Scott Dixon made IndyCar history and surpassed Mario Andretti for second all-time in victory after surviving a chaotic Nashville race. God must have been upset with both NASCAR and IndyCar and showed His displeasure with rain. It also rained at Road America, but the IMSA race started on time. Meanwhile, MotoGP returned to competition and Andrea Dovizioso announced Misano in a few weeks will be his final race. The Suzuka 8 Hours was held for the first time since 2019. Finland hosted a race. A championship was awarded. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
No Changes Are a Good Thing
One of the things I love most about IndyCar is you find out its next schedule from all the sports car series announcing their schedules first.
Last week, SRO America announced its 2023 calendars, and it was revealed the GT America series will race at St. Petersburg over the weekend of March 3-5, 2023 and at Nashville over the weekend of August 4-6, 2023. Long Beach was already promoting the weekend of April 14-16, 2023 for next year's event and IMSA confirmed that date when it announced its schedule this past weekend at Road America. IMSA also confirmed the weekend for the new downtown Detroit event for June 2-4, 2023, but it will be the Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport class being the premier sports car race in Detroit and not the newly-minted LMDh machinery.
Throw in knowing the Indianapolis 500 will be Memorial Day weekend and pencil it in for May 28 with the Grand Prix of Indianapolis being 15 days earlier, as it has been since its inception in 2014, and a third of the 2023 IndyCar schedule is known before IndyCar even gets close to having its own announcement.
We have to wait a little longer before IndyCar confirms if it returns to Texas, when Barber falls, the weekend of the Iowa doubleheader and when and where the season will conclude (a Saturday supporting the IMSA weekend at Indianapolis you say? Kidding... slightly), but from the sounds of it we will know the 2023 calendar sooner rather than later, possibly before the final weekend of the season at Laguna Seca. That is partially because there are no expected changes to the 2023 calendar, and it will look much like what we had this year.
Before you exhale in disgust, we must consider no changes as a good thing. For a long time, change was too frequent for the IndyCar calendar and more often than not it was the bad kind of change. A lost race here, a lost race there, a new track only cancelling out a race going away, sometimes it would be a track leaving after one season on the schedule. IndyCar went a long time without having a 100% retention rate for its schedule, basically a decade. It felt good a few years ago when it was able to do that, but 100% retention has not annual when it really should be for series growth.
Of course, then the pandemic came and that has thrown everything upside down. The 2020 season aside when everyone was only trying to get through the season with a respectable number of races, IndyCar has had a few rough patches in the last two years. Iowa went away before coming back. Texas has moved around, and that crowd has only shrunk. There have been many races we have been holding our breath over because we weren't sure what they would look like after a year away, Toronto being the lead example on that list.
Richmond was set to return to the IndyCar schedule in 2020 before the pandemic flipped the script and it hasn't been close to being on either the 2021 or 2022 calendars. It will still be on the sidelines for 2023. Other than Nashville, no new venues have stepped up since the end of the 2020 season. No new ovals. No forgotten road courses returning. No trips down to Mexico though we have been floating them out there for nearly five years.
For all the positives happening in IndyCar despite the pandemic, IndyCar remains in a fragile position, and it isn't as attractive to tracks and promoters as one would think. Iowa had a great crowd but look at all the work that had to go into that event. Most tracks don't want to spend that much on IndyCar, mostly because it is not a safe bet. Iowa comes off as the exception, not the rule, even if we would all love to see that kind of activation at Texas and other recently fallen venues such as Watkins Glen, Pocono and Phoenix.
Its profile is something IndyCar must keep working on, but while it does that, not losing ground is a win, though a minor one at that.
IndyCar's current schedule is good. There are 15 tracks, a good mix of ovals, road courses and street courses. The 2023 season will not go to Belle Isle, but it is still a good mix of street courses with St. Petersburg, Long Beach, Toronto and Nashville, and the new Detroit street course is in a promising position of the city. IndyCar goes to Road America, Mid-Ohio, Barber, Portland, Laguna Seca and the IMS road course, which has put on some strong races as much as people hate to admit it. Indianapolis leads off the ovals. Iowa proved why it is the most underrated oval in this country with its IndyCar doubleheader this year. Gateway has drawn a fantastic crowd every year, but let's see how this year's race looks when it starts around 5:30 p.m. local time and will likely end before sunset. Texas needs a lot of work, but this year's race was better than we have seen lately and if Iowa can draw 38,000 people on consecutive days, then there is no reason the Dallas-Fort Worth area could not get at least 50,000 for its IndyCar race, a crowd size that was the norm for that event not long ago.
There are improvements that we would like to see. Four ovals with five races is suboptimal. The dream should be to run seven or eight different ovals and it would be great to see a few more short ovals, Richmond, Milwaukee and Loudon leading that camp. It would be great to get back to another intermediate oval, though there is no frontrunner in that department. IndyCar could use another big track, Michigan or Pocono and maybe even one final hoorah around the two-mile Fontana before that is downsized to a short track, though a Fontana short track could also be suitable for IndyCar once that is complete.
Milwaukee has been the latest rumored oval race, though that would only be a return after nearly a decade away and that will not happen in 2023. All signs point to possibly 2024 with the hope being IndyCar and Penske Entertainment taking the Iowa model and replicating that success in Milwaukee. Any Milwaukee return is a long way from happening and there are plenty of hurdles that could trip up that revival. But if IndyCar maintains stability for 2023, that is a good launchpad for potential growth in 2024 even if it is only Milwaukee.
Prior to the Brickyard weekend, Roger Penske came out and said IndyCar's goal is to get to 20 races and possibly have an international race in the near future. That is a notable change from IndyCar's recent ethos of sticking to 17 races because that is financially responsible for the teams and keeping the series in the United States because those races are better for team sponsors than going to international markets where many of these companies do not do any business.
If 20 races mean adding three more tracks, three more race weekends, that is a risk for IndyCar, especially with a new hybrid engine package and new chassis looming. More races only mean increased costs and they could come at a time when teams are already shelling out a healthy amount of cash in purchasing new equipment. That is a combination the team owners will only embrace with open arms. Yeah, right.
Patience will be important. As much as IndyCar wants to grow, it doesn't necessarily have the suitors ready to receive IndyCar expansion. The last few years have been good for IndyCar, but not exceptional enough to have tracks lining up. However, keeping the status quo is better than contraction and makes expansion more likely down the road.
Champion From the Weekend
Mikel Azcona clinched the World Touring Car Cup championship with a pair of third-place finishes at Anneau du Rhin.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Scott Dixon, but did you know...
Francesco Bagnaia won MotoGP's British Grand Prix, his fourth victory of the season and his second consecutive victory. Augusto Fernández won the Moto2 race, his fourth victory of the season and his third consecutive victory. Dennis Foggia won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.
The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor won the IMSA race from Road America, its fourth victory of the season. The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca-Gibson of Ryan Dalziel and Dwight Merriman won in LMP2. The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson won in LMP3. The #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat won in GTD-Pro. The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Phillip Ellis and Russell Ward won in GTD.
Kevin Harvick won the NASCAR Cup race from Michigan. Ty Gibbs won the Grand National Series race, his fourth victory of the season.
The #33 Honda of Takumi Takahashi, Tetsuta Nagashima and Iker Lecuona won the Suzuka 8 Hours.
The #37 TGR Team KeePer TOM'S Toyota of Sacha Fenestraz and Ritomo Miyata won the Super GT race from Fuji. The #61 R&D Sport Suburu of Takuto Iguchi and Hideki Yamauchi won in GT300.
Linus Lundqvist won the Indy Lights race from Nashville, his fifth victory of the season.
Onofrio Triarsi and Justin Wetherill split the GT America races from Nashville.
Ott Tänak won Rally Finland, his second victory of the season.
Nathanaël Berthon and Rob Huff split the World Touring Car Cup races from Anneau du Rhin.
Coming Up This Weekend
NASCAR returns to Richmond, its first short track race since May.
Formula E ends its season with a doubleheader in Seoul.
The 61st Knoxville Nationals.
