You see, the IndyCar Series have released a list of guidelines prohibiting the drivers, owners and team members from saying…well, from saying just about anything that is considered by the lawmakers at the IndyCar Series to be judgemental of either the series, other drivers/teams, sponsors, broadcasters and pretty much anyone else who has a stake in the sport.
We should have seen this coming after the Auto Club Fontana race, where pack racing ruled, and where Australian Ryan Briscoe was involved in a frightening accident that he was lucky to have walked away from. Post-race, on television, a few drivers, particularly Australia’s Will Power, were critical of the way the race was run, and complained about the pack racing – cars were three, four and sometimes five wide, three and four rows deep, at over two hundred miles an hour – which IndyCar said they would permanently abolish after the tragic death of Dan Wheldon in a race at Las Vegas four years ago.
We’ve also seen a few people in the paddock criticise the compressed schedule. In reality, the schedule is a disaster, beginning in March and ending in late August, before the NFL season, meaning an off-season of more than half a calendar year. Sponsors hate that, and sponsorship is the lifeblood of motor racing.
Saturday night at Iowa, there was friction between Ed Carpenter and Sage Karam. The former was not impressed with what he perceived to be unprofessional driving, and took the opportunity to give Karam a one-finger salute during the race and then to run down pit lane post-race, to further remonstrate with Karam, dropping at least one F-bomb out on international television before NBC turned their sound off. Both moments were replayed multiple times by many different media outlets.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating drivers getting physical with each other, as we sometimes see in NASCAR racing, but a little healthy competition and some actual real animosity between drivers isn’t a bad thing. A little drama goes a long way. It gives the series more media exposure, which is vital for what is undoubtedly a niche sport in America, not to mention getting people through the gates at racetracks, and differentiates it from the Formula One drivers, most of whom are accused – and probably fairly – of being about as personable as wet cardboard.
Well, wave goodbye to any sort of drama, because IndyCar’s new rules do not allow for competitors to engage in any sort of behaviour that, in the eyes of the sanctioning body, does any of the following:
1. Threatens or denigrates any official, competitor or the IndyCar brand;
2. Calls into question the integrity or legitimacy of series rules, or their application, construction or interpretation;
3. Denigrates the IndyCar Series racing schedule or events;
4. Threatens or denigrates any IndyCar business relationship, including those with sponsors or broadcasters;
5. Otherwise threatens the integrity, reputation or public confidence of the sport and the IndyCar Series.
Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake, this amounts to a gag order. It’s a page out of the book of dictatorships everywhere. Mark Miles has lost the plot! See that? I denigrated an IndyCar official. Just as well I’m not a competitor, or I’d be disciplined in some manner.
Under these rules, drivers can’t do a damn thing now. They can’t complain publicly if the rules package promotes a type of racing that makes them fear for their lives, can’t remonstrate with another driver if they feel they’re being blocked, can’t make any comment on a call by race control – no matter whether Blind Freddy could tell it was a bad one – for fear of being sanctioned. Nor can anyone now point to the ineptness of the ABC broadcasts of IndyCar, and tell the truth, which is that the disjointed commentary and pictures are turning people off the sport.
Sometimes, the only pressure that sanctioning bodies bow to us that which is generated by drivers and team owners talking in public forums, thus getting their message out to reporters who follow the story to a conclusion. It seems like there’s a disconnect between IndyCar in their ivory tower and the fan base, and it’s a gulf that’s growing by the day. If you stop allowing drivers to speak their mind, the series becomes bland and boring and unwatchable.
A subsequent press release from IndyCar sought to clarify the situation, and suggested that incidents like Carpenter/Karam on Saturday night would not be outlawed under the new rules – but when you read the new rules, that’s exactly what they’re banning. It’s the very first dot point in the release. Most likely, they didn’t expect such a backlash from fans, and sought to placate. It hasn’t worked.
My major concern is that the series subjectively using the ‘detrimental to the IndyCar Series’ catch-all to slap fines when they want, and ignore events when they want.
What’s the money that headline grabbing situations of the Carpenter/Karam ilk will let pass, but flat-out negativity on TV or in the print or electronic media towards the series structure and race control gets cracked down on?
The fact that no specific penalties have been attached to these offences worries me, too. Punishment could be anything from a fine to probation to massive point loss – the kind that wrecks a championship run.
Just when things were actually looking pretty good in the IndyCar world, the series goes and does this. Another self-inflicted wound. I wish I could say this was unusual, but it isn’t. In fact, it’s just about par for the course these days.
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