Some flamer who used to post here has pointed out the series of recent non-contact rear suspension failures. Add another one to the list.

Absolutely spot-on.

The solution is simple: 1) Pace car earns its name and sets the fields pace until pit in. 2) One or more speed cameras approaching the start finish line and a designated speed window for the leader. If the leader’s speed is higher or lower than the window limits at any camera he receives a 10 second stop and go penalty. 3) Any car that puts a nose oustide of the inner edge of the wheels of the car in front of him/her prior to a green flag waving gets a 10 second stop and go penalty.

All they really need are simple rules that have zero grey areas. As long as it is obvious when a rule is broken and the penalties are severe the problem will be solved.

The current method of “a cone stuck in the fence” is a joke. First of all, if they are going to restart in the short chute then lets pull the bricks out of Indy and relocate them on the north side of the track. Second, it is about as advanced as using a frisbee for first base and a tree trunk for second. If you want to be a top level professional sport, act like it. The neighborhood kids can use a cone as a restart point when racing their big wheels and powerwheels. I expect something a little more advanced from the “fastest drivers in the world”.

I’m not sold on NASCAR-esque double file restarts, because I think that doing a half-dozen of those with IndyCars in a single race is an invitation to tear up bundles of equipment, but the “getting lapped cars out of the way” thing is a no-brainer. I swear that CART/ChampCar did that for a year or two, maybe around ’06-’07, and it was great. Simplifies things for the fans (you’re not trying to figure out who’s a lap down) and it improves the show. That should be instituted, like, by next week, but that was my opinion after Kansas as well. There comes a time when you have to do a little balancing act between “show” and “maintaining rigid control of the percieved ‘integrity’ of the sport”. This is one of those things that should tilt toward “show”, because nobody cares about the integrity of this part of the sport (by that I mean, the leader getting to benefit from putting lapped cars between himself and 2nd). We’re not talking about Green-White-Checkers here (which IndyCar should never, ever do) or inverted fields or fields determined by random draw or having the winner of the 500 drink Brazilian milk (laced with Brazilian coffee!), we’re talking about simplifying restarts. Simple is good.

I rail on and on about things that could/should be fixed immediately and things that can’t. Starts and restarts can be fixed immediately, simply by writing a new rule and enforcing it. Or, by simply enforcing existing rules.