About engines: the thing that must be remembered is that since World War I, a period of over ninety years, American championship racing has seen only three epochs of engine development, using the cars of the Indianapolis 500 as a benchmark. If one uses the lineage of what is now Champ Car, that number is just two, and if one wants to be truly comprehensive and include the old SCCA Formula A/Formula 5000/single-seater Can Am championships, the total can be stretched out to four. In addition, each era can be characterized by one or two manufacturers who came to dominate the sport at that time.
Engine Eras in American Championship Racing, 1919-Present- Miller/Offenhauser, 4.1L atmospheric [later turbocharged] inline-4 (AAA/USAC, 1921-1976)
- Chevrolet, 4.9L atmospheric V-8 (SCCA, 1967-1986)
- Cosworth/Ilmor, 2.65L turbocharged V-8 (USAC/Champ Car, 1977-present; IRL, 1996)
- Aurora/Honda, 3.0-4.0L atmospheric V-8 (IRL, 1997-present)
Compare this to Grand Prix racing, which has seen no fewer than eight such eras, only one of which featuring the hegemony seen in the IndyCar eras.
Engine Eras in Grand Prix Racing, 1919-Present- Open formula, classification based on weight (AIACR, 1919-1937)
- 4.5L atmospheric or 3.0L [later 1.5L] supercharged open configuration (AIACR/FIA, 1938-1951)
- 2.5L atmospheric open configuration (FIA, 1954-1960)
- 1.5L atmospheric open configuration (FIA, 1961-1966)
- Cosworth, 3.0L atmospheric V-8 (FIA, 1967-1982)
- 1.5L turbocharged V-6 or inline-4 (FIA, 1979-1988)
- 3.0-3.5L atmospheric V-10 (FIA, 1989-2005)
- 2.4L atmospheric V-8 (FIA, 2006-present)
Beyond engines, another thing that IndyCar has to do is bridge the gap between itself and sprint car racing. This was one of the IRL's founding goals, but attempts to achieve this have resulted in complete failure up to now. Contrary to popular belief, today's distance isn't because Indy and Champ Car turned its back on the short tracks: the fact is that over the last forty years, the design of the IndyCar has changed significantly, while the design of the sprint and midget car has stayed the same, mostly because USAC has refused it to follow suit. With the exception of roll cages, there isn't much difference between the sprints and midgets competing in USAC-aligned (read: wingless) series today to the ones competing in the 1950s, while the wing is only thing distinguishing World of Outlaws-aligned cars from USAC cars.
Adding to this is the fact that USAC has completely lost the plot on the Silver Crown series in an atrocious attempt to redesign the big cars to be suitable for mile and a half cookie-cutter ovals.
I mean, just look at this thing. What sort of loving God would bestow upon us such a monstrosity? As one could expect, this car proved to be completely unsafe for larger tracks, and USAC is pulling the plug on it for 2008 due to its universal repugnance among fans and competitors.
Actually, the idea of redesigning the Silver Crown cars -- originally meant to fill the middle ground between short-track cars and IndyCars -- wasn't a bad one, but USAC completely messed up the execution by trying to ride on NASCAR's coattails. If I were in charge of a unified IndyCar series on the upswing, I would view the sprint car community's inability to firmly position itself within the stock car feeder system as room for opportunity. I would approach USAC, the World of Outlaws, and the various regional sanctioning bodies for supermodified racing to propose a joint venture between IndyCar and those series with the mission of building a new generation of short-track car: a sleeker, safer, affordable machine designed for paved ovals over a half-mile long and dirt fairground miles. These cars would be featured on the bill of every IndyCar short oval event (which there would be at least four or five), with a scholarship to the top rung of the development ladder going to the overall champion of the division, either the points leader of a national series or the winner of an end-of-season runoff consisting of the top finishers from regional series.