What I learned this weekend: No good news ever breaks on Friday night but that's another story. MotoGP proved once again that they will put on a good show anywhere in any conditions. NASCAR artificially eliminated some drivers and I struggled with geoblocking for another week. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
Scheduling Nightmare
I have hit the end of my rope when it comes to IndyCar scheduling.
The series is trying to squeeze all these races into a finite amount of time and not taking into consideration the tracks as they try to put on the best event possible. Houston should have never taken place in June and Fontana should have never taken place Labor Day weekend. Houston is now gone and Fontana wants to move to June when I guess the heat is more bearable than late-August/early-September. Let's not forget Pocono, which is looking for a new date after struggling this year on 4th of July weekend; Toronto, which for one year and one year only needs a new date due to the Pan American Games being hosted in the city in mid-July; Texas, whose attendance continues to fall despite remaining consistently in early-June since 1997 and Iowa, which was in July this year with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series but the Truck have already announced their race will be in June in 2015 so it looks like the IndyCar date will shift once again.
Ratings were up this year with the condensed schedule but I believe the condensing had nothing to do with the increase, rather the consistency in racing practically every week during this past summer. IndyCar raced on seven of nine weekends between the months of July and August this year. In 2013, IndyCar raced on four of eight weekends between the months of July and August and each month had a two week break between races. Let's not forget the month off from Baltimore Labor Day weekend to Houston at the beginning of October.
IndyCar couldn't afford to take a month off during their season, so instead of filling the gap that was the month of September, they moved everything up, creating a non-stop sprint of a season for the teams from the end of March to the end of August, ending in time for the start of the football season. But now here we stand, trying to take the dozen and a half race weekends are trying to shift them around the two dozen possibly weekends IndyCar has allowed for themselves.
While ratings were up, attendance was down at Fontana and the Fontana rating was down and that race is now on life support. It would be one thing if IndyCar owned Fontana and was swallowing the loss but that's not the case. As much as IndyCar thinks ending before the start of football was the cause for the ratings increase, it wasn't and it is tying the hands of promoters behind their backs. You can't expect Fontana to break even and be happy about losing money when it feels like the race is taking place on the face of the sun and everyone is staying home. IndyCar is not in a position to twist arms to get tracks to do what they want. There isn't a line of tracks lining up to host IndyCar races when Fontana drops off because they can't get a realistic date to host the race on. The obsession to end by Labor Day is making it a matter of when tracks drop IndyCar, not if. When Fontana drops IndyCar and when Texas drops IndyCar and when Pocono drops IndyCar and when Toronto drops IndyCar, no one will be waiting to take their places.
Instead of playing hardball, IndyCar needs to realize consistently running week in and week out from early-March to mid-October will produce the same results as cramming everything in six months. Finding races is easier said than done but there has to be places willing to deal. If you can't find places wanting to host a September race in North America, look to Europe after the Italian Grand Prix. A quarter of the grid is European. There has to be someone who is interested in making a deal. My dream European road trip would include a doubleheader with DTM at EuroSpeedway Lausitz with IndyCar on the oval and the touring cars on the road course. Then a second European race could go anywhere. Head to Le Mans and run the Bugatti Circuit, head to anyone of Italy's fine circuits (Imola or Mugello), with three Brits the United Kingdom would seem like a safe bet.
But IndyCar won't change their mind. It's made it's bed and the increase in ratings supports their decision but what happens when they start shedding races like a Siberian Husky shedding it's coat?
If You're Going to Do It
I don't like the Chase. I think it's worn out it's welcome and I don't think NASCAR believes in the Chase either but are just going along with it. Think about. If NASCAR believed in the Chase, why wouldn't use it in all their series? When things worked in other series, they adopted it across the board. Green-white-checkered finishes, the lucky dog, double-file restarts, the points system, all adopted across the board but the Chase has yet to trickle it's way down. But I digress.
NASCAR wanted to have the championship come down to the final race and it's done that for it's first ten editions. That wasn't good enough though for the NASCAR hierarchy even though it set out to do what it was meant to do. They changed the Chase to guarantee four drivers will have a shot at the title in the final race and whoever finishes better is the champion, even if the four contenders finish 25th, 29th, 35th and 40th (an extreme example, I know but not at all impossible).
With the second round of the Chase set, I don't understand how after awarding three points for each victory in the regular season, victories in the Chase, NASCAR's playoff, are now worth nothing and all twelve remaining drivers sit equally on 3,000 points. This system was suppose to reward winning even more but A. you can still win the championship with out winning a race and B. the likes of Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Jeff Gordon win in the first round and are seen as equal as those who did not win. I understand the victory in the Chase locks a driver into the next round but I think each victory should provide a driver with some type of cover.
Give out 15 points for each victory in the Chase. A victory would now provide a driver with a little bit of a security blanket in the next round and give those you advanced on points a challenge to overcome if they want to advance. Plus, it gives a driver a great reason to try and sweep a round. They could have a 45-point cushion entering the next round, almost insuring their spot in the following round.
I've always felt the championship leader after the first 26 races should get rewarded. Jeff Gordon deserved more for his first 13/18th's of the season. NASCAR might be trying to put consistency by the wayside but it has to be acknowledged and if NASCAR is trying to copy every other American sport, rewarding the championship leader after the first 26 races with a "first round-bye" is the most logical decision they can make. Don't give the driver a guaranteed spot in the next round but give them a 50-point bonus on top of the bonus points they get for their victories to make it difficult for them to be knocked out it round one.
Anyway, one round of knock outs down. No surprises, A.J. Allmendinger, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle and Aric Almirola are done. Seven races to go. Kansas, Charlotte and Talladega comprise round two.
Random Thoughts
What a MotoGP race from Aragón! Late rain provided everyone with a thrilling finish. The Hondas of Marc Márquez and Dani Pedrosa both fell due to wet conditions and it handed the victory to Jorge Lorenzo while Aleix Espargaró scored his first career premier class podium and Cal Crutchlow took a surprise third place finish. This was possibly the race of the year.
Unlike in Formula One where the engineers tell the drivers how to drive, in MotoGP it's all on the rider and Márquez's and Pedrosa's decision to try and brave the elements, pushing the dry weather bikes beyond their capability as the track turned into a slip and slide was hair raising and mind-boggling. If I was in charge of the Honda pit board I would have put out a message saying, "Pit You Idiot!" Márquez has built such a great margin of error in the championship but imagine if he had got hurt in that accident. He could have committed championship suicide. I want competitors to take risks but after Pedrosa went down going into turn one, he should have dived into the pit lane immediately. Let's mark that as a lesson learned.
There should be one Dover race and it should be 300 laps. I never got to see a Dover race when it was 500 laps but 400 is still too many. What track do I think should get that vacated Dover date? Iowa or actually save Rockingham with a Cup date.
Why does NASCAR still run the Vegas Truck race in September? They aren't paired with IndyCar anymore and for a series that has two, one-month gaps early in their schedule, wouldn't it make sense to just tack it on the Cup weekend in March?
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Jorge Lorenzo and Jeff Gordon but did you know...
Tomoki Nojiri won his first career Super Formula race at Sportsland SUGO. It was Honda's first win of the season. Kazuki Nakajima finish second and took the championship lead. Loïc Duval finished third.
Mattias Ekström won the DTM race at Zandvoort. It was Audi's first of the season.
Maverick Viñales won the Moto2 race from Aragón. Romano Fenati won in Moto3.
Thiago Camillo won race one and Raphael Matos won race two at Santa Cruz do Sul. It was Matos' first career Stock Car Brasil victory.
Kyle Busch won the Nationwide race at Dover. Erik Jones won the Truck race at Las Vegas.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One heads to Suzuka.
IMSA closes out it's first reunified season with Petit Le Mans.
NASCAR returns to Kansas.
WRC is in France for Rallye de Alsace.
After two months off, WTCC returns to race at the Goldenport Park Circuit in Beijing, China.
Super GT runs their penultimate race from the Buriram United International Circuit in Thailand.
World Superbike heads to Magny-Cours for their penultimate round of 2014.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
