Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
And now we wait on Dale Coyne Racing to announce its IndyCar lineup. Some drivers went to dinner. Some drivers did not. Patricio O'Ward spoke up. There will be one fewer Porsche in the 24 Hours of Daytona. There will be one more Toyota and three more NASCAR drivers competing in the Michelin Pilot Challenge season opener. Guenther Steiner was fired and Gene Haas is tired of being humiliated. Kyle Larson did show up at the Chili Bowl, but he didn't make it pass his preliminary night as Logan Seavey won for the second consecutive year. Mahindra's Formula E started the season being stupid. The Dakar Rally had a marathon stage, and a rest day. However, it is a series that will not be competing, and one that might be, that are on my mind.
An Uphill Battle For The Little Guys
Last week ended with the stunning news that the Superstars Racing Experience would be postponing its upcoming season, though five of six races had been announced for the fourth year of SRX competition. In the press release, SRX stated the reason for the decision as "market factors that have proven to be too much to overcome."
SRX has not closed its doors entirely. The 2024 season has only been postponed, and the series did state it was actively exploring strategic options for its long-term potential.
The uphill battles for SRX had been well-known. Any startup faces a wealth of problems right off the bat. They might have enough momentum to get off the ground, but that hard part is staying in the air. It was almost a running gag each week about how tight the series was on spare parts and replacements. An abundance of accidents in one race strained the series and risked the level of competition at succeeding weeks.
Though there were those concerns, SRX did complete three full seasons, each consisting of six races, without any significant shortage leading to a decrease in quality on the racetrack. At no point did the series scale back from the usual 12 drivers starting down to nine or ten because it did not have enough cars ready for the following week.
It was a series run under a tight budget, but it was still able to make the races happen at short tracks across the country, and attract quality guest drivers in the process. Not only did it put on races, but it drew viewers as well. In its first two seasons on CBS, it was averaging around a million viewers each Saturday night, nothing staggering, but respectable compared to IndyCar and even Formula One in the United States, and better than IMSA. The move to ESPN and Thursday nights was always going to see a decline, switching from network to cable, but it had its own time on its own date. It revived "Thursday Night Thunder," and everyone bought into the nostalgia.
It might have been only 12 cars and six weekends, but it costs pretty penny to organize any motorsports series. It still requires sponsorship dollars and television dollars, and a lot of them. For all that SRX had going in its favor, it had plenty of hangups.
For all the pomp of an all-star series, the series never said why it mattered. While there were always seven or eight full-time drivers, the attention was always on the drivers dropping in for a night or two. Nothing wrong with that, until it was time for the finale. What did these six races mean? Why did they matter? Why should we care? Every year, the championship, the crescendo, fell on deaf ears. The champion was mostly forgotten, even though he had been around for all six weeks.
Year four could have been the chance to show people why to stick with the championship, give it meaning from beginning to end. We will never know.
Oh, there is a chance SRX returns, but the 21st century is not meant for a series like that.
Heck, even Robby Gordon's Stadium Super Truck series has gone mostly dormant though it is widely praised for its action. Stadium Super Trucks ran only two events in 2023, supporting the Grand Prix of Long Beach and the IndyCar race from Nashville.
You may have hope, because in the days prior to SRX's announcement, it became public that Ray Evernham and Rob Kauffman had purchased the brand rights to IROC, the International Race of Championship, which contested 30 seasons from 1974 to 2006. Evernham said the plan is to run a vintage type race sometime in 2024.
You should be easy with that hope because in all likelihood we will not see IROC as we knew it from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. This isn't going to be a four-race championship run in companion with NASCAR and IndyCar weekends. What Evernham has done is bought control; the ability to promote vintage IROC races at historic race weekends while also able to cash in on printing vintage t-shirts for the attendees. A new series, an IROC revival, is not going to be what you expect. For starters, Evernham doesn’t even have any cars, which are kind of important to an automobile racing series.
There is too much competition and not enough money for an all-star series to work in the 21st century.
It is what killed the original IROC the first time. When Crown Royal went away, the series went away. There were better options out there to sell products. Four weekends is nothing when spending millions of dollars. Exposure was limited, and could easily be missed when races are spread over many weeks. In the final years of IROC, it was many months. There was no desire to be apart of that when the same company could spend just as much and be on a NASCAR Cup race 12 times a year or sponsor a full-time sports car program. It also made it more difficult to attract drivers.
With Crown Royal plastered all over the vehicles, drivers with the other alcoholic beverage sponsors were not going to participate. The same conflict of interest exists today. It is difficult to sell as a race of champions if champions cannot compete due to sponsorship.
SRX had the right model. It had a fairly neutral title sponsor in Camping World, a company that had already sponsored a major series for over a decade, but instead of having every car donning Camping World on the hood and side, SRX allowed other companies to sponsor guest drivers.
Denny Hamlin could race SRX with FedEx on his car. Chase Elliott could compete with Napa Auto Parts. Ryan Blaney had BodyArmor blazed across his hood. Flexibility is key for participation at this time.
It is hard to call SRX a failure though it is taking a pause. It filled short tracks across the country and generated a genuine buzz everywhere it went. It did gather a following each summer, and we were excited for what 2024 had in store. What might be SRX's downfall is the lack of a visionary in charge.
Evernham was a founding member of SRX and a crucial member through its building year in 2020, and its first season in 2021. Once he left, Tony Stewart was the undisputed face of the series, another founding member and competitor at that. However, Stewart has many projects, from a NASCAR Cup team, to a sprint car series and team, to a foray into drag racing that will be expanding to more in 2024.
All apologies to Don Hawk, who did a good job running SRX as CEO, but SRX needed someone who lived and breathed the series. The series got the nickname "Tony Stewart and friends" for a reason. It needed a face who was going to make sure SRX was going to see 2024.
Considering the lack of IROC for nearly two decades, an all-star series has a place in 2024. A generation of fans don't know what it is like to have IndyCar drivers flying to Michigan or Darlington or NASCAR drivers flying to Cleveland or Mid-Ohio during the middle of a busy race weekend to compete in something else. We have become quite stale with little variation to look forward to each year. An SRX or IROC at least mixed it up and provided something different.
But for any SRX, IROC or whatever to exist requires buy-in. There is nothing stopping NASCAR and IndyCar from supporting an all-star series that brings its best together. A television partner stepping up would help. A manufacturer getting involved would be even better. But that is not in the cards, and the little guys remain at the bottom of the hill.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Logan Seavey, but did you know...
Pascal Wehrlein won the Mexico City ePrix.
Chase Sexton won the Supercross race from San Francisco. Jordon Smith won in the 250cc West class.
Dakar Rally Update (through stage seven):
Cars: Carlos Sainz leads in his Audi by exactly 19 minutes over Sébastien Loeb with Lucas Moraes an hour and 35 seconds back in third.
Bikes: Ricky Brabec holds a one-second lead over Ross Branch. José Ignacio Cornejo is third, six minutes and 48 seconds back. Adrien Van Beveren is 14 minutes and 39 seconds behind and Kevin Benavides rounds out the top five, 24 minutes and 39 seconds off Brabec.
Quads: Manuel Andújar has a six-minute and 20-second lead over Alexandre Giroud. There is over two hours and 27 minutes between Andújar and Juraj Varga in third.
T3: Mitch Guthrie leads Cristian Gutiérrez by 33 minutes and 36 seconds. Francesco López is 40 minutes and 16 seconds back in third with Austin Jones just over an hour and 16 minutes back in fourth.
SSV: Xavier de Soultrait has a seven-minute and 30-second lead over Yasir Seaidan with Sara Price seven minutes and 38 seconds back. João Ferreira is 11 minutes and 24 seconds back in fourth. Jérôme de Sadeleer rounds out the top five, 22 minutes and 43 seconds off de Soultrait.
Trucks: Martin Macík has an hour and 36-minute advantage over Aleš Loprais.
Coming Up This Weekend
The conclusion of the Dakar Rally as seven stages remain.
Round three for Supercross in San Diego.
