St. Petersburg Reaction ... Embrace the Twisty and Help Others do the Same

I get the impression that the IndyCar opener at St. Petersburg has underwhelmed many. On one side are those who say “Well, duh, it was a super-boring street race. Yawn.” On the other side are those who declare the race PREFECT!!! and blame the underwhelment on various other factors.

As usually, I’m in between … and I see an opportunity.

IndyCar opened up in St. Pete, and as if to accentuate the high expectations, national media trotted out for it. Woman of pressdog® (and my friend) and big-dog, mainstream AP motorsports reporter Jenna Fryer was there. Nate Ryan from USA Today was there. Big story lines: It was 1) the first race after Dan Wheldon died in the 2011 season-ending race at Las Vegas (and the race was  held in Wheldon’s adopted American hometown, no less) and 2) the debut of the new 2012 IndyCar, complete with engine competition for the first time in six years.

So expectations were elevated. What played out was a street race. That's not a criticism. Don't read any sneer into that sentence. But a street race is a street race is a street race. The essence of street races have been roughly the same for about 30 years. If you expect three-wide at the line and breathtaking last-lap battles, you're at the wrong venue. Road and street races ("twisties" for shorthand) are kind of the classical music of racing. Artistic, much-beloved by the faithful, worthy of academic and artistic praise … but an acquired taste.

Enjoying a road/street race requires an appreciation of fuel-pit-tire strategy and the patience to watch one car stalk another, lap after lap, until he or she ... at the exact right time ... makes the move that gets the pass done -- or not. It's somewhat like soccer ... you get maybe three goals (meaningful on-track passes) in a game but you need to have the attention span to wait for them and to appreciate the process that leads up to the goal.

I prefer ovals in general -- which often gets me dismissed as a twisty "hater" since you apparently can't prefer something and still enjoy something else -- but I'll take a road/street race over a single-file lock-step-on-the-track, God-please-send-us-a-yellow-flag oval any day.

So I'm afraid people who wanted a rapturous debut with breathtaking overtakes for the lead and a drag race down the final straight to the liiiiiineeeee .... were crashingly disappointed by St. Petersburg. But expecting that kind of action at a street race is like going to see a lion and hoping it turns out to be a bear. So Jenna -- who has actually gone out of her way to be kind to IndyCar in print -- honestly noted the over-hype, under-performance gap. (Story here.)

Faced with the air leaking out of the room, the Ardently Faithful (and they are nothing if not ardent) like to toss the TV coverage under the bus. "There were overtakes on track, but ABC missed them," is the indignant accusation.

Yeah, TV missed overtakes, but again they often miss overtakes on a street course due to the nature of the beast. Even mighty F1 production, the best in the word by far at covering road/street races, shows many passes in replay. More damaging in my view was ABC's failure to inform us of strategies playing out on the track and build the story of the race. Such as ..

• Why did Power pit early? What is he hoping for there? How did that strategy working out over the course of the race?
• Why do leaders want to stay out as long as possible under green?
• How does passing in the pit normally work (when cars don't pit together), set that up and show us it playing out. ABC and Versus (now NBC Sports Network) continuously miss opportunities for drama as one car hurries to get into the pit and back out in front of another car. Often that moment determines the race.
• What does it mean to go "off-strategy." What are teams that do that hoping for? (Thus informed, we can watch how that plays out during the race.)
• How does pitting under yellows impact the race? It's often the OPPOSITE of ovals.
• What does through a driver's head as he or she does the multi-lap dance to set up a pass?

Covering twisties is more about storytelling. Picking up threads the races offers early on -- not preconceived story lines -- and helping the viewers follow them throughout the race. It maybe easy for me to describe, but it takes massive skill to do, and I would totally suck at it, which is why I don’t get $250,000 to do it. The SPEED crew of David Hobbs (colorful former driver), Steve Matchett (techno-strategy wonk and former mechanic) and Bob Varsha (play-by-play) are the best in the business at this, and they're greatly aided by the F1 production team.

So if I find flaw in the coverage, it's for the lack of building stories during the race, not for lack of live overtaking. Really great race coverage -- oval or twisty -- is about building the story of the race. But on ovals you have cars inhaling each other to fall back on. Kind of like a movie with a weak plot but tons of action scenes.

Not so with road/street races. There are very few dramatic passes (action sequence) to carry the show, so the story (plot) becomes even more important. This twisty storytelling is super hyper important for IndyCar because, as Jenna and others have opined, new customers tying the product (people tuning in for the first time) are most likely road/street illiterate.

So if they watch a twisty with an oval brain, they'll flip the channel in under 10 minutes. REGARDLESS of if TV shows every single overtake live as it happens, since there are only about eight contested overtakes in an entire street race. (Dirty twisty secret: vaaaaaast majority of positions are gained via pit strategy, random  yellows, etc.)

The knee-jerk reaction is to scream "INDYCAR NEEDS MORE OVALS!!!" Unfortunately, there's no market for IndyCar on ovals, which is why there's few IndyCar oval races. Businesses don’t do what loses them money. Tracks are businesses. Not enough people buy tickets to oval races in enough markets to make it happen.

Get angry if you want and by all means continue to suggest ways to increase customer demand for ovals, but for now (with a few exceptions) the market just isn't there. I hear you saying "promote them better" but Randy Bernard said himself he promoted the crap out of Las Vegas and got a disappointing crowd for his efforts. (My at-length opining on oval economics here.)

Now road/street races seem to do better at the box office. Why? Because (in my opinion, obviously) the racing is secondary to the event itself. You got parties; you got cocktails, sun, 19 other series on the track, Ferris wheels, vendors, babes in spandex ... oh and a race. Watching a twisty in person? Please. You watch ONE corner and kind of see cars flash by now and then. Or you move about. You cannot see the entire track at one time. Maybe you watch a corner with a jumbotron so you can see the rest. When people say a road/street race is a "great race in person" what they mean is "great event in person." It's about the experience, not the racing. Ovals, on the other hand, rise and fall on the race itself, since there is no carnival associated with it and no gorgeous surroundings to add to the experience.

So here’s the opportunity ... First, a bedrock principal: IndyCar needs to be different from NASCAR to compete. So, focus on how to make it different. The diverse schedule -- road, street, big oval (Indy), smaller oval -- is a good hook for starters. Now focus on how to make the IndyCar brand cooler, faster, funnier, more serious, more diverse, more don't-give-a-shit ... something. The billion-dollar challenge is that IndyCar needs to be different, and that difference needs to attract fans. If IndyCar and NASCAR are fundamentally the same, given that people only have limited time and money to invest in racing, IndyCar loses. (More thoughts on differentiation here.)

Which brings us back to the twisties. IndyCar goes to Barber Motor Sports Park this weekend, and if you thought St. Pete underwhelming, it will make Barber look like four-wide at the line for the win at Chicagoland in comparison. Last year there was one place to pass on the track and that quickly became the BANZAI section of the track. Just set your camera up there so you won’t miss any on-track passing. Also prepare yourself for fuel-tire-pit strategy racing.

TV should assume that everyone tuning in is a complete road/street race virgin with no clue and explain it all to us. Ignore the hard-cores who will bitch about announcers insulting their intelligence with too much explanation. Far better to over explain than under explain. Example: Bob Jenkins explained “oversteer” and “understeer” during a race last year and was vilified by some of the hard-cores as insulting their intelligence. But I, who have watched every IndyCar race since 2005, constantly get those two things mixed up. When Bob said ‘understeer has a ‘u’ in it, like ‘push’" (Oversteer also has an o like loose) I now can keep them straight. Thank you Bob.

Also, if I was in charge of IndyCar (and I am clearly not), I’d work more with the twisty-dominated Road to Indy steps, especially Star Mazda and USF2000, to try and help them build fan bases for the racing and the drivers. Build your minor league popularity and it will come through to the majors. And for the love of God fix IndyCar.com. It's an unusable jumble right now. I rarely go there.

If twisty-dominated racing is the future -- and I think it is -- better get “all in” as they say in building an audience while maybe scaling back the expense to run a team to meet the expected revenue, which is never going to be NASCAR level. Sorry if that stings, but I’m a fan of reality, and America remains predominently oval nation.

Don't mistake me saying "here's what I think should happen" for me saying this will be easy or even doable. Even a 25-cents-per-hour blogger can type out an opinion (cranked this out in a couple hours, another 50 cents in the bank!), but executing it takes real talent that sells for a much higher hourly wage. It most definitely will not be easy, and may not be doable. Hard to say. But it seems the most hopeful path to me.

The absolutely most lethal attitude is this: "IndyCar is great as it is, potential fans and members of the media, if you don't go the extra mile to learn to love it, that's your loss." Recall this is a free country, and people/media have many choices what to pay attention to. Telling them "love it or leave it" just ensures they will do the latter.

Comments

[Angiewarhol]

GREAT POST! I admit, I am with the hardcore fans who have been blaming TV ... but I said it yesterday in a Tweet and I'll say it again: I watched the F1 race after GP St Pete and was blown away by how engaged Speed's coverage was in comparison. And you're right, it's not about how many passes they showed ... it's about how engaged and informative the announcers/commentators are. I think Indycar the organization and their various media partners have a lot to learn from F1. F1 is the most popular motorsport in the WORLD. They are doing something right. Indycar should watch those broadcasts and take heavy notes. Twisties can be exciting if done well!

[The Speedgeek]

Holy hell, I enjoyed this post and I agree with basically every word. I'll comment more later when I'm not trying to type on a phone and not saddled with a work computer that only plays well with Geocities-era websites, but I just had to say "well put, 'Dog".

[Brian McKay in Florida]

AWESOME explanatory blog post! Several times I was highlighting 'points' to copy to quote here. Let's just say that the whole post was sensible and cogent.
I'm glad that you don't think that the 'product' is unsaleable but rather needs to be sold (storytelling).
Bravo.

[DZ]

Do you ever get tired saying the same thing over and over? HA! Same conversations, different date. Maybe someone important enough to instigate change is reading this time...

Even on ovals, there is much missed by TV due to how things how TV allows viewers to see the race. Someday, somehow, instead of the 'that's the way we've always covered it' craptastic production plan, we'll get something of quality, but I contend it won't be with ABC/ESPN.

I don't care what channel it falls to because, if something is in demand, people will always find a way to find it. Recent case in point - Downton Abbey. Maybe PBS can pick up Indycar coverage and transform it into something enjoyable.

[Zachary]

Jenna "kind" to IndyCar, Bill?

"IndyCar Opener Fails To Meet Hype Of New Season"

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/indycar-opener-fails-meet-hype-213720361--irl.html

Yes, she's a regular booster when it comes to the series, isn't she?

My quarrel is that through her articles and through Twitter, someone who is ostensibly an objective AP reporter is in practice little more than an opinion journalist. That's fine, but let's not dress up editorial print like it's an actual news story.

I've had enough of passive-aggressive criticism of IndyCar in both news and on social media. I'd prefer direct, strident, criticism to thinly veiled assaults behind some weak veneer of concern.

I'd really like to see the AP send us someone who understands the role of objective media, has some affinity or comprehension of the sport, and at least wants to be here. I'm not getting that from your latest crush.

[pressdog]

Review the entirety of Jenna's work since Kentucky of last year, Zachary, rather than judging her based on the latest article which I obviously read since I linked to it. First, she's under no pressure to cover IndyCar at all given it's small fan base, and yet she has anyway, despite taking shit for it from NASCAR fans and participants. She went to Kentucky primarily because she thought AP wasn't covering the sport well enough. Second, her IndyCar stories, since she's an AP reporter, appear in dozens of papers and Web sites, which dramatically increases IndyCar's exposure. Third, after Wheldon's death, she went to great lengths to get Randy to come out of hiding and generate some positive pub for the series. She most definitely inconvenienced herself because she thought it was a story worth doing. Looking over the entirety of the coverage, it's difficult to credulously say Jenna's an enemy of IndyCar, veiled or otherwise. Like all good reporters, Jenna works for her readers, not IndyCar. If you expect her to be an advocate for the sport and never have or publish any negative opinions, you are misjudging her and her role.

[Patrick Head]

I do agree with most of this blog entry. I do have a couple of observations regarding the TV race coverage, especially on ABC. I have been an IndyCar race fan since I was a child. I have listened to the Indy500 on radio, attended IndyCar races at many venues, watched on TV and followed along with the race control web sites, and with the radios at the tracks. This includes races under all the sanctioning bodies since the late 1970s.

I have noticed a definite deterioration of IndyCar coverage, or more accurately the production of said races. My first observation has been the seemingly lack of passion demonstrated by the announcers. I do think have all been very professional, and probably are personally excited to be covering the races, but I just don't see the Paul Page, Derek Daly, Bobby Unser type of in depth passion for the sport. A personal, in-grained love of all the aspects of IndyCar racing. At least it doesn't come across on TV. I think someone's comment was "it was like listening to the commentary of Tiger teeing off ..."

My second observation, and this would be REALLY easy to fix. I have tried to take a very objective look at this year's TV coverage of F1, NASCAR (both of the national car series) and now IndyCar. Over the past 10 years, I've heard MANY comments about how slow the IndyCars look on TV. Well, it's all about camera placement and angles. Even to the point of following an IndyCar down a long straight by adjusting the zoom of the camera. So, what we get to see on TV is a very beautiful shot of a car, but it doesn't really appear to be moving fast. This can last like 8-10 seconds sometimes. F1 and NASCAR coverage has a few fixed cameras close to the track. This arrangement ALWAYS makes these cars seem REALLY fast. And, guess what? They ARE really fast. So are IndyCars, more so than either F1 and NASCAR in some cases (ovals).

Why is this aspect of coverage of IndyCar being missed? And for SO many years? I'm baffled. I'm getting to the point where I wonder if it is intentional for some reason.

I attended the Baltimore race last year. I took a friend who was a self proclaimed NON-race fan. He owns (owned) a ROCKIN' C6 Corvette, capable of over 200MPH. I have driven this car. It was FAST. So, when we get to the track, the IndyCars were just getting ready for a practice session. My friend asked me, "do you think these cars are as fast as my Corvette?". I basically just walked him to the fence, and pointed out Ed Carpenter (he as the slowest car on that day). I said, just watch. My friend could not believe what he was seeing. He actually said, "Wow, they don't look fast on TV."

Later, he told me that he could completely understand my passion for IndyCar racing.

Two things came out of this for me. First, my observations I mentioned above, and also, I realized that as a fan, if I want my friends to be fans, it is up to ME to inform them of the all the interesting stuff that is going on. Kind of like hockey. A person could go to a hockey match, or soccer, or fill-in-the-blank-sport, and if you don't know what is happening, and who the players are, it's probably not going to be interesting.

Also, everybody that attends an auto race, really needs to at least once, just stand as close to the track as possible, and experience the shear speed, and grip that these cars have.

I know this is really long, but I too have a true passion for IndyCar, and also get frustrated with the rut that it appears to be in ...

[redcar]

agree Dog. except I think street racing could be more exciting as they continue to tweak the new cars and if they could tweak tracks to allow for more competition and overtaking instead of (to me anyway) the dreaded pit "strategery" and non-exciting fuel saving. street racing events obviously are better when you're there (rare in today's sporting world) but the key to success (as you've often pointed out) is improving tv ratings.

anyway, the best "gimmick" for Indycar is the different styles and types of racing on diverse tracks and however they can stress that and improve on that (let's do dirt!!!) would help to differentiate Indycar from others types of racing. I'm excited for this year and expect Indycar to get better and better.

[Jay Robinson]

With a telemetry feed, I could write an app that would take into account lap times, car positions, closing rates, camera positions, known passing zones, etc, and do a MUCH better job than ABC's producers. It's not rocket science. I write software for a living, but it's not boasting when I say "I could do it," because there are a lot of software geeks in the world who could do it. It's a technical sport - the broadcast needs to catch up.

[GeorgeK]

Most street courses are lacking the vital ingredient to create passing opportunities: long enough straights with hard turns at the end. Damned near impossible to pass through "esses" or high speed curves. The great road courses all have passing chances, sometimes multiple chances, like Road America, Laguna Seca, Portland, and The Glen.

One Street course exception is Toronto, because it has two long straights where the bold can make passes. I'm sure there are other courses as well, just too lazy to name 'em all.

[rj]

"Businesses don’t do what loses them money."

Unless you're a street race or an F1 Grand Prix. ;) In the former it's damn hard to make money and in the latter it's impossible because Bernie keeps all the money-making bits of an event to himself.

[rj]

"I’d work more with the twisty-dominated Road to Indy steps, especially Star Mazda and USF2000, to try and help them build fan bases for the racing and the drivers."

That only comes with TV coverage. Star Mazda and F2000, unless it's Speed TV doing it you're not going to and I doubt Speed TV will do so (and there's a limit to what they can do, they have NASCAR's #3 series which is a lot higher profile than Star Mazda and Trucks are in a lot of trouble).

Road racing in the U.S. as far as being a commercial vehicle has always been once you get beneath the top a tough sell. Small oval racing in contrast has always drawn in terms of the level of racing you see. Star Mazda and F2000 are the support races for USAC National Midgets at IRP at the Night Before the 500 and the midgets are a lot larger draw for the event than the Star Mazda or F2000 are. The one time Star Mazda you say could've drawn to the event was the year Conor Daly started on the pole and that's because all his high school friends that lived in the area since he's from there (about 100 out of a crowd of 5000) came to see him win. As far as getting Star Mazda to draw at say Mid-Ohio? Well, how? As far as the drivers most of them are overseas so you can't tie into being local draws as Daly was in my example. It's a nice thought but instead of just saying do it let's come up with a workable plan first, if there is one.

[rj]

As a followup to my immediate post above, it's not like it's just here that struggles to support lower road racing formulae and it's only due to ovals. Series right now in Europe are shuttering. British Formula Renault closed up shop in the past couple weeks. British Formula Three is rumored to be on its deathbed and they only have 12 confirmed entrants for this coming season. The reason is there's no commercial prospects tied to the series at all as everyone involved has instead revolved around extracting the most money possible from the racer and to do a British F3 season now costs $750000 for one year according to British folks that'd know on a couple racing forums I read. Why does anyone think that is a model we should embrace or that would start to create fans and such when even in a place like the UK that does not work?

So minor league road racing even in places where they don't have ovals is entirely built off the backs of ride buyers which means it's near impossible to promote them or get them fanbases (unless you're going to tell me Milka Duno is the future). I still wholeheartedly believe this transition was what killed Indycar in the early '90s as people switched to NASCAR because those are the racers they wanted to see, and the transition is best represented by Jeff Gordon. I doubt it's ever going to change back, but it's not like the route you say to go to Pressdog is going to result in prosperity either. You live in Iowa, look at the racers and racefans in your neck of the woods, why would they became fans of Esteban Guerreri instead of Donny Schatz?

[Rich]

pressdog, I agree with some things you're saying, but I think you're missing the primary reason these courses seem "boring" to some. It's the same issue that has plagued this series since its split from CART. They need some way to differentiate the cars and drivers among the field. Back in the CART glory days, they had 800-1000+ horsepower engines and it was up to the teams how much downforce they wanted to run (on road and street courses anyway.) This allowed the better drivers to put down more power at the risk of getting the car squirrelly. A driver being chased may panic and put down too much causing a slip and giving room for a pass. On the other side, a skilled driver or tuned car can put that extra power down and make the pass on a straight or challenge coming out of a corner. Since we're stuck with this engine for the next few years, we're out of luck here. We do have an option though.

With the return to turbo engines the series now can put in a strong push to pass that would make things a lot more interesting. I'm talking about 50+ horsepower for a total duration of 90 seconds, allowing the drivers to use that time when they saw fit. Basically the formula used in Champ Car towards the end of its life.

You'd see position passes a lot more often with this in place. F1 has DRS and KERS and you can see how helpful it is during the races to facilitate passes/action.

[Dylan]

I think Jenna Fryer's been great covering Indycar. Honestly her comments on the quality (or lack of quality) of the racing summed up how I felt perfectly. I was glad she wrote it because too many Indycar journalists just accept poor racing as being okay.

On the other hand I don't think it's ridiculous to expect more excitement and passing on road and street courses. Other series manage it. Both the ALMS and NASCAR manage to put on a more exciting show (sometimes, ALMS has a quality car issue, NASCAR has a yellow flag issue, they're not perfect) than the typical Indycar road and street course. The track's need a better desgin (use Sao Paolo as an example of a good street course) and better road courses are needed but it's definitly possible. The car's also need to promote good racing which it appears the 2012 car may have missed the boat on, but the chassis can be tweaked. It concerns me a bit that there's not a lot of motivation to fix the on track product out of Indycar because a bunch of tracks promised fixes (Barber, for instnance) and the car's were suppose to promote passing with a big push to pass and better power and these things aren't happening. That's why I like that Jenna was willing to call the series on the boring race, maybe it'll get some positive improvements made.

[pressdog]

Appreciate all the comments, especially the respectful tone of most. No one person ever has The Answer, but sharing ideas will often lead to other ideas. That's what I always want this blog to be about when it comes to this kind of "how to make it better" discussion.

[S0CSeven]

An excellent job Pressdog and very timely too. I do not and cannot understand why Americans have forsaken Indycars on ovals.

I do, however, differentiate among the ‘twisties’. Street courses have cement walls that absolutely/positively deter passing attempts. They also make blocking (sorry I meant defending) relatively easy. On a proper (large) road course you can mount an attack and if you mess it up only end up eating a pile of grass. On a street circuit if you mess up you’ll wall the car & cost the team mega bucks. Very few drivers would even THINK about a passing attempt at St. Petes (except for PT & he’s not racing).

However, it’s a new year with the same problems and no solutions.

Spec car racing is still spec car racing. The top gun & the slowest slug have exactly the same machinery with massive downforce and anaemic engines and we expect passing? I don’t think so. Certainly not on street courses.

If you want to eliminate the processional stuff cut the damn wings off, put giant turbos on the cars & lets go racing. If ‘twisties’ are the future, the races are going to have to be a whole lot more interesting than what we just witnessed.

[Mike R]

Always late to the party...
Patrick Head put it pretty much in focus up there, and kinda makes my comment redundant, though I don't think he said it quite this way:
I have strong doubts that TV can actually do a lot to bring in fans. Most of us (hardcore) really had the hook set in the jaw because at some point we went to the races. For most, that is where the blood is forever "infected" with racing, if it's going to be. My acknowledgement of Patrick's comment is to second the opinion, that camera angles do little or nothing to enhance the sense of how fast the cars are actually moving, which is the opposite of the awareness when in attendance (as his friend with the 'Vette found out). It's the spectacle of the sight and sounds, (and to some extent, the smells) that can truly 'hook' people and make them want to watch on TV. How to translate that experience to the broadcasts is gonna be tough, but the camera angles are key. As Patrick said above, when you only see a racecar in a field of black asphalt with little or nothing to gauge how fast it's actually moving, it doesn't do anything to add thrill. There has to be perspective.

[Mike R]

Interesting...most of you probably have seen this but thought I'd bring the link here for those who haven't:

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-st-pete-rewind/

[Simona Fan]

I may be in the minority here, but I felt like the race in St. Pete was only missing a few key elements. In other words, it was almost what we want in our races, but not quite. It had:

1. Racing Strategy (including botched strategy)
2. Many different leaders
3. New cars and engines. (Thank God!)
4. A full field of respectable drivers.
5. Good weather
6. DNFs from top contenders (mechanical)
7. Agressive passing in turn 1 (if not elsewhere).
8. Unique onboard cameras.
9. A few full course yellows to bunch the field up once it got strung out.
10. A grateful, enthusiastic winner smiling and celebrating in the winner's circle.

But sadly it lacked a few key elemements:
1. A broadcast that could keep track of all of (or any of) the strategy, passing, and drama.
2. A broadcast crew that were excited, impressed and knowledgeable. Marty can get excited, and Goodyear is knowledgeable but neither are both, and neither are ever surprised or impressed.
3. A decent wreck. I know this is touchy in the wake of Las Vegas, and I certainly don't want to see anyone hurt, but nothing shows the sheer amount of energy in the cars and risk that these drivers are taking like when someone gets it wrong.
4. DNFed driver interviews during the race. Simona? Legge? They had Simona there on camera and never asked her a question.
5. Enough onboard cameras. They only had 6 of the 26 cars carrying cameras. No wonder they missed most of the passing.

Sadly, much of the blame falls on the broadcast. It was an interesting race, but you wouldn't have known it thanks to the poor broadcast team, and the apathetic director. Add a good broadcast and a few crunched up wings or sidepods, and we'd be singing a different song this week.

[Mark]

Enjoyed the post and the comments, but I'm not letting ESPN (ABC) off so easy. Once I got access to cable TV in the 90's I watched more NASCAR than I'd care to admit (and most IndyCar, except Vancouver or Houston - ZZzzzzzz) and the production back then was 100x better than any of today's race broadcasts (except F1). I really blame Fox, because when they took NASCAR away they really lowered the bar for race coverage, which everyone now strives to meet.

ESPN could have embraced CART or IRL and proved they really are taste-makers, but no, they chose to dump RPM2Night and stake out the helipad with Mike Masaro every week in hopes of a sound bite from Dick Trickle or Sterling Marlin.

One thing I don't ever want to see return though is non-stop talk about how turbulence is making it impossible to get close enough to pass, like in the later CART days...

[@BrianMcKayUSA]

Aside from the ALMS race, the IndyCar race in Long Beach "had:
1. Racing Strategy
2. Many different leaders
3. New cars and engines.
4. A full field of respectable drivers
5. Good weather
6. DNFs from top contenders (Dixon)
7. Aggressive passing in turn 1
8. Unique onboard cameras.
9. A few full course yellows to bunch the field up once it got strung out.
10. A grateful, enthusiastic winner smiling and celebrating in the winner's circle."