Right before ringing in 2014, I made some predictions on the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season and now we are going to revisit them and see if I got anything right, how badly I was wrong in a few circumstances and anything else that relates to what predictions were made last winter.
1. The Series Will Get A Title Sponsor
One-for-one. This prediction wasn't much of a gamble though. We all felt it was going to happen, Verizon was a front runner from the start and it just happened to work out.
2. Honda Will Nip Chevrolet in the Manufactures' Championship
One-for-two. This one wasn't even close as Chevrolet locked up the Manufactures' Championship with races in hand. Chevrolet won twelfth of eighteen, including six consecutive to close out 2014. Let's not forget to mention eight consecutive pole positions to close out the year with a grand total of thirteen on the year. You'd think after Honda lost out in 2013 with nine wins to Chevrolet's ten, the switch to the twin-turbo would give Honda the extra kick to take it to Chevrolet. Was there some teething problems with the twin-turbo? Maybe. Did losing Ganassi hurt? Probably. Honda has to start 2015 off on a good note, otherwise another bad season could lead them to reconsider their IndyCar involvement with no three manufacture in sight.
Quick sidebar: Could IndyCar have made the manufactures' championship any more confusing? This is another prime example of just needing to keep it simple. If fans can't follow it in their head than it's way too complicated.
3. Takuma Sato Will Not Make It To Fontana With AJ Foyt Racing
One-for-three. If you looked at Sato's results though, you would have understood if Foyt dropped him. Two top tens in the first twelve races while he had four finishes outside the twenty during that time frame and had an average finish of 17.333. I am not sure he salvaged his season with three top tens in the final five races but he was able to finish ahead of Graham Rahal, Carlos Huertas and Sebastián Saavedra. He won two pole positions but Sato cannot turn that raw speed into results. Not sure if he is set to return in 2015 but if he does, how much of a longer leash will he get at Foyt?
4. This Will Be The Only Season Ending By Labor Day
Not official but pretty much chalk this as one-for-four even though ending by Labor Day is IndyCar handcuffing themselves in the worst possible way. We don't even have a clue where the 2015 season finale will be because Fontana wants to move and it appears in may land in June. Could the season end at Sonoma or Milwaukee? Seeing how the Fontana rating was down from a 0.22 in 2013 to a 0.18 in 2014 and attendance was down, moving that race to Labor Day weekend from the middle of October was not a success at all. And these are the people who make the big bucks.
5. Scott Dixon Will Remain The Championship Favorite
He came on strong at the end of the season but couldn't retain the title. If he hadn't been put a lap down at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after contact with Will Power, didn't have an accident in the Indianapolis 500 and didn't have a dismal Houston weekend, he probably would have had a shot at Fontana but we can play the what-if game all day and that's not how 2014 played out. I still think he was a championship favorite when St. Petersburg rolled around so I would say I am two-for-five but would be willing to chalk this up as a sacrifice fly and remain one-for-four.
6. Marco Andretti Will Be A Man On A Mission
He started out phenomenally. Two podiums and three top tens in the first five races and he sat fifth in the championship after the Indianapolis 500. Andretti ended 2014 with nine top tens but his third place finish at the Indianapolis 500 was his last of two top fives in 2014. A lot of people like to rake Andretti through the coals because he has yet to match the success of his grandfather and father but finishing in the top ten in half the races and finishing ninth in the championship isn't something a talentless hack does. Sure, he needs to win races if he wants to become a champion but he isn't an embarrassment on track. He is 27 years old, has two victories in his career and his best finish in the championship is fifth. When Will Power turned 27 he had only two victories and his best finish in the the championship was fourth. And remind me, how has Power's career gone since then?
7. Will Power Will Be A Man On A Mission
Speaking of Power, I am going to say four-for-seven after Power took home his first championship. He started the season with a victory. He picked up an impressive victory at Milwaukee and he stepped on his fair share of toes in 2014 and didn't care who's foot they belong to. There were plenty of times it appeared he was throwing the championship away (Long Beach, Indianapolis, Detroit, Texas, Pocono, Sonoma) but he managed to make up for the mistakes.
8. Juan Pablo Montoya Will Not Finish In The Top Ten of Points
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I have to give Montoya credit for returning to IndyCar and being able to compete at a 1999-type level. He scored the most points in oval races in 2014, scored a victory from pole position at Pocono, three podiums, eight top fives and nine top tens. It was throughly impressive and after his victory at Pocono it was clear he is one of the greatest drivers of our generation and it has been a privilege to watch him race everything and anything for the last fifteen years.
9. There Will Be An International Series
Although it hasn't been confirmed, it looks like it will be five for-nine. Although things have quieted down on Dubai and Brasilia could come down to construction and after the lead-up to the World Cup and the current lead-up to the 2016 Summer Olympics, I am skeptical anytime construction and Brazil are mentioned in the same sentence. I really hope this pans out, one because the offseason is longer than it ever should be and the season needs to start earlier and two because IndyCar's front office has been saying there is going to be an international series for over a year and if it doesn't happen that is going to be a massive mark against them because there was a whole hell of a lot of talk and zero results.
10. There Won't Be Enough Rides For Everyone
Six-for-ten. Other than the 21 drivers who ran the full season and the tag-team partners of Ed Carpenter and Mike Conway, only Oriol Servià and Luca Filippi ran an IndyCar race outside the month of May. There were no additionally one-offs at Pocono or Iowa or Fontana. Alex Tagliani didn't get a shot to compete at Toronto. There were no cameos and that sucked. Don't get me wrong, the twenty-two full-time teams were deep in terms of talent but you also want something to look forward to every now and then. You want a wild card who could surprise us and outside of the times Rahal Letterman Lanigan rolled out their second car for Servià and Filippi, it didn't happen in 2014. A lot of people thought there weren't enough cars at Pocono and Fontana and I understand that. It would have been nice to see a few of the teams who ran Indianapolis (Sage Karam, Buddy Lazier, J.R. Hildebrand, Townsend Bell, Alex Tagliani, James Davison and Pippa Mann to name a few) show up for the other 500 milers but the current state of the series doesn't allow for that to happen and it is a real shame.
11. There Won't Be Ten Winners But It Will Be Close
Because of the way I worded this, I am saying seven-for-eleven. There weren't ten winners in 2014, there were eleven and you can't get much closer to ten than that. To be honest, at the beginning of the season I envisioned eight winners at most but because I didn't say there would be less than ten I fortunately got this one correct. Eleven different winners ties the record for most winners in a season, matching CART in 2000 and 2001 and let's not forget to mention three winners from 2013 were shut out in 2014 (James Hinchcliffe, Charlie Kimball and Takuma Sato). The surprise was Carlos Huertas winning which makes you think if he can win in IndyCar, anyone can win in IndyCar. Eighteen of the twenty-three drivers to complete at least a third of the schedule have a victory in IndyCar and looking to 2015, it's hard to imagine fewer than eleven different winners.
12. Texas Is On Life Support
It got another one-year deal and with Houston not returning in 2015 it is put up or shut time for Eddie Gossage. After vehemently being against anymore races in Texas, he is now going to be the lone stop in the Lone Star State for IndyCar and there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to increase his attendance seeing as how he has no competition within his jurisdiction so to speak. Bad news is we might also want to put Pocono and Fontana on life support but hopefully date shifts will benefit these two events.
13. Allan Bestwick or Vince Welch Will Be Lead Announcer For ABC
Got this one right, boosting the batting average to nine-for-thirteen. Bestwick did a superb job, only problem is his color commentators aren't helping him. Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever got to go, they are holding the broadcast back. Dario Franchitti was in the booth for about 20 minutes of qualifying and brought more to a broadcast than those two have combined for in the last five years. Franchitti will be the color commentator on the world feed for Formula E races starting this weekend in Beijing. I hope the executives at ABC/ESPN have a close eye on him.
14. The Future Will Remain Uncertain
I hate sounding pessimistic but we have no idea when the 2015 season opener is or where it is. Aero kits appear to be on the way which is good news. There are a handful of teams looking for funding to keep going and more qualified drivers than full-time rides. Ratings were up in as a whole in 2014 but were down for the season finale. Houston fell off the schedule while New Orleans was added. Pocono and Fontana are holding on for dear life. Toronto is having trouble finding a spot on the 2015 schedule due to the Pan American Games.
There is a uncertainty but to be fair there is some balance to what the future looks like. Yes, we would all like to circle a date for a season opener and we hope that all twenty-two full-time teams from this year return along with a little growth after the average field size has shrunk since the DW12 chassis was first introduced in 2012. This was a very vague prediction to begin with. The future is never a certain. As much as we plan our futures, things change unexpectedly and then we adapt.
Whether I went 10-for-14, 8-for-12 with a few sacrifices, it doesn't really matter. The 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season was one of the best since the split in 1996 and arguably one of the best all-time. Let's just hope the addition of aero kits with a few international dates and a second year with Verizon as title sponsor boost IndyCar in 2015 and beyond.
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