More Cars = Better Racing?

[Amar7605]

When my dad and I went to Long Beach last month, my dad mentioned something about wishing for more cars on the grid. So it got me to think: could more cars lead to a more exciting and potentially better races?

More cars could lead to more passing and - dare I say - a greater potential for accidents, but is this what road racing needs to lure American fans back to the sport? And if more cars are needed, how many?

Just curious on what you all think.

[macdaddy]

28 is the "Magic Number", IMO.
Just ask Zanardi... Perhaps it's his favourite number?
Especially - but not exclusively - on the bullrings.

[Dov]

Why 28, Macdaddy? Not that I'm against it, but I'd be satisfied with a grid of 24 cars.

[macdaddy]

I'm just reminiscing, I guess...

[sgjb]

I agree mac, it was nice when cars actually had to qualify to make the grid. I will never forget Ross Bentley not qualifying in his last race in Vancouver. It was heartbreaking for him, I guess he raced in the wrong era, today he would be guaranteed a spot.

[Flatspot]

Ahhhh, the days of having to qualify to make the race instead of just starting position. The days when one of the top 10-15 drivers could win on any given weekend.

Yes, I beleive a car count between 25 & 30 would be far better for racing. Especially if there were 3+ chasis, 3+ engines, 2+ tires. More competition steps the whole game up a couple of notches.

[Dov]

Originally posted by Flatspot
Especially if there were 3+ chasis, 3+ engines, 2+ tires. More competition steps the whole game up a couple of notches.

I'm all for that, but how do we improve the product without raising the costs?

[Flatspot]

The multi-million dollar question Dov.

As food for thought, sometimes I wonder if the quest for cost containment and speed reduction aren't two of the largest reasons for the downfall of open wheel racing in North America. The allure of people doing (and spending) whatever it takes to go as fast as they could go was one of the major points of interest when I was growing up.
Racing drivers were the modern day gladiators. Factories who were willing to put up the money sold the cars.

There are plenty of arguments that say it isn't feasible to go that route. I understand them and the world economy is bearing them out. On the otherhand it's the only way that makes sense to me at times. After all THAT'S RACING.

[Kicking-back]

28 entries, start 26 is about right.

Then qualifying means something - and there's always a chance of missing out.

[N I Tram]

18 cars definately isn't enough, and perhaps, while we've got 2 championships and a difficult economic situation, it's unlikely that we'd get anything like the 24-28 car fields of the past, which I agree is what would be good. If the championships combined, the field would be mostly made up of current IRL teams, but perhaps 10-12 of the CART field would join them for 20+ cars, at least at first.

[KC]

It would be fabulous to have more teams than track posisitons, but today's economy just won't support that many teams. NASCAR does not even have full fields this season.

[Tim Northcutt]

All make good points here....

To me, the key is the "quality" of the competition, and not necessarily the "quantity".....

I'd like to see bigger fields as well, but not if the additions to the Series are going to be like Hiro Matsushida and become "Human Roadblocks" on the race track....

I'd rather watch 18-20 ultra-competitive cars than see 28 car fields comprised of 18 "contenders" and 10 "pretenders" who will do nothing more than clutter up the racing action for the faster competitiors...

[Snrub]

IMO I think the races were a bit better with more cars because there was more to follow. On the other hand, in the short term OWRS needs to conserve money so IMO if someone gets sponsorship and would bring the total about 18 then they have to seriously consider cutting off someone with a OWRS subsidy.

[drewdawg727]

if there were more than 20 cars... www.pickthepodium.com would be a LOT harder

[Omega99]

I was actually thinking the other day that engine diversity might be the best thing to make the racing better. Different engines have different powerbands, acceerate at different times with different amounts of torque and power, and that would probably lead to more passing. Also, manufacturers would probably sacrafice a little reliability in favour of performance, and while it might not seem like a good thing, the ocassional mechanical failure could change the race, and add some drama in the late stages of a race when the cars are usually much more spread out. Oh, and it would give a reason to throw a yellow and bring the field back together for a tight finish.

The other thing that might help is two simple words: Tire War.

IMO, more drivers would be better with more action happening on the track, but a new engine formula would probably be the best way to make things better, and might bring more money in, which would bring more drivers in anyway.

[Snrub]

Different engines/chasis/tires/etc theoretically should make things LESS competitive by introducing elements that are exteraneous from the drivers. In other words introducing artificial elements. What was great about CART in the past was when we had all these different elements and yet races were competitive with different combonations of parts. Although this wasn't always the case. Was it interesting when Moore was unable to run with Dario and JPM for the championship in '99 due to his lousy Mercedes engine? (I don't mean to use Moore in a cheap way, it was just a big personal disappointment of mine that a top/favorite driver wasn't able to compete in a great championship battle) The tire war in CART essentially just rendered certain people slow as well.

What I'm trying to get at is we're talking about car count in this thread. If you have 20 drivers and only 8 of them stand a chance of winning because of their car package then you effectively have a competitive field of 8 regardless of the quality of driver. If you have 18 cars with the same package you have 18 cars capable of winning. I'm convinced the biggest problem with our current 18 is that they can't get by each other like they could when the tires were stickier. I also think the old pitstop rules tended to produce more passing as well due to different stop times mixing up the order, fuel usage/levels, etc.