment of many fans. All three tracks put on some fantastic shows in their CART tenures, and while it is important to note that the Dallara IndyCar is an entirely different racecar than the Lolas and Reynards that used to run in CART, many of the same drivers (in fact, eight of the top 13 in CART's 2002 points) are now involved in the IRL as drivers or team owners.

Of course, Bernard understands that the IRL was originally designed as an ovals-only series, meant to combat the dearth of foreign drivers that were winning races and championships in CART. (The last American CART champion was Jimmy Vasser in 1996.) He's done his best to balance the ovals and road courses on the current schedule, currently settling on an eight oval, nine road course tilt that is in many ways no different from this year's. It's not at all a bad schedule.

But people have commented recently that enough interest exists from tracks and promoters to feasibly put on 24 races. Perhaps this is infeasible for the teams, which have been taking on pay-drivers for a number of years now to stay afloat, but with such interest, you begin to wonder why 20 events are not possible, at the very least.

This would also open up the series to return to the two big ovals at Michigan and California. While they are both ISC tracks, and ISC has been somewhat of an unwilling partner with the series at times (remember, they are the same family in charge of NASCAR), the Michigan and California events almost always produced good racing. One of the more popular ideas among fans over the past couple of months was the idea of a "Triple Crown" of IndyCar - three 500-mile races at Michigan, California, and Indianapolis. It'd eradicate the dumb, old IRL policy that only the Indy 500 could be a 500-mile event, and it'd drum up significant interest.

Adding Laguna Seca and replacing the often-panned Mid-Ohio with Road America would set us at a 20-race schedule, perhaps one of the best in American open-wheel history. Almost all of the stinkers would be gone, save for Edmonton, which may yet be turned around by a solid race promoter.

Granted, Bernard and his staff are still attempting to bring the series out of the depths of bush league. It's a long process to bring in some of these races, and with many pre-existing contracts in place, it's a costly endeavor to cancel some races and then attempt to negotiate others. If the fans were guaranteed to step up and attend those new races, make them profitable, and make thew series a little more relevant in the sporting world as we know it, it'd be one thing, but we have no guarantees on that front.

In the meantime, it looks like we'll have to take this 17-race schedule, appreciate what we're getting, and hope that 2012 brings an even better group of events.

Opinion: A New, Edgier IndyCar

When Cameron Haven and Kimberly Phillips appeared in a Playboy.com video a couple weeks ago modeling IZOD IndyCar Series apparel, it sent the blogosphere into a titter. Some longtime series fans, especially women, objected at the nature of the video, saying it went beyond the exploitation of women that even GoDaddy.com uses in their television ads. The video was provocative indeed, with the two women baring almost everything (but nothing deemed explicit by American standards) for the camera.

And in the end, the photo shoot and video did exactly what they were designed to do: they got people talking.

Now, this wasn't the type of thing that most other major professional sports would do. Far from it. Yes, Playboy has a lengthy racing history, but they've never been allowed on a stock car; instead, much of the bunny's recent racing exploits have come in European touring cars, where sexuality is a lot less taboo, and in American sports car racing, where there is a much smaller chance of a large public outcry against the brand. Its support has almost never been detrimental to any series.

In a way, Playboy is exactly the kind of supporter that IndyCar needs at this point in time.

For one, getting IZOD and Playboy involved took IndyCar's desire to capitalize on the sex appeal of racing to a whole new level. Does anybody remember the brilliantly half-assed "Sexier Drivers" campaign? No people, no cars, just white text on a black background with the series' shield next to it. It was about as visually interesting as your everyday encyclopedia. I think you'd be hard-pressed to remember the ad campaign.

But this, on the other hand? We're not going to forget a Playboy shoot anytime soon. It was provocative without doing anything to damage outright the series' reputation. It had front-page status on Playboy.com, which is clearly no slouch of a website. And I'm sure that such exposure at least reintroduced the brand in some subconscious sense to a good amount of people.

Witness what Rally America, the United States' sanctioning body for rally car racing, has done to entrench itself in the public eye. They've painted rallying as an "extreme sport," which - although almost certainly demeaning to the European professionals - gives the sport a unique and memorable identity here in the States. It also opens up the sport for an edgier sponsor base, with all of the big four energy drinks keeping the sport afloat, much like cigarette companies did before tobacco advertising was banned.

The American way of doing rally-car racing has attracted big names to the sport. Motocross champion Travis Pastrana. DC Shoes founder Ken Block. 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner and former IndyCar champion Kenny Brack. The list goes on.

Better still, bringing rallying to events like the X Games has opened it up to a brand new, younger fan base that would have never cared about the sport otherwise. Rallycross is one of the most popular events at the X Games. People pack the Home Depot Center to watch it, year after year.

IndyCar ought to take a page out of Rally America's book, by taking a traditional form of racing and marketing it in a way that makes people perceive it as edgy.

Purists will scoff at the notion of revamping IndyCar in such a way. Some fans would like to see the roadsters of the 1950s return to the track. It'd be nice; from a pure racing standpoint, it would be the ultimate competition. But unfortunately, the Indy Racing League has painted itself into a corner where they must do everything possible to re-establish a brand that was on life support before IZOD entered the picture.

Remember that John Barnes, the owner of Panther Racing, pointed to the younger generations as the future of the IndyCar fan base. I'm 19; I know what my peers in Generations X and Y like. I may not always agree with the hottest trends myself, but I have an idea of what works.

Brands that create interesting ads - Old Spice, for example - need to be enticed into the series, by presenting them with drivers who can act as spokespersons on and off the track. I've been saying for a little while now that Graham Rahal and Old Spice would be a great fit, especially if we could get Rahal to grow his father's trademark mustache. It'd also get the series' best young American talent back on track, at a time where part of IndyCar's downward spiral is owed to European drivers bringing their own sponsors from home. American fans just can't relate to those guys quite as well.

(Not to get all jingoistic once again, but part of my criteria for these spokespeople is that they be American. It just has to be, for the reasons I've stated above. Also, I'm not really promoting the cause of American open-wheel racing, or living up to my website's name, if I'm not going to at least go to bat every once in a while for guys like J.R. Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter, Charlie Kimball, Townsend Bell, Jonathan Summerton...)

K-Swiss has also jumped into the "edgy ad" department recently, hiring actor Danny McBride to reprise his Kenny Powers character from HBO's hit comedy Eastbound and Down in a series of ads with real K-Swiss athletes. (If you don't watch the show, Powers is a washed-up ex-pitcher who's looking to regain big league glory.) In effect, as a recent Silent Pagoda post highlights, he's Paul Tracy in another sport. They're both closer to the end of their careers than the beginning, they're both intensely confident, and they both have no problem messing with you if you get in their way. An ad campaign with the two of them facing off would be gold.

Finally, all four of the energy drink brands have had an IndyCar presence in the recent past - Monster with Tracy, NOS with Dan Wheldon, Red Bull with Buddy Rice, and Rockstar with Tomas Enge. But the two sponsors that actually used to serve as primary sponsors - the latter two - have moved out of the sport entirely, with Red Bull going stock car racing and Rockstar shifting its marketing dollars into drifting. It's these brands - and their thick checkbooks - that need to be brought back into the sport.

Imagine how popular a team of Tracy and Robby Gordon would be at Indianapolis for Monster. Picture a NOS ad campaign with their two top drivers, Wheldon and NASCAR's Kyle Busch, facing off in various extreme challenges.

Better yet, imagine two more zany Red Bull drivers on the track for the full season. Maybe Rice is gone for good, but keep in mind how many drivers Red Bull sponsors across various forms of racing. Indy Lights leader Jean-Karl Vernay was an ex-Red Bull driver. Recent Formula 1 champion Kimi Raikkonen rallies in Europe with their backing right now. If Red Bull validated Indy Lights by giving its champion a full-time ride (sorry about this year, J.R. Hildebrand) and brought an ex-Formula 1 champion into the sport again, Nigel Mansell style, the value for IndyCar would be enormous.

This isn't even taking into consideration the brands that already have a presence in the sport. The National Guard would love to have a greater young fan base to work with, I'm sure. Racing has been an important recruiting tool for the Guard in recent years, and having more teens and young adults to recruit as a direct result of edgier brands entering the series would only help them.

Better yet, IndyCar can do this while still preserving the more "adult" brands in the sport (and no, I don't mean the Playboy kind of "adult"). Target, for example, has a potential goldmine in Dario Franchitti, especially if they can get Ashley Judd involved somehow. Will Power will need a little time to develop a stronger commercial persona for Verizon, but it can be done.

And let's be honest - the brands lending their names to engines in 2012 are not going to be the Scions and Kias of the world. They're going to be Honda, Lotus, and (if Roger Penske's alliance with Fiat Chrysler is as strong as I think it is) Alfa Romeo, returning to America after quite a while away. And BMW, while not guaranteed by any means, have alliances in sports cars and car dealerships with a handful of top open-wheel teams. Brand loyalty is important to establish at a young age, and lending their names to these IndyCars will give the younger demographic some luxury brands to aspire to in the future. (Keep in mind that IndyCar is the only American sport that can really do this, with a fan base that generally makes a comfortable salary every year and can potentially afford these vehicles.)

IndyCar needs to open itself up to those edgier brands by creating a cost-effective environment for potential sponsors, while also offering them solid spokespersons that can actually drive a racecar. The ones who are already in the sport aren't going to shy away from the larger and more coveted marketing demographic that the Red Bulls and Playboys of the world will bring in - they'll take advantage of it. After all, marketing is a business, and isn't that what business is about - taking advantage of the opportunities presented to you?

The Playboy shoot was the first step in that direction for IndyCar. Now it's time to go further.

Opinion: CART II the Last Thing We Need... Sort Of

In the past couple of weeks, more and more IZOD IndyCar Series owners have been expressing their displeasure with the way that things have been shaping up for the 2012 season under the watchful eye of new series CEO Randy Bernard.

They've begun to complain about the costs of a new car, wanting it to be pushed back to 2014. They don't seem to have the prerequisite amount of trust in Bernard or new car czar Tony Cotman to make the new program a success. Worst of all, they seem to feel as if they weren't really consulted on the new car program, featuring smaller engines and a Dallara "safety cell" that can be outfitted with multiple aero kits.

Fortunately, the IndyCar nation - especially the blogosphere - have called out the owners on their complaints, leading plenty of them to back off. Tony Johns at Pop Off Valve wrote, "The general consensus was that with aging inventory and stagnant technology, the series would actually die if steps were not taken to change things... I can't possibly imagine how a complete turnover for Delta Wings is any different at all from a complete turnover for the 2012 ICONIC spec - except for who is holding the political reins."

Longtime IndyCar writer and Speed Channel correspondent Robin Miller added, "It’s sad enough to think they held a new car revolt meeting at Sonoma without inviting Bernard and it’s insulting to hear supposedly intelligent racers lead a witch hunt after six months... To think he busts his ass and may not have the owners’ unanimous support is as ignorant as it is maddening. Just remember this: he’s trying to clean up the mess you’ve helped make of open wheel racing. And six months ain’t nearly enough time to find a big enough mop."

Truth be told, the owners in CART did, for a time, manage to run one of the best open-wheel series America had ever seen in the mid-1990s, at least as far as on-track product was concerned. Perhaps it just looked better by comparison to the generally second-tier fields of the early Indy Racing League, but CART at one time had all the big manufacturers, the top chassis builders in the country, most of the best open-wheel tracks in North America (and popular stops in Brazil and Australia) and a list of drivers whose pedigree is unquestioned, save by a few Formula 1 fans.

What killed that series was serial mismanagement - poor investments, the decision to take the company public, not showing up to those first IRL events in 1996 and smoking the little guys, instead of boycotting the sport's biggest race as they did for years. While it's nice to think that the people running the race teams have some idea of what works and what doesn't, the past 15 years have done little to prove this theory.

From an outsider's perspective, the only logical reason why any of the current owners would boycott the new car program is because current series partner Dallara, and not the owner-bankrolled Delta Wing, won the contract. That's a lot of Chip Ganassi's money that went for naught in the end.

The general theory is that the owners are simply complaining about where they're writing the checks. Any business owner anywhere knows that when a large turnover cost is looming in the somewhat distant future, you set aside money for it. True, IndyCar's value may be lower than ever, with a miserable television contract, threats to the TEAM compensation system, and even the great Roger Penske looking for sponsorship. But the owners did it to themselves over the past 15 years.

Bernard and Cotman can solve this easily enough by calling up Ben Bowlby at Delta Wing and asking their help in developing the new car. Heaven knows Cotman doesn't need it - the Panoz DP01 that he oversaw was one of the most beautiful open-wheel racecars to ever see an American circuit - but the political implications would be huge. At the very least, it'd shut up some of the series' power players and make them feel like they were a bit better represented in the new car development. (What, Gil de Ferran's presence in ICONIC wasn't good enough for you guys?)

But while we're on the topic of CART, it's safe to say that at least some of the things that made that series so popular during its heyday should be analyzed and brought back in time for the new car. The option for multiple engines and aero kits, if not entire chassis, is a step in that direction; it adds a visual variable to IndyCar that we haven't seen in years of spec cars and single engine manufacturers. The single safety cell and ability to switch aero kits during the season also protects teams from getting stuck with massively underperforming cars, like the Eagle-Toyotas that All American Racers fielded in 1996.

CART had, for the first few years of the split, all of the better open-wheel races, other than the Indianapolis 500. While returns to Michigan and California seem unlikely (due to ISC's ownership of those tracks... and that's even another story), plenty of the other tracks and cities on the schedule hosted popular events. Surfers Paradise produced a different winner almost every year -how's that for parity? Remember Alex Zanardi's pass in the Laguna Seca corkscrew? Portland stayed on the schedule for over 20 years for a reason, and Cleveland would be even more fun to watch if the rumored plan of a doubleheader - one race on the old airport course, one on a new airport oval course - was instituted.

Yes, every track that I just mentioned is a road course, save the potential Cleveland airport oval. IndyCar - at least the IndyCar that Tony George founded - was devised as an oval series. A lot of the IRL apologists and purists have fumed over the series' decision to add more and more twisties over the years, but with Bruton Smith and SMI getting closer and closer to IndyCar, the series' oval fate should be in good hands. Bonus points are to be had if the series can find a way to resuscitate the Milwaukee Mile, shut down this year after a promoter dispute.

We're talking a massive series overhaul in 2012 - in the cars, the tracks, and maybe even the owners, if they're not willing to back down from the idiotic stance they've taken over the past couple of weeks.

The ideal 2012 IndyCar Series won't quite be CART II, at least insofar as the owners will not be the ones calling the shots again. But if Bernard, Cotman, and the race promoters have their way, everything that made CART great - visual on-track variation, competition between both drivers and manufacturers, the best tracks in the country (within reason), a handful of foreign events in countries that produce plenty of drivers, and (let's hope) a greater base of American talent - is attainable in the next couple of years.

All everybody needs is to get on the same page.

Opinion: Schedule Realignment Scary, But No Series Killer

Tonight's Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway will probably be one of the most exciting races of this IZOD IndyCar Series season, just because Chicagoland races usually are. Remember Sam Hornish Jr.'s win in 2002 over Al Unser Jr., to this day the closest victory in IndyCar Series history? Helio Castroneves coming from last place in 2008? Ryan Briscoe over Scott Dixon last year?

Unfortunately, it may also be the last Chicagoland race for the IndyCars. A track staple since its opening in 2001, this race may go away after nine years, as has been discussed to death on many other fine blogs.

In case you've missed it, though, a key reason why Chicagoland may lose its IndyCar date has to do with schedule realignments in NASCAR. Chicagoland is owned by the International Speedway Corporation, which has strong ties to NASCAR. The Sprint Cup Series will now run the first race of its playoffs at Chicago in September, and the second-tier Nationwide Series will run at the track on June 4 - the week after the Indianapolis 500. To run that weekend would be to go against the series' deal with Texas Motor Speedway, owned by ISC rival Speedway Motorsports Incorporated, where that track hosts the first race after Indy every year.

In fact, most of the ISC tracks on the IndyCar schedule this year - Chicago, Homestead, and Watkins Glen (a race I normally attend) - may be gone next season, though Kansas will probably remain. Former races at Richmond, California, and Michigan are gone as well. Relations between ISC and IndyCar are not bound to be the finest anyway, as ISC clearly has NASCAR priorities, and also hired longtime Indianapolis Motor Speedway employee Joie Chitwood to run their flagship track at Daytona.

Meanwhile, an alliance between SMI and IndyCar, much like the one that existed in the sanctioning body's formative years, continues to get stronger. The new race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is bound to be popular with fans and drivers alike, even if partially serving as a surrogate for the Milwaukee Mile. Las Vegas will be a welcome addition and a wonderful series finale, if CEO Bruton Smith's plans come to fruition. Races at Texas and Kentucky are always fun to watch, and Infineon Raceway actually put on quite the show this year.

Randy Bernard said in IndyCar's Loudon press conference, speaking of Smith and SMI, "If you hang out with champions, you become a champion." Hitching a ride to SMI is one way to do that, especially when Smith is showing a strong willingness to work with the series, much in the way IZOD has been on the sponsorship front. A stronger IndyCar-SMI partnership also opens a gateway for returns to Atlanta, which only has one NASCAR race weekend next season, and Charlotte, now that Humpy Wheeler is gone and the track's 1999 incident is a distant memory, could follow as well.

ISC could lock IndyCar out of some of the top ovals in the United States, sure, but only Chicago, Kansas, California, and Michigan are really suited for IndyCar racing. The first two are 1.5-mile ovals that could be replaced by SMI tracks, while the latter two haven't really hosted IndyCar races in recent memory anyway.

While Watkins Glen will be a great loss as well, it's not as if IndyCar can't return to some of the other top road courses in the country. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca tops the list of road courses that currently don't have events, and promoters in Cleveland, Houston, and Quebec City have expressed great interest in bringing IndyCar to their cities. In fact, the original plan for the Cleveland event was to run a doubleheader weekend, with one race on the old Burke Lakefront Airport road course layout and another on a new oval layout. That event would be one of the coolest on the schedule, and also serve (in a general sense) the midwestern market.

Yes, we could be losing a fantastic race in Chicagoland for next season, and as such, we ought to be savoring every moment of tonight's event. But while scary, the proposition of some new venues on the IZOD IndyCar Series schedule is not going to set the series back, or send it into a death spiral. As long as the powers that be make smart and strategic choices, bringing the series to the right markets, we can do just fine without.

Opinion: It's a Kind of Magic...

An IZOD IndyCar Series event may not have the pomp and circumstance, the television presence, or the giant in-person crowds present in some other forms of motorsports. It may not have quite as many big names as some of said other forms, even though many of those other forms' big names have passed through this series and its predecessors. And it may not have anywhere near as many overpriced merchandise trailers with products far out of the price range of the average fan.

But what an IZOD IndyCar Series event DOES have is a great group of fans who are passionate about the sport, some of the fastest and most talented drivers in the world, the promise of parity (take that, everybody else!), and the promise of becoming the biggest form of American motorsport around in just a few years.

Last weekend's Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen has become something of a tradition for my father, my dog, and me. Though we've only seen two of the six events in person, this weekend is more valuable to us than any of the other races we see over the course of a year (and there are many). We make the lengthy trek by minivan seven hours across the country, from Route 95 to 90 to 88 to a handful of New York state roads, all in the name of passion for our beloved IndyCars.

We set up the tent with the uncomfortable air mattress, or we sleep in the minivan, at our campsite near turn 10. We bring our cameras, our racing shirts, and plenty of money for the sponsors that keep this series running. And for a wonderful three days, we enjoy one of the greatest atmospheres in racing - and we're not even talking about a SIGNATURE event of the sport, like Long Beach or the Indianapolis 500.

We walk through the garages of every series, gleaning information from drivers and crew members alike about the cars they're running now and the cars they used to run. We learn about faces long gone from the sport, and faces that should be back sooner than later. We take photos of the Honda Indy V-8s and Dallara chassis that will soon say their farewells to the series.

We see just about every big name in the sport at least once. That's all about being in the right place in the right time, but if you hang around the garage long enough, you'll see every driver from Dario to Danica and every owner from Foyt to Kalkhoven. And if you're really lucky - or if you're just a fan with access to pre-race festivities - you'll be close enough to IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard to shake his hand and thank him for what he's helped do for the sport over the past six months or so.

Us IndyCar fans have a language and sense of humor all our own. That's part of what makes the weekend so great. Nobody else would laugh about Danica Patrick and Dan Wheldon standing in the back of the same truck during driver introductions. And nobody else would get a kick out of the cold glances that Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti shot one another a few trucks down in the parade.

Even the off-track events are something to behold. Last year, the Presidents of the United States of America played a fantastic concert within the track on the night before the race. This year, the two bands playing were Jimkata and Kinetix, and while neither had the name recognition or the pop-radio staples like "Peaches" and "Video Killed the Radio Star," they managed to raise an already high bar for pre-race concerts. (Of course, it's also really cool when you meet the band and find out that one of their members shares a hometown with you, and they'll be hanging out in your town in two days.)

I met some awesome people over the course of this past weekend. I gave most of you my business card with this website's name on it. Hopefully some of you read this, because I just wanted to say thanks:

To Craig at Walker Racing, thanks for answering all of my questions about the old Champ Car equipment.

To the Pepsi Max folks, you've made a Pepsi drinker out of me.

To Kinetix and Jimkata, thanks for a hell of a concert. And if you guys in Kinetix ever play a show in Newburyport again, you know I'll be there.

To the Tony Kanaan fan from Connecticut I met at the Tweetup, thanks for the conversation, you know your stuff (and I don't just say that because we agree on a lot of things).

To Doug Harrell at Harrell's Miniatures, sorry I didn't have the cash on me to buy that beautiful RS Spyder model I had my eye on.

To Dan Wheldon and Helio Castroneves, thanks for doing the book signings. And to Mike Kitchel at Panther Racing, thanks for taking my card - hopefully we can get some interviews with you guys set up.

To Mike Kelly at IZOD, I'm sorry I wasn't able to find you at the track and thank you for all that you and your company have done for the sport.

And finally, to those of you that have read my stuff in the past (and hopefully continue to do so), thanks for your time and continued patronage. It's been a great first half of the season - let's make it a great second half as well.

Some Lessons Learned the Hard Way

Let me preface this piece by asserting a few facts: I am 19 years old. I go to one of the top communication schools in the United States with the end goal of becoming a professional motorsports journalist. My location may be somewhat far away from the IndyCar hub of Indianapolis, but I follow the sport religiously and have for years, and I feel like I'm pretty knowledgeable, both about the sport and my craft.

Of course, all the schooling in the world can't prepare you for situations in which things start to go wrong.

On Tuesday, I posted an opinion piece entitled "The Plight of the American Open-Wheel Racer," which was intended to be about Ryan Hunter-Reay's inability to secure a full-time IZOD IndyCar Series ride despite having done all the right things. In that column, I mentioned the possibility of him taking over the No. 24 car for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, as lead driver Mike Conway is injured.

Those of you who read the original piece can probably figure out the mistake I made - I chalked up the wreck to "Conway being Conway." What I had meant to say was that Mike Conway is one of the more aggressive drivers in the sport, and one of the most willing to make daring on-track maneuvers, something that most will probably concede. And although I did not phrase it in a convincing way, I enjoy aggressive drivers like Conway who make the races more entertaining. "So-and-so being so-and-so" is a remark familiar to most in my area, as Boston baseball fans had to put up with the antics of Manny Ramirez for almost a decade.

Unfortunately, I meant what I meant, and I said what I said, and they turned out to be two different things. In this situation, the remark was factually inaccurate - Hunter-Reay was running out of gas, and although Conway looked to be creating a new lane at the bottom of the track if one looks at the instant replay without the context, it was not in all actuality the case.

Now, this mistake might have gone unnoticed on my part if not for an interesting email that I received as I was walking out of my house on Wednesday. It appears that, for all of the times that I wonder whether or not anybody reads what I write at all, somebody did... and the reader just so happened to be Mike Conway's manager, Mark Blundell.

1990s Formula 1 and CART fans alike probably remember Blundell as a talented driver in both disciplines. He scored three podium finishes and 32 points in his brief F1 career, scoring a point in every season in which he competed. In a five-year CART career, he won three races, all in 1997, and won Autosport Magazine's British Driver of the Year award that year. More recently, he has been involved in driver management, with Conway and Formula 1 test driver/DTM racer Gary Paffett his top two clients.

On a more personal note, Blundell was almost always my driver of choice in CART Fury, Midway's attempt to combine the excitement of CART racing and the physical impossibility of the NFL Blitz videogames into one. I would compare receiving his email to first meeting somebody you looked up to as a child by spilling a boiling pot of spaghetti sauce onto their new white suit. In other words, it's not quite the best way to introduce yourself.

Clearly I didn't pick the right time to bring up Conway's aggressive driving tendencies anyway, in effect kicking a man while he's down. Believe me, I do feel bad. It clearly was not the time to form an opinion, much less voice it, and unlike big names like Robin Miller, who get to interact with the big names on a weekly basis, I'm a kid who's just trying to get his foot in the door without pissing too many people off.

This time, things didn't exactly go to plan. You live and you learn.

But the most embarrassing part about this whole mess for me is that I clearly have no idea how many people read what I have to say, or who my readers are. My IndyCar stuff primarily comes from OpenWheelAmerica.com, but I also post my writing to BleacherReport.com, OnPitRow.com, PitRoadScene.com, and my own personal blog. It gets hard to keep track of where everything is going, who hears things where, and so on.

So from here, I regroup - I make my apologies, I lick my wounds, I move on. We all make mistakes. And in the end, things could have been a whole lot worse all the way around. Next time, I'll try to say what I mean.

Opinion: The Plight of the American Open-Wheel Racer

Saturday night's Firestone 550k was one of the best races for Andretti Autosport in recent memory. Andretti cars finished 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th, one of their best performances as a team since the 1-2-3-4 sweep at St. Petersburg in 2005. Even better for Andretti, Danica Patrick, the all-world marketing superstar who has been struggling for much of the year, was the lead driver in that pack, and even briefly made the racing difficult for eventual winner Ryan Briscoe.

But Texas may prove to be bittersweet for Andretti, as it may be the final race for fourth driver Ryan Hunter-Reay. For the second consecutive year, Hunter-Reay's status as "the IZOD driver" will only take him about a third of the way through the IZOD IndyCar Series season, before he has to find another ride on his own. Andretti's already got another driver, Adam Carroll, lined up to drive for them in a few events.

Hunter-Reay has two weeks before the next race at Iowa to figure things out. He could get lucky and, for the second year in a row, become a replacement for a driver injured in the Indianapolis 500. Last year, he replaced Vitor Meira in A.J. Foyt's famed No. 14 car; this year, he could take over for Mike Conway at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, depending on whether or not the team feels strongly about retaining the services of Tomas Scheckter... or if DRR officials feel like he was at fault for the Conway wreck, in which his car was used as the launching pad for the No. 24's trip into the wall.

Regardless, Hunter-Reay's continued plight - even with the commercial weight of the series' title sponsor behind him - says a lot about the state of American drivers in open wheel racing. Here's a driver who just won the biggest street race in the country, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. He was thisclose to winning the inauagural Sao Paulo Indy 300. Until being involved in the Conway incident, he had a solid Indy run going. He currently sits sixth in points and, with 11 races to make up 45 points, can make a solid run at this year's championship.

In other words, he's done almost everything right on track this year. So why does team owner Michael Andretti say that multiple sponsorship deals fell through for the budding star, even immediately after the Long Beach victory? Why does the Sprint Prepaid Group, through its Boost and Virgin Mobile brands, decide to throw most of its weight behind the already well-sponsored Patrick and the newcomer Carroll, only kicking a little support at Indy to their best bet to actually win a race?

If I'm Hunter-Reay, I'm starting to feel a little like Rodney Dangerfield right about now. My first thought when I wake up in the morning has to be, "I don't get no respect!"

Worse, he's not the only one. So many quality American drivers currently sit on the sidelines as their foreign counterparts trash racecars, all because they don't have the same kind of sponsorship. Ed Carpenter and Townsend Bell sit on the sidelines after strong Indy runs but mid-pack finishes. Buddy Rice - that's 2004 Indianapolis 500 champion Buddy Rice to you - and last year's Indy Lights champion, J.R. Hildebrand, have taken their talents to sports car racing. Meanwhile, four current IndyCar drivers have three or more DNFs in the seven races this season, and almost all of them are ride buyers of some sort. I won't name names, but you can probably figure it out easily enough.

Let's also call Paul Tracy an adopted American now that he lives in Vegas, and wonder aloud why the winningest active driver doesn't get a shot in more races, while his KV Racing teammates get involved in incidents like it's what they're paid to do.

I won't even bring up Graham Rahal with the list, though - he passed on the Boy Scouts ride with Dale Coyne Racing, and Alex Lloyd has been working wonders with it the past couple of races. Sure, Bill Pappas is no longer the engineer at DCR, which gave him some reservations about the quality of the cars, but surely Graham could have done just as much with that equipment as Lloyd. Newman/Haas Racing may have strung him along, but the rides were there, and he was a little too picky.

It's hard to make this argument without tapping into good old-fashioned American jingoism, but wasn't the Indy Racing League originally founded to give more American drivers a chance?

Hunter-Reay is a prime example of a driver that the old IRL would have served well, a Tony Stewart-type in that he has plenty of talent but no ride in which to show it off. Ever since losing the Ethanol sponsorship, his career has been unsteady, with plenty of uncertainty from week to week about where he'll be racing, who he'll be racing for, if he'll be racing at all.

The old IRL would have protected a driver like that. Now, not even race wins, a challenge for the championship, or, worst of all, the backing of the series' title sponsor can secure him a full-season contract. He's got two weeks to figure out how to get behind the wheel of a race car at Iowa, and I don't think anybody can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why.

I guess it all comes down to no respect.

Attention readers: The previous version of the column contained a poorly worded, easily misinterpreted remark about Mike Conway. That comment has since been removed, and I sincerely apologize to anybody who took it the wrong way. We all wish Mike Conway well, and look forward to him rejoining the series upon his recovery.

Opinion: Dual Title Format Another Innovative Concept

Yesterday, the IZOD IndyCar Series announced its intent to award championships to drivers based on their mastery of the series' two types of tracks. The driver who scores the most points on ovals, as well as the driver who scores the most points on road and street courses, will be awarded cash bonuses. Of course, the series' overall champion will still receive the biggest prize at the end of the year. The two trophies will be named in a fan vote after two open-wheel icons.

The dual championship format is the brainchild of IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, who wanted to find a way to engage and bring together the two different demographics of open-wheel fans in America - the oval fans who are more inclined to spend IndyCar off weekends tuned into NASCAR, and the road and street course fans who likely spend some of their time watching sports car racing. Bernard wanted to play up the immense diversity of the IndyCar schedule, which, with its even split between the two types of tracks, is like no other series in the world.

On one hand, awarding extra championships begins to saturate the series. It awards certain drivers for proficiency on one type of track, while almost admitting to their lack of skill on the other. For example, drivers like Danica Patrick and Ed Carpenter would be able to contend for the oval title, but wouldn't stand a chance for the road course championship; meanwhile, Justin Wilson and Will Power should be among the top drivers in road course points, but may struggle on the ovals.

Also, nobody has ever legitimized this sort of thing before in any other sport. Sure, unofficial tallies are often made, especially in NASCAR. During last weekend's NASCAR broadcast from Talladega, the broadcasting crew noted that Elliott Sadler scored the most points in the four superspeedway races last year. Similarly, fans keep track of the best road course and short track drivers, and so on and so forth. But NASCAR does not, and never has, awarded some sort of bonus for being exceptional at one type of track over another.

On the other hand, however, this is a daring move that contributes to Bernard's making his mark on IndyCar, a sport which desperately needed a breath of fresh air at this time last year. Other series have their own championships-within-a-championship, such as the Michelin Green Challenge in the American Le Mans Series, which awards bonuses to the teams with the most efficient and environmentally friendly cars over the course of the season. But only IndyCar can award this sort of championship based on two very different styles of tracks.

It's also almost a given that the eventual winner of at least one of these titles will be the IZOD IndyCar Series champion at the end of the year. IndyCar.com posted a table with the drivers who would have won these bonuses over the past five years. In 2005, 2007, and 2008, the overall series champion scored the most points on ovals, and last year, champion Dario Franchitti scored the most points on road courses. In the only exception year, 2006, oval champion Dan Wheldon actually tied series champion Sam Hornish Jr. for overall points, but Hornish won the title tiebreaker on more wins. In effect, one of the two winning drivers is almost guaranteed to take away the big prize at the end of the year.

The only conceivable way that the oval or road/street course champion wouldn't win the big prize at the end of the year is convoluted at best, and involves some quirks. Because the series has nine oval races, compared to eight road and street course events, the season finale at Homestead/Miami Speedway is left off of the oval championship. To win the overall title without winning one of the smaller ones first, one driver would probably have to be in second place in both disciplines, and then have a great Homestead weekend while the oval and road/street course champions would falter. (Because the best drivers in the IZOD IndyCar Series usually run up front at all tracks, because they more often than not drive for Roger Penske or Chip Ganassi, it's highly unlikely to expect the oval champion to be poorly ranked on street courses, and vice versa.)

This new dual championship format also opens up marketing ideas for low-budget teams looking to put together solid overall programs. If a team is torn between two drivers, one an oval ace and the other a road course maverick, they can split the schedule between the two and attempt to run for the individual championships. It probably won't happen, sure, but if somebody fails to get oval clearance a year or two down the road, it may be an attractive option for a team to consider.

The jury is still out on how the first dual championship season will play out in the IZOD IndyCar Series, but the idea holds up to the high standards of innovation that Randy Bernard has set in his brief tenure as the sport's leader. If it improves the storylines as much as Bernard hopes, we may see the trend spread across other racing series. For now, though, we can only speculate.