Nobody likes Texas Motor Speedway, and Texas Motor Speedway might become even worse. Tyler Reddick won what might be one of the worst races in NASCAR history. NASCAR officiating is toothless and worthless. Scott Miller makes Michael Masi looks confident. Francesco Bagnaia coughed up points. Moto2 tightened up with a hometown winner. Colton Herta officially will not be getting a Super License. Daniel Ricciardo might take a year off. It was damp at Spa-Francorchamps, but it dried out. It rained in Salzburg. World Superbike is clearing up its championship picture. Some 2023 calendars have come out and some have not. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
IndyCar's Playbook for Scheduling Success
There have been two weekends since the IndyCar season concluded, Will Power hoisted the Astor Cup for the second time and we have even cleared up the Álex Palou contractual saga, but the 2023 schedule remains a mystery.
It is nothing new that IndyCar has gone into an offseason not knowing the dates for the following season. It is about a 50/50 proposition the schedule is released before the final checkered flag has waved, but we prefer to end a season knowing where we are going and when we will be there next year.
We do know where and when we will be going for many races, as tracks have released dates and other series that have historically been support series to IndyCar events have announced races on weekends that have historically been IndyCar race weekends. Unfortunately, as we see the pieces falling to place, we also see IndyCar about to repeat some of its same mistakes.
We know St. Petersburg will be March 5, 2023, likely being the season opener, but the next races known chronologically are Texas on April 2 and Long Beach on April 16, the two races sandwiching Easter weekend. In all likelihood we are looking three weeks off between the first two rounds of the season, a common occurrence in IndyCar over the last few seasons.
We also know there will be a test on September 7 at Laguna Seca, a Thursday, meaning the 2023 season finale will likely take place on September 10 from the famed Northern California circuit, a week after Labor Day weekend, when the Grand Prix of Portland will take place.
IndyCar has been repeating many of the same steps over the last ten years, some of which have been good for the series. But other steps do not make much common sense, and these are the little things that should be adjusted for the better of the series.
When Mark Miles first took over as CEO of Hulman & Co., Miles stated he hoped to end the IndyCar season on Labor Day weekend and make IndyCar's championship synonymous with Labor Day holiday. Since that time, IndyCar has ended on Labor Day weekend one time, 2014 at Fontana. In 2015, the championship was decided the weekend BEFORE Labor Day weekend and since 2016 the championship has been decided deeper into September.
This season ended on the first NFL Sunday of the 2022 season, and attention was certainly splintered as the five-way championship finale drew only 507,000 viewers on NBC, a 472,000 viewer decrease from NBC's broadcast of the Portland race the weekend before, which set the picture for the championship decider.
All indication of building to a climax did not lead to a larger audience because the audience had other viewing plans that weekend. People didn't tune away because the racing was going to be poor or they didn't like the players in the championship or because the result was never in doubt. IndyCar's finale couldn't get draw eyes because people wanted to watch football for the first time since the middle of February. It didn't matter how good the IndyCar finale was going to be. It was going to take a dive in viewership.
It also didn't help that the IndyCar started at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, about 15 minutes after the NASCAR Cup race at Kansas started, further dividing attention and causing people to pick one motorsports event over another.
IndyCar has been trying to be smart over the last decade, particularly the last four or five years, especially since NBC became the sole television partner in the United States. IndyCar knows what it can do to maximize its audience. It now has to do it.
There is no point ending on the first NFL Sunday. Just slide the races up, congest the schedule a little more, but end a week earlier to maximize viewership. It also knows running simultaneously against NASCAR isn't helping and the NASCAR Cup schedule frankly is lobbing IndyCar a meatball to belt out of the park, especially during the final weekends of the IndyCar season.
Consider that NASCAR's final regular season race is a Saturday night at Daytona and the first playoff race the week later is a Sunday night race at Darlington. It is plain and simple that IndyCar must run that Sunday afternoon after Daytona and run Sunday leading into the Darlington race. The window is there for the taking. IndyCar already runs prior to Darlington, but it is ignoring a prime slot to structure the championship to receive more attention.
Portland should the day after Daytona on that Sunday afternoon. Daytona was rained out this year, but IndyCar at least has to take the window because more times than not that Daytona race is over well before 3:00 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. IndyCar can have an uncontested moment on the stage but choosing not to take it is absurd.
The following weekend IndyCar can end its season, crown its champion before NASCAR begins its playoffs at Darlington. One championship is concluded while the run to another is about to begin. It practically markets itself. IndyCar, NASCAR and all the other parties involved are dropping the ball if they do not realize it.
It would mean a tighter turnaround for the teams, but it would be necessary for the better of the series. IndyCar might know it can get a million people to tune in for one of its races, but it must also realize that audience is easily fractured when presented with other options. It is on IndyCar to position itself to get its best possible rating.
The same way IndyCar knows what it must do at the end of the season, it must do something to plug the hole that has existed at the start of the season for the better part of the last decade. It is inexcusable for IndyCar to have nearly a month off between the first and second races of the season. No momentum can be built on the current structure. People tune in just to tune out and IndyCar loses in that scenario. IndyCar cannot be that absent while NASCAR is getting the ball rolling and Formula One is running at a consistent pace. Out of sight, out of mind and IndyCar doesn't seem to realize the harm of not racing when everyone else is, especially after a lengthy offseason and when there is a vacuum between the end of football season and the start of baseball season.
IndyCar has allowed that hole to exist for too long and for no damn reason. The series makes fiscally responsible choices not to overbear the teams with more races than they can afford, but it is losing out when multiple-week gaps exist between races, especially the first two races.
Everyone has been joking that we pretty much know what the 2023 IndyCar schedule will be because it will be nearly identical to this season except for a few weekends shifting, but when looking around the motorsports world, it is hard to ignore the lack of excitement in IndyCar scheduling compared to everyone else. Many series have something to look forward to. IndyCar features the same as usual.
NASCAR is adding a street race in Chicago and North Wilkesboro is returning after a quarter-decade of dormancy to host the All-Star Race. Formula One added Miami this year and it is adding Las Vegas next year. IMSA is returning to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on top of introducing the LMDh-spec prototypes.
IndyCar... may have Milwaukee, a track with history but also a history of substandard attendance and located a little over an hour south of a place that already hosts an IndyCar race, but not until the 2024 season... so it has that going for itself... but who knows... we have to wait and see... it might not happen... but NASCAR found a way to return to Milwaukee in 2023 with the Truck series... so it already beat IndyCar to the punch when nobody expected it... yeah... that rising tide is lifting all the boats.
It is one thing to be smart, but IndyCar has to take a chance at some point. It also has to have some fun.
Fontana is about to turned into a short track, shuttering the fastest circuit an IndyCar ever competed on. What does IndyCar have to lose having one final race at Fontana to fill that late-March gap? "A Farewell to Fontana" if you will. It is one race to fill one gap. The goal is just to put on a race and get one final chance to see cars buzz around the two-mile oval at 220 mph. Nostalgia will bring out a crowd even if it is a month after the NASCAR Cup race. The track is already ripping out seats. There will be less to fill! But that one-off could be used for more.
Fontana will still exist; it will just be a shorter oval. IndyCar has said it wants more oval races. This could be a jumping off point for a longer relationship with IndyCar running on the Fontana short track whatever that may look like. The track alteration is as much of an opportunity for IndyCar as it is for NASCAR as long as IndyCar acts on it.
Success is in IndyCar's own hand. It knows the recipe, now it has to put the ingredients together and not be afraid to do something to get people to notice.
Champions From the Weekend
Andrea Caldarelli clinched his second consecutive GT World Challenge America championship as the #1 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini swept the weekend at Sebring with co-driver Michele Beretta.
George Kurtz clinched the GT America championship as he swept the races from Sebring.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Tyler Reddick and some SRO America action from Sebring, but did you know...
Jack Miller won MotoGP's Japanese Grand Prix. Ai Ogura won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. Ivan Guevara won the Moto3 race, his second consecutive victory and his fifth of the season.
Noah Gragson won the Grand National Series race, his fourth consecutive victory, the first driver to win four consecutive races since Sam Ard in 1983, and it was Gragson's seventh victory of the season.
The #22 United Autosports Oreca-Gibson of Tom Gamble, Phil Hanson and Duncan Tappy won the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The #13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier-Nissan of Charles Crews, Guilherme Oliviera and Nico Pino won in LMP3, its third consecutive victory. The #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Mikkel Jensen, Frederik Schandorff and Conrad Grunewald won in GTE.
Nick Cassidy and Thomas Preining split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from the Red Bull Ring.
The #34 Conquest Racing Mercedes-AMG of Michai Stephens and Gavin Sanders and the #18 RS1 Porsche of Stevan McAleer and Eric Filgueiras split the GT4 America races from Sebring.
Álvaro Bautista swept the World Superbike races at Barcelona. Dominique Aegerter swept the World Supersport races.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 25th Petit Le Mans.
Max Verstappen has a chance to clinch the World Drivers' Championship in Singapore.
Meanwhile, MotoGP will be relatively close to Formula One, as the two-wheel championship is in Thailand.
NASCAR tackles Talladega.
Barcelona remains busy with the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup concluding in Catalunya.
Super GT hosts its penultimate round at Autopolis.
Rally New Zealand returns to the World Rally Championship schedule for the first time since 2018.
