The Bathurst 12 Hour has moved to May 15. The New Zealand Grand Prix and the Toyota Racing Series season has been cancelled. It will be the first time the race has not been held since 2001. Supercross had a very different second race of the season, and Kawasaki's Jason Anderson won in Oakland, his first victory since 2018. An American set a Dakar Rally record. Jacques Villeneuve keeps talking. Robert Wickens will be full-time in Michelin Pilot Challenge's TCR class driving a Hyundai for Bryan Herta Autosport. Conor Daly will be full-time in IndyCar at Ed Carpenter Racing. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
You Need to Compromise
Only six weeks out from the 2022 IndyCar season, and this past week the broadcast start times were announced for the 17 races. We knew the networks, an NBC heavy season with 14 races on the flagship network with USA showing two races and one race exclusively on the Peacock streaming platform. With nearly every race on network television, the 2022 season is set up for the most exposure the series has ever seen. Times aside, IndyCar is in a good position, and yet that didn't stop the masses from expressing dissatisfaction.
Seven of 17 broadcasts will start at 12:30 p.m. ET or earlier, including an 11:00 a.m. start for the Indianapolis 500. Eight seven races will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET, including one of the USA races, Belle Isle, and the Peacock race, Toronto. The two exceptions are the first Iowa race, which will have a 4:00 p.m. ET start time and Gateway, the second USA race, which will start at 6:00 p.m.
It is a consistent schedule when it comes to start times. There are plenty of early races, which American race fans like. Fourteen of 17 races are on one network. It is fan-friendlier than many other years, but there was a murmur of discontent when the start times were announced.
"Texas should be a night race" even though it will now be in March.
"Iowa must be night races" even though these are a Saturday-Sunday doubleheader.
"Why isn't Gateway at night?" even though it is an evening start.
We generally accept that some people will never be happy. A person could be angry about their wages, be gifted a billion dollars and then start complaining about taxes. Talk about living with your head in the sand! In this case, IndyCar's schedule has changed, and some cannot accept that.
Texas isn't an early June race anymore. It moved to March, and it wanted a network television spot. An NBC broadcast is more attractive to a potential race title sponsor, and IndyCar isn't big enough to justify any primetime network time slot. IndyCar is barely cracking a million people per broadcast. The average audience must be tripled before IndyCar could possibly get a primetime NBC race. Also, 2021 saw some good ratings for noon-ish start times. A few of those were NASCAR lead-ins and IndyCar's Texas trek will be during the Fox portion of the NASCAR schedule, but it is better than not being on network at all.
The same applies to Iowa, and frankly, I am not sure how any doubleheader could have a night race. They would both have to be night races. The teams would not agree to a 8:00 pm local start time on a Saturday night, race until 10:15 pm and then have the teams try to get the cars ready for a 3:00 pm race the next day. Friday night is a poor television ratings night and racetracks do not hold Sunday night races unless it is a holiday because people have work the next day and aren't going to return home until midnight at best. However, we know Iowa has held mid-afternoon races and not drawn good crowds, but some of its better attended races were night races.
Iowa is a tricky situation. The grocery store chain Hy-Vee, which made a massive investment in motorsports last year and will continue with full-time sponsorship of Jack Harvey's Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry, is backing the Iowa race weekend. Hy-Vee benefits greatly from double NBC exposure, but Iowa Speedway could suffer in terms of attracting a fraction of the largest possible crowd because these races will be in the middle of the afternoon in the summer.
There is also the straight fact that some of IndyCar's worst ratings are Saturday night races. People go out on Saturday night. They spend time with the family and have other things to do. NASCAR has the same problem and has dropped nearly all its Saturday night races in 2022, with the spring Martinsville race, Daytona's summer race and the Bristol night race being the lone survivors. Even the All-Star Race is a Sunday night race.
We must accept that night racing is not a great business decision for any major racing series when television money is the largest revenue source, even if a few racetracks draw better at night than in the daytime.
Some people will not get over it, but there is a methodology to the start times. IndyCar exists a part of a larger sports platform for NBC. It is one of many tentacles and NBC is placing these races among its other sporting events. You might not like to hear that, but it is a good thing that NBC puts IndyCar in this spot. It is a good thing to lead into golf or NASCAR. It is a good thing to follow a Premier League match or a French Open match.
It does run the risk of being pre-empted for the first ten laps of a race or being quickly shuffled off-air when the next event is ready to go, but NBC wants to keep the viewers tuned in. Pre-race and post-race are chances for people to change the channel and move on. The network wants people to stay all afternoon, and IndyCar is getting its time on stage to be seen.
The current arrangement comes from compromise. IndyCar and the tracks are going big with 14 network races in 2022. Will ratings go up? Will the series gain traction? We don't know, but this television lineup is favorable to IndyCar what nearly every IndyCar fan has wanted for over 25 years. It required a few changes and a few sacrifices.
Gateway might not be a true night race, but it will immediately follow a NASCAR Xfinity Series race from Watkins Glen on USA. The Mid-Ohio race will lead into the NASCAR Road America race again. The IndyCar/NASCAR combination will be back on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course with IndyCar leading off on Saturday afternoon. Portland is before the Southern 500, albeit on different networks, with IndyCar on NBC and NASCAR on USA, but the series will work off each other, as NBC has been doing the last few seasons.
Let's see what happens with this season, but for night races to return to IndyCar, it will require compromise, the same way everyone has had to compromise for this schedule. A balance will be found. That could require IndyCar having five races on USA and only nine races on NBC. Nine network races would still be good. It would be in line with what the series has had since NBC took over as the exclusive broadcaster.
There are a few concerns, a few early races for the central time zone, notably Texas, which already has a date change, and Barber Motorsports Park. History points to Iowa not having great attendance for afternoon races, and it will have two afternoon races. Gateway had a good thing going with its night race. A 5:00 p.m. local start is not a night race. Nashville is moving from an evening race to the middle of the afternoon. It is a risk, but it could pay off. These changes might not be what we wanted to see, but let's be open to the possibilities.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Jason Anderson, but did you know...
Tanner Thorson won the 36th Chili Bowl.
The #7 MS7 by WRT Audi of Dries Vanthoor, Christopher Mies, Thomas Neubauer, Axcil Jefferies and Mohammed Said Fahad Al Saud won the 17th Dubai 24 Hour.
Dakar Rally class winners:
Cars: Nasser Al-Attiyah won his fourth Dakar Rally by 27 minutes and 46 seconds over Sébastien Loeb. This was Toyota's second Dakar victory.
Bikes: Sam Sunderland won his second Dakar Rally by three minutes and 27 seconds over Pablo Quintanilla. This was Spanish manufacture GasGas' first Dakar victory.
Quads: Alexandre Giroud won his first Dakar Rally, over two hours and 21 minutes ahead of Francisco Moreno. Giroud is only the second European to win in the quads class, joining inaugural quads winner, Czech rider Josef Macháček.
Side-by-Side: American Austin Jones won after overcoming a minute and 41-second deficit to Gerard Farrés entering the final stage. Jones defaced Farrés by two minutes and 37 seconds in the final classifications. Jones is the third American to win a Dakar class.
Light Prototypes: Francisco López won, his third Dakar victory, by 51 minutes and 28 seconds ahead of Sebastien Eriksson and Cristina Gutiérrez was third, four hours and 34 minutes back.
Seth Quintero won 11 of 12 Light Prototype stages, but a broken differential and ten-hour time penalty knocked Quintero out of overall contention. Quintero's 11 stage wins broke the Dakar Rally record for most stage wins in single Dakar.
Trucks: Dmitry Sotnikov won for the second consecutive year. It was Kamaz's sixth consecutive victory and 19th overall.
Coming Up This Weekend
It is Roar Before the 24 weekend, and the grid will be set for the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Supercross will be in San Diego.
The World Rally Championship begins with Rallye Monte-Carlo.
