Ryan Hunter-Reay made history as the finish of Petit Le Mans had cars coughing to the line. Mercedes-Benz said farewell to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters but Aston Martin said hello. New track, new continental, same winner in the World Superbike championship. Stewart-Haas Racing dominated at Talladega and Aric Almirola got the victory with drivers running out of fuel coming to the final restart and on the final lap. Remember when the FIA World Endurance Championship was interesting? Here is a run down of what got me thinking.
I Am Starting to Think IndyCar Should Have an All-Star Race
One thing I have noticed when going over the results from this most recent IndyCar season is there were some really good drivers that did not win a race this season. Three of the top ten drivers in the championship did not win a race and it got me thinking: Maybe IndyCar should have an All-Star Race.
We have gone down this road before and nine times out of ten it seems like an all-star race is a bad idea and one that will not have the legs to justify its existence but let's consider it.
The only template we have for an all-star race is NASCAR, a race that sees all race winners from the previous season and the races leading up to that's years all-star race entered while the rest of the field competes for a handful of positions in a qualifying race and one driver voted in through a fan vote.
The one issue with the NASCAR All-Star Race is it has become a bit stale over the years. It has tried many different formats. It seems to be something different every year and it seems to be running out of tricks to get people's attention. They have tried every type of inversion, segment length, mandatory pit stop, elimination, bonus payout, double-file restart imaginable that in recent years NASCAR has had to bring in alternate tire compounds and changed the aero package to spice the race up. Hell, most of it goes from a one-time thing to a weekly spectacle in hopes the buzz of a Saturday night in May will turn people into passionate all season long.
When you see all that NASCAR has done and the subsequent disappointments of thinking the answers to season long problems is what is used in the All-Star Race it is easy to get turned off from IndyCar mimicking the exhibition event.
After all, IndyCar doesn't have the money for exhibitions. It doesn't have the money for a gargantuan payout, the teams do not have the money for an additional race plus the possible crash damage that could ensue and frankly the series doesn't have enough interest around to expect any more people will tune into an exhibition event when so few people tune in for 16/17ths of the races already held.
But let's have some fun. What could an IndyCar All-Star Race look like?
The problem with motorsports is the concept of an all-star does not fit an individual sport. In baseball, football, basketball, hockey and so on all-stars are a compilation of the best from each team. In motorsports there aren't teams in the same way and you cannot really bring together an all-star team. Any all-star race ends up becoming another race.
The NASCAR model of a "winners only" race is the best foundation we have and IndyCar has a fair collection of winners to start from. Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi, Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Josef Newgarden, Sébastien Bourdais, James Hinchcliffe and Takuma Sato are the list of winners from 2018 and that is not a bad list but think about the names that are not there: Past champions Simon Pagenaud and Tony Kanaan, Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti both finished in the top ten of the championship but did not win a race, Zach Veach and Spencer Pigot were two young drivers that had promising runs in 2018.
There is something that is enticing about a race that would decide the best of the rest. On paper, Simon Pagenaud should win and advance but can he? Could someone step up and exceed expectations? I want to see that.
Mirroring the NASCAR event, all race winners from the year before are in and then the top two from a qualifying race.
IndyCar has a location problem that NASCAR doesn't have. While some are tired of Charlotte hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race it kind of makes sense. After all, for a series that runs 33 oval races from a half-mile to 2.66 miles in length, a 1.5-mile oval is kind of the median. It makes sense and it also makes sense to host it in the backyard of the teams. On top of all that, we have gotten used to the race taking place in May. NASCAR has kind of handcuffed itself. IndyCar would have the luxury of hindsight but it would still have the problem of not knowing when or where this race should be held.
Is it a road course race or an oval? Which specific track would it be? There will be a large swarth of the congregation that would just say have it at Indianapolis and run it on Carb Day. Others would want it to be elsewhere at Texas or Iowa or Gateway. There will be those who would say a street course would be better because it would be easier to draw a crowd with an exhibition race held on a Saturday of a race weekend. The crowds at Road America and Mid-Ohio would make either an attractive option.
Adding it to an existing weekend makes more sense then having the race during the offseason. If the teams are going to pack up the trucks and head to a racetrack it better be for more than an exhibition race unless a load of money is on the line but maybe it could be a chance to do something different and more importantly go to places that aren't on the current schedule.
IndyCar has a long offseason even though it isn't quite as long as it has been in the last decade. A race sometime in early January sounds kind of nice. That limits where you could go in the United States but with teams already heading to Florida for testing and in past seasons heading to Arizona for testing maybe the all-star race could be tied in with a test session at a track.
Florida has a few options. Homestead has hosted IndyCar before and it could be an oval and/or a road course. The teams frequent Sebring but the track has never hosted an IndyCar race. There is always Daytona. IndyCar has run a test there before and in recent history. Non-Floridian venues include Fontana, Darlington, Las Vegas, now that Sonoma and Phoenix are off the schedule those could be possible venues. Road Atlanta might be too far north but that is another possible venue. Why not go to an off-the-wall place such as Kern County Raceway Park?
There would be some conflict over whether the race should be an oval or road course event and what would be a better race. An oval race presents more passing opportunities while a road course may be difficult for passing but allow for different strategies. The problem with a road course is you need a lot of laps for different strategies to play out and an all-star race would likely be an abbreviated affair.
Part of my mind has this wild idea where an all-star race doesn't have to be one race but a combination of things. It could be broken up into competitions. One could be a fuel mileage run where the cars are filled to the brim and the competition is who can go the furthest on one tank. Another competition could be a pit stop competition and the event includes the entire team. The final race could be a straightforward race. The standings through the first two events could set the grid for the final race. However, there is always the fact that the more convoluted you make it the less interested people will be in it.
The final hurdle is money. IndyCar pays $1 million to the champion. The NASCAR All-Star Race pays $1 million to the winner. I can't see IndyCar finding $1 million to pay the winner of an exhibition race and I think most of the field would rather see the championship pay more than having an exhibition race being an equal payout to the championship.
IndyCar doesn't need an all-star race. It wouldn't make a difference to the overall appeal of the series but it is fun to think about.
Champions From the Weekend
The #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Eric Curran and Felipe Nasr won the IMSA Prototypes championship with an eighth place finish at Petit Le Mans.
The #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio García won the GT Le Mans championship with an eighth place finish.
The #48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini of Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow won the GT Daytona championship with a third place finish.
Gary Paffett won the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters championship with finishes of fourth and third at Hockenheim. It is Paffett's second DTM title and his first since 2005.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Aric Almirola but did you know...
The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac of Jordan Taylor, Renger van der Zande and Ryan Hunter-Reay won Petit Le Mans. The #911 Porsche of Patrick Pilet, Frédéric Makowiecki and Nick Tandy won in GTLM. The #63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari of Cooper MacNeil, Gunnar Jeannette and Daniel Serra won in GT Daytona.
The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the 6 Hours of Fuji. The #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca of Jazeman Jaafar, Weiron Tan and Nabil Jeffri won in LMP2. The #92 Porsche of Michael Christensen and Kévin Estre won in GTE-Pro. The #56 Team Project 1 Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey and Egidio Perfetti won in GTE-Am.
Timothy Peters won the NASCAR Truck Series race from Talladega, his third victory at the track.
René Rast swept the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from Hockenheim. Rast ended the season with six consecutive victories and seven total victories this season.
Jonathan Rea swept the World Superbike races from Argentina and he has won ten consecutive races. Jules Cluzel won the World Supersport race, his second consecutive victory and fifth of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
The United States Grand Prix.
MotoGP will be at Motegi.
NASCAR ends another round at Kansas.
The final endurance round of the Supercars season will be at Surfers Paradise.
There will be an eight-hour race at Laguna Seca to end the Intercontinental GT Challenge season.
This weekend will be the penultimate Super GT round at Autopolis after the WEC race moving pushed this race back a week.
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