Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
NASCAR made the right decision, though it took significantly longer than it should have. The Le Mans test day took place. Jacques Villeneuve was in the news, and he had a point. There was some history at Road America that made everyone happy. Will Power won for the first time in over two years and wasn't the only drought that ended this weekend. IndyCar's off-track circus became rather unavoidable, and it isn't over yet, and that leads to what should be discussed this week.
The 100 Days After...
Friday saw the conclusion of the second season of "100 Days to Indy," IndyCar's docuseries that airs on The CW, which has also found a streaming home on Netflix for the first season with the second season likely to be released on the streaming giant in quick succession.
Season two followed the IndyCar Series through one of its most controversial periods, and that is saying something because IndyCar has had a few notable controversies over its existence.
It captured IndyCar's biggest cheating scandal in real-time, a tough thing to do as the news of Team Penske's data manipulation of the push-to-pass system came out days before the season two premiere. With an episode already in the can, there was no time for adjustments on the first episode. It would be shown as the St. Petersburg event happened, believing Josef Newgarden had opened the 2024 season with a dominant performance to kick off the run to his Indianapolis 500 defense.
It might have been the best way to handle the opening of the 2024 season, showing the news as it happened instead of jumping around. It was not an envious position for the producers who likely had the first two episodes, if not the first three, finished when the news broke, but it did tackle the penalty and the scenes at Barber Motorsports Park days after the announcement in full.
Episode four from Barber was all about the penalty. The puff was gone. We started right at the track as all the drivers arrived and gave quotes about the incident. We got right to Newgarden's emotional press conference. It was the best way to tackle it. Wedding planning and clothes shopping and any life away from the track ended up on the cutting room floor.
"100 Days to Indy" is a tight turnaround show. The final few episodes are turned around only two weeks after a race occurred. Time is non-existent for creative editing or storytelling. The production crew is handcuffed, but in each of its two seasons it has done a fine job of presenting IndyCar and the weeks leading up and through the Indianapolis 500.
But what about the 100 days after?
To be accurate, 113 days follow the Indianapolis 500 through the 2024 IndyCar season finale from Nashville Superspeedway. The stories do not stop because the Indianapolis 500 is over. This was the biggest complaint when the "100 Day to Indy" series was first announced ahead of the 2023 season. It was not been corrected for 2024. A lot is missed and this is short-changing IndyCar from growing as a series.
The Indianapolis 500 is great, the most important race on the IndyCar schedule, arguably the biggest race in the world, but all is being sold is the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar needs to sell all of it. It must sell every event from March through September. It needs more viewers for Laguna Seca, Mid-Ohio, Iowa and Toronto. This series is great through May, but then the series vanishes and any potential audience is only getting a fraction of what actually happens.
In the days following this year's "500," there was a great collective vocalization from drivers, team owners and others in IndyCar wondering how to get the nearly six million viewers for the Indianapolis 500 to tune in for all the other races. I don't think I have heard more drivers expressing exasperation over the steep falloff in viewership they were about to experience not only from Indianapolis to Detroit but from Indianapolis to the rest of the season.
Every other race will get a smaller rating compared to Indianapolis, but everyone within IndyCar wishes the drop off wasn't so steep. It is almost a 90º drop straight down. Something gradual would at least be understandable.
If IndyCar had an average viewership of two million people, I think everyone would feel considerably better. How can IndyCar raise the average to that level? Around five million people have been watching the Indianapolis 500 for the last decade or so, and every year the races that are not the Indianapolis 500 are hovering around a million viewers. The Indianapolis 500 hasn't done enough to entice more people to stick around. We must realize it will take more than the Indianapolis 500 to grow IndyCar.
This is where "100 Days to Indy" comes in or whatever the hell you would call a docuseries that would follow the entire IndyCar season.
The Monaco Grand Prix didn't make Formula One bigger in the United States, nor did the Italian Grand Prix or the British Grand Prix or even the United States Grand Prix from Austin. We all know "Drive to Survive," a docuseries on Netflix, is the reason Formula One has not only grown in the United States but around the globe.
It wasn't the racing that people were attracted to. It was the stories. "Drive to Survive" made the drivers relatable to the audience. They gave people who never cared about racing a reason to care. It gave them lovable underdogs as well as the best in the world and made them more than just a driver. It is a glamorous job taking people around the world, but it showed the drivers as mortals, expressing the same anxieties and frustrations as the common man working 9 to 5.
The background was brought to the foreground, and people was intrigued with what happened beyond the 300-kilometer grand prix on Sunday. There is plenty of exciting things that happen beyond the racetrack. Driver news is exciting. Intra-team conflicts are intoxicating. All sports have it. There is an audience love every aspect of a sport. Football fans love "Hard Knocks" just as much as they love spending an afternoon watching the games on the couch. Think about the obsession that is fantasy football. Football is more than four quarters and 60 minutes on Sunday.
IndyCar needs IndyCar to be bigger. Hoping for the 108th consecutive year that the Indianapolis 500 will be the springboard is insanity at this point. Maybe a few hundred people or a thousand people see the Indianapolis 500 and stick around. We have enough evidence to know it is not millions and it will never be millions.
This has been written many times before and it will continue to be written until someone within IndyCar recognizes the same thing. The racing doesn't matter. Nobody cares if there were 25,000 passes in a race and 100 lead changes and the lead changed hands six times on the final lap before being decided by 0.000001 seconds in a three-wide photo finish. You must make the people competing matter. Give an audience someone to care about, and acknowledge it must be done over the entire season.
IndyCar's biggest story the last two seasons has been Álex Palou. First, in 2022 when Palou publicly refuted Chip Ganassi Racing announcing it was exercising its option to retain him for the 2023 while Palou was saying he was going to Arrow McLaren. Second, in 2023 when Palou signed an extension to remain with Chip Ganassi Racing despite having already agreed to terms with McLaren for 2024 as Palou went on to win his second championship.
IndyCar's greatest drama has not been on display for a greater audience. A docuseries that would be around and catch some of that background would go a long way.
There is much more to IndyCar beyond the month of May, and that is what IndyCar must show! Giving a docuseries enough time to tell the stories and not in a slapdash manner is important .
We could have seen Conor Daly losing his ride in real time last June rather than squeezing it into the start of episode five as a hurried catchup over everything that has happened in the year since the previous Indianapolis 500.
Marcus Ericsson left Ganassi after winning the Indianapolis 500 and finishing second in the Indianapolis 500.
Simon Pagenaud walked away from one of the most gnarly accidents we have seen in decades but it has put his career on hold. Pagenaud's exit opened the door for Linus Lundqvist.
Christian Lundgaard won his first career race, and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing had high moments, including Graham Rahal coming close to victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Some would call that redemption.
Scott Dixon went on a tear and showed he still has it.
Romain Grosjean burned out of Andretti Autosport.
Juncos Hollinger Racing had not one, but two incidents where one of its drivers received online abuse from fans of the other Juncos Hollinger Racing driver.
And that is just from last year! Imagine if we had the show following the past two race weekends to cover Agustín Canapino, Théo Pourchaire, Arrow McLaren and JHR!
A lot happens in IndyCar. A lot of it is missed when the docuseries cuts you off at Memorial Day.
Not everything will be captured, but most of it could. Most of this grid could become personable to an audience. That is what "Drive to Survive" has done for Formula One. It isn't only Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. It is everyone. Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz, Jr., Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, Lando Norris, hell it has even made team personnel such as Zak Brown, Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, Otmar Szafnauer and, of course, Guenther Steiner household names.
There is great potential in a docuseries introducing IndyCar, all levels of it, to an audience, but IndyCar must want IndyCar to be on display. That means all of it, from St. Petersburg in March through Nashville in September. You must show it is more than the 100 days through the Indianapolis 500. IndyCar exists beyond that 100-day period. If you cut the audience off, then no one knows it exists nor what they are missing and they will not continue onward.
But if you keep the cameras on for the next 113 days, capturing everything that happens and show what the IndyCar Series is from start to finish, that is 113 more days for people to remain invested.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Will Power, but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Canadian Grand Prix, his sixth victory of the season.
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Sonoma, his third victory of the season. Shane van Gisbergen won the Grand National Series race, his second consecutive victory.
Jamie Chadwick won the Indy Lights race from Road America. Lochie Hughes swept the three USF Pro 2000 races. Sam Corry and Max Taylor split the U.S. F2000 races.
Jack Aitken and Marco Wittmann split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from Zandvoort.
Coming Up This Weekend
The 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The NASCAR Cup Series finally races at Iowa Speedway, albeit a butchered Iowa Speedway because somehow professional motorsports organizers have no clue how to take care of a racetrack.
Supercars will be at Darwin.
World Superbike is back in action at Misano.
