Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
MotoGP had an eventful first trip to India, on and off the track. Formula One returned to its regular outcomes in Suzuka. The Red Bull game of musical chairs is just beginning. It was scorching in Texas as a milestone was reached. There were some technical infractions in Sebring. A new champion was crowned after an all too common occurrence in 2023. Chip Ganassi Racing is expanding to five cars because of money. However, it was the unexpected news that caught my attention and must be addressed, as we are hours away from 2024 IndyCar schedule being released.
There is Room for Texas
There are 52 weekends a year. IndyCar only races on 16 weekends. There is no explicable reason why Texas Motor Speedway should not be on the 2024 IndyCar calendar, but last week we found IndyCar was on the verge of seeing the event fall off the schedule because neither side could find a weekend that works.
In a stunning turn of events, word of the NASCAR Cup event from Texas moving from mid-September to mid-April forced IndyCar into a corner. Plans to race on April 7 were thrown out the window as Texas and NASCAR looked to have its Cup weekend on April 14. Instead of running two premier events on consecutive weekends, Texas was floating out other weekends for the IndyCar race.
We will find out if the two parties came up with a suitable date soon, but this predicament should never have happened.
There might be 52 weekends, but some do not work. Texas cannot move up a week because Easter is March 31 in 2014. IndyCar is quite busy in May... and June... and July. Next year is an Olympic-year and it sounds like IndyCar will take three weeks off to accommodate NBC's Olympic television schedule. Then there is football. Anything after Labor Day weekend is foolish to race on. There is a reason why IndyCar has tried to limit its number of races during football season to one.
In all actuality, there are about 30 weekends for IndyCar to use in a normal year. Minus three for the Olympics, take out one for Easter and then clear four for the month of May, and that leaves 22 weekends. But that is still 22 weekends for 14 race weekends not taking place at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
There must be a way to fit Texas into the schedule. Move it to the middle of March. Who cares if it is the same weekend as the 12 Hours of Sebring? They are different series with different interests, and IMSA only gets together with IndyCar when it is most convenient. Run it the first weekend in May and create a non-stop two-month swing at the racetrack. Hell, run in September and have five consecutive race weekends to close the season. It would only be a one-year thing anyway. Once the Olympics pass the schedule will open up and create a few extra weekends for next year.
The truth is Texas honestly isn't worth fighting for. It is a race where maybe 5,000 people show up because some schmuck thought an 11:30 a.m. local green flag on a Sunday was a good idea. The race and Texas Motor Speedway has been poorly run for years. It is a facility that has seen every event shrink despite taking place in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, an area with nearly eight million people and has more than doubled in size since Texas Motor Speedway open its doors in 1997.
We should be ok moving on from Texas Motor Speedway because it hasn't done a damn thing for anyone in over a decade, but in a landscape where oval races are scarce in IndyCar, no tracks are lining up to host the championship and Texas was once considered a staple of the IndyCar calendar, the race falling off in this fashion is a deflating outcome.
This wouldn't be IndyCar moving on from Texas because a better option was presented. This would have been two sides unable to find room for one another, and this late in the game, it likely meant IndyCar would have one fewer race in 2024. While every other major championship is growing or at least going to new and different markets, IndyCar shrinks just a little bit more.
It is exasperating that IndyCar gets in its own way. For a series that preaches date equity, it does a bad job of it. Texas had a date in June for 23 years. Then it moved to early May. Then early April. The entire IndyCar schedule will likely be flipped upside down next year. Nashville is moving from early August to mid-September, but it is becoming the season finale. That is understandable. Unfortunately, that means Laguna Seca is looking to move up three months to June, a month that didn't really need another race. Portland will likely shift off Labor Day weekend despite holding the September date since it returned to the calendar in 2018. Other dates could also move around as the pieces move about.
It is a rarity for any IndyCar race to make a massive date shift and stick around. Look at what happened to Fontana, Kentucky, and Milwaukee the last time around. Nearly a quarter of the IndyCar tracks will leap around the 2024 calendar. How will this play out in two to four years time? History points to other races struggling in their new dates and eventually other races falling off the schedule.
For the last decade, IndyCar has made responsible choices when it comes to scheduling and has not attempted to bite off more than it can chew. However, the "keep head above water" business philosophy does not produce a true identity, or at least not an identity anyone wants to be associated with. IndyCar wants to be known for racing all these track disciplines, ovals, road courses and street courses, but money talks, and IndyCar will race where it makes fiscal sense.
IndyCar isn't going to just add five oval races to have more oval races, even if you think that is the simple solution. It isn't. Adding five poorly attended races are still five poorly attended races. We shouldn't be confident Milwaukee will work this time around, the same way we should not believe just showing up at Richmond, Homestead, Kentucky, Chicagoland, Kansas, Michigan, Pocono and/or Phoenix will draw a respectable crowd.
I want IndyCar to have more oval races as much as the next guy but we know they aren't going to work. We know the demand for IndyCar is nonexistent. We know wherever IndyCar goes, it is going to draw at best 20,000 people, which looks abysmal with 40,000 to 60,000 capacity grandstands. This has been the truth for the last decade.
Any growth must include methodical promotion and expansion.
IndyCar must target markets and work with racetracks to make its race weekend a community gathering that brings out 40,000 people from a local market. It is what Supercross does so well. It might not be the largest motorsports series in the country. Supercross' ratings have been rather stable for the last ten to 15 years, but it can draw a healthy crowd in a number of football and baseball stadiums across the country. IndyCar is in that same boat, except it has a race that draws over 300,000 attendees and over five million television viewers each year. IndyCar has a higher pedestal, and yet it takes a considerable fall from that one day in May.
Outside of its home race, IndyCar does not do more outreach than using an outdated playbook and thinking one or two drivers doing media hits and appearances three weeks before a race is enough to draw a crowd.
Maybe this will finally be the wakeup call for IndyCar. It won't be. IndyCar has been living in a coma for quite sometime. Formula One's boom after the pandemic surely didn't wakeup IndyCar to all the chances it didn't take to draw in viewers, but seeing a tentpole race teetered on falling off the schedule simply because one weekend out of 30 realistically weekends could not be found to host the event should shakeup the series to say never again.
We are long beyond the point where IndyCar needs to set out a long-term plan and work toward what it truly wants to be. For years it has felt like IndyCar has been dancing around committing to a bigger identity. It has yet to do that. This should be the breaking point. Punt on 2024 and focus on 2025. What does IndyCar really want to be?
Dragging its feet is only costing the series. This is the chance to draw that line in the sand and act toward what it wants to be. There has been too much hemming and hawing. Time is up. Draw up the schedule that says, "This is IndyCar" and commit to it for five or six seasons, money be damned. There is no point delaying it any longer.
Champion From the Weekend
Jett Lawrence won the SuperMotocross championship after sweeping the finaround races from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Jett Lawrence, but did you know...
Max Verstappen won the Japanese Grand Prix, his 13th victory of the season.
Marco Bezzecchi won MotoGP's Indian Grand Prix, his third victory of the season. Jorge Martín won the sprint race. Pedro Acosta won the Moto2 race, his sixth vctory of the season. Jaume Masià won the Moto3 race, his second victory of the season.
William Byron won the NASCAR Cup race from Texas, his sixth victory of the season. John Hunter Nemechek won the Grand National Series race, his seventh victory of the season.
Michael Ruben Rinaldi (race one) and Álvaro Bautista (Superpole race and race two) split the World Superbike races from Aragón. Nicolò Bulega swept the World Supersport races.
The #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca-Gibson of Alex Lynn, James Allen and Kyffin Simpson won the 4 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The #17 COOL Racing Ligier-Nissan of Adrien Chila, Marcos Siebert and Alejandro García won in LMP3. The #60 Iron Lynx Porsche of Matteo Cressoi, Matteo Cairoli and Claudio Schiavoni won in GTE.
Kelvin van der Linde and René Rast split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from the Red Bull Ring.
The #1 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Madison Snow and Jan Heylen swept the GT World Challenge America races from Sebring. Wright Motorsoprts won the second race after the #38 ST Racing BMW failed technical inspection. Memo Gidley and Jason Daskalos split the GT America race. The #92 Randon Vandals Racing BMW of Kenton Koch and Kevin Boehm and the #34 Conquest Racing/JMF Motorsport Mercedes-AMG of Michai Stephens and Jesse Webb split the GT4 America races.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP keeps Japan busy.
The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup season concludes in Barcelona.
NASCAR is at Talladega.
The penultimate World Superbike round at Portimão.
The second Rally Chile, over four years after the first.
