[...]Does Indy Lights Need Fixing? « Oilpressure[...]…

Good up-and-coming drivers don’t want to become the next Lee Bentham or Wade Cunningham and they won’t race in a series that has proven to be a dead end for too many.

Mario Moraes, EJ Viso, Mike Conway and Takuma Sato think otherwise.

For you road racing snobs, road courses can be “learned” too, with practice. If you actually paid attention to NASCAR, some of their best road racers are from USAC backgrounds.

Yes, we need more GP2 drivers. Like a hole in the head, we do.

What we NEED, are drivers you can build a sport with and drivers who the American fan could actually root for/give a damn about. Right now, we have very few. And we predictably have very few fans too.

There HAS to be a place for the Hildebrand’s, Edwards’s, Daly’s, Kimball’s and Karem’s to go against the Clauson’s, Boat’s, Jones’s and Swindell’s of the world. Indy Car doesn’t draw from either right now.

If Indy Lights wants to be taken seriously (which it isn’t right now), there have to be more of THOSE type of drivers in the series. And less of the Adrian Campos’s, Rodrigo Barbosa’s and Carmen Jorda’s, who bring absolutely nothing to the table.

The main problem is, Indy Lights has no money. They have teams that have no sponsorship and have no way to sell themselves. In a troubled economy. Not sure what they do. But if it went away, would anyone really care?

Ok, Indy Lights doesn’t properly develop drivers. But changing cars would only do worse for teams, who already struggle to get money to race. That can wait. Getting television broadcasting for 2011 to get more sponsors should be priority.

I expect (hope?) two American to be in the series next year for those of you who are afraid of non-americans. Jonathan Summerton and Alexander Rossi are two names I hope Indycar grabs after they prove themselves in GP2. Perhaps they could enhance their oval skills in Indy Lights while they drive in Indycar.

What I would like to see is a mix between the ideas of Leigh O’ Gorman and JP. I like the idea of possibly remaking Indy Lights to using the same chassis/engine combination-perhaps with the engines detuned-as IndyCar. GP2 uses Dallara chassis and Renault engines with Bridgestone tires for all of its cars. It would also be helpful to have scholarships and incentives to move up, as financial reasons are one of the primary reasons careers in motorsports stall out.

What I would not like to see is IndyCar drivers racing in lower rung “Road to Indy” series the way NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers do in Nationwide/Camping World Truck Series do. The lower rungs are supposed to be developmental series. How does it help develop drivers to have the top-level drivers take seat time away from younger drivers who need it?

The facts show, that most of the Indy Lights Champions had no business in a Indy Car, when they moved up.

What has JK Vernay done this year to earn a spot? He still hasn’t won a oval race in his life. He only has to beat about 5 or 6 cars each week (since the bottom 6 or 7 of Lights, are embarrassingly inept either at the driver spot or the team/equipment spot). He never has to make a pit-stop. He never has to communicate changes to the car, during a race. All he basically has to do at the majority of the races, is qualify in the front row, get the lead into the first corner and keep the car on the road until the checkard flag.

We need drivers who have actually accomplished something (like Rice, Scheckter, Tracy, Hildebrand and Bell) in a Indy Car before we turn one over to some green rookie, who won a few Indy Lights Club Races.

How does Lights become relevent?

-Need more then 14 cars in these races. Need at least 22-24 in each race.

-Cars need to resemble Indy Cars. Hell, use old Panoz’s if you have to. These slow, over-engineered Dallara’s that Lights use, don’t teach a proposed Indy Car driver much of anything.

-Teams have to be able to hire some talent. When its 100% ride-buyers, you don’t get enough real talent. And when SSM clearly has the best team/equipment, it makes the job pretty easy for any driver who jumps into one of those cars. Find some better teams, and get the prices under control (to draw more teams).