Comments on: Three Things You’ll Never See At IMS

By: Should IndyCar Run A Second Race At IMS? | Oilpressure

Should IndyCar Run A Second Race At IMS? | Oilpressure — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 10:03:50 +0000

[...] few years ago, I wrote a post on three things you would never see at IMS. For the record, the three things were; 1) NASCAR stars [...]

By: Fan of Pressdog and OP

Fan of Pressdog and OP — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:51:22 +0000

What about an 12 hour ALMS race the weekend before qualifying? Would add another week of May for the purists and cash for the coffers

By: AZZO45

AZZO45 — Thu, 06 May 2010 19:41:25 +0000

The only way I see a SC race @ IMS is a joint ALMS-Grand Am weekend (& politically that will NEVER happen). At least ALMS can have “world rules” to attract 1st class teams (& crowds)

The only other logical deal would be Indycars running in the daylight followed by the sportscars into the dusk. However ,I also agree with the others who feel 2 stops @ one venue smells desperate (H*ll its not even working for NASCAR anymore… 2nd race has a crowd drop-off).

By: NaBuru38

NaBuru38 — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:35:08 +0000

Night racing doesn’t require floodlights. An endurance sports car race at Indianapolis could run into the sunset by just lighting the pitlane and main straight, which shouldn’t prove too expensive. Car lights will do for the rest of the course.

By: AZZO45

AZZO45 — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:13:34 +0000

Who says the “night race” would have to involve Indycars The Brickyard 400 crowds have been dropping off ,so perhaps NASCAR would resort to the night racing “gimmick”

By: AZZO45

AZZO45 — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:12:05 +0000

Yes, the ROLEX Grand Am series conducted tests @ IMS, but most feel it was some kind of political gesture since NASCAR owns GA. The DP’s don’t exactly draw crowds so the only way GA would come to Indy is comboed with a helluva lot of other race series.

By: dylanpt24

dylanpt24 — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:52:23 +0000

I disagree about the NASCAR thing. It’s pretty varried about how the manufacters would feel. Gannasi and Penske run both series, plus sportscars. A lot of it depends on drivers personal contracts. For instance, Jeff Gordon and Dale Junior likely have a contract with GM, but Juan Montoya and Aj Almidinger don’t nessecarly have one with their manufacter. Sadly, Stewart would be hard because he and GM are pretty close, he left Gibbs for Stewart Haas because of that relationship, and they help him and Hendrick a lot. The EGR and Penske drivers are most likely to do it, possibly Kurt Busch and Hornish from Penske and Juan from Gannasi. It would be pretty interesting to watch Busch try, because he’ll have great equipment. But with the expansion to three cars, I can’t see them adding another any time soon. He wouldn’t want to strech himself too thin, and he’s got three guys capbable of winning already.

By: dylanpt24

dylanpt24 — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:48:05 +0000

It depends. For ovals, a second Texas date might be required if all the ISC ovals fall off. but two race dates per track is killing NASCAR, because instead of entering interesting new markets and tracks, we get two races at very similar facilities, it gets dull.

By: The Speedgeek

The Speedgeek — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:27:49 +0000

I’ll agree with that. I have no interest in adding a second race at the “home track” (or elsewhere, for that matter) just for the sake of adding another event to the calendar. A second Texas date makes marginally more sense to me than an Indy road course race, but I’m still not a fan of either, because you’re liable to oversaturate your market and decrease ticket sales for the first event. Let’s get some more different tracks on the schedule before adding second dates at existing tracks.

By: billytheskink

billytheskink — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:22:17 +0000

Also, as much as NASCAR fans like to note the lack of success that open-wheelers have in the series, 4 different drivers who have started NASCAR races this season won in Indy/Champ Cars before going on to win in -insert sponsor- Cup stock cars.

George is right that NASCAR does not encourage its drivers to try to match the records of Stewart, Montoya, Robby Gordon, and John Andretti. I doubt the lengths that they would go to prevent them from trying if they wanted to, though.