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Originally Posted by Teretonga
Indy is about speed and personalities more so than technical advances so is a high spec technical formula really the way to go? It will cost $$$ and will it give you the results you really need.
Anything that reduces the engine costs overall and provides a reliable consistent power plant at low running cost is going to benefit the whole sport.
Is anyone really thinking about the sport outside Indy?
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There is NO open wheel (besides short tracks) outside of Indy. CART found out the hard way.
Remember the "personalities, did not get so by racing paved ovals only, the big names at Indy came from up to the early seventies short tracks and big dirt tracks, it was only during the later sixties that there were a lot of paved tracks.
That connection was severed decades ago.
Non-USAC personalities came from other forms of motor sports, mostly road racing but also NASCAR, and some other sprint and super mod circuits.
To you some of the personalities may seem like non-stars, but I was there and if a super mod. big name hit the Indy trail, it got press coverage.(the lack of print media, compared to the sixties or even the sevenites is a lacking that goes unmentioned too often. Remember TV then was really a non-entity compared to print and radio{I actually listened to Indy last year on radio, and it has its own special plusses])
THere is no major road racing circuit to come from any more, besides possibly F-1.
IMSA/ALMS is a big fish in a little pond, with drivers that mean little to nothing to the average US fan.
The average US fan can name ten drag racers for every road racer.
GARRA has drivers from other series, NOT well know GARRA drivers.
You were there and you know as well as I that the tech. side got heavy coverage in Hot Rod, Sports Car Graphic and other performance auto magazines.
The Tech. side was very important, at least after Black Jack Brahbam and Mickey Thompson, put Indy in the eyes of Colin Chapman who put the Offy Roadster out of "gotta have to win" category.
The other circuits to draw from either have gone totally in house, or in NASCAR's case, are now the place where one might migrate to, but in any case the very important one (or few) off drive, cross overs are gone, (It got national and local press space) and therefore the importance of a certain name driving in circuit X, Y, or Z is gone also.
Hero worship worked for NASCAR because Big Bill had decades of history, to draw from. Even there, had Earnhardt (who was called by national press, the last of the old guard) not had a son, who glammed off of his old man's history, people who specialize in writing about NASCAR say the hero driver era is coming to an end, and they say it is not just reduced attendance and viewer-ship, but when they speak to fans, outside of earnhardt, no driver really means much, SO for open wheel to think it could use hero worship driver following to fill its coffers, would be from simply obtuse, to asininely ignorant.