This weekend on the streets of St Petersburg, Florida, marks the beginning of the 2014 Indycar Series season. Between now and the Labor Day weekend finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, sits arguably the toughest test in all of racing. To become an Indycar champion, you must be good on superspeedways, bullring ovals, permanent road courses and temporary street circuits.
As we count down to the first green flag of the season, here are a few things to keep an eye on this year:
Will Power: A disappointing early and mid-season gave way to a big finish for the Australian, though the season as a whole – one in which he figured to be a serious championship contender – just what was expected.
There’s obvious room for improvement, particularly at Indianapolis, where he has been fast, but never quite able to put together a full race and get a result. Driving for Team Penske, you know Power’s going to be in a car that has a shot at winning. He needs more oval wins to validate his abilities there, let alone to really challenge for a championship. Replicate his late-2013 form all year, and Power will be hard to stop.
Graham Rahal: After a few years in the Chip Ganassi Racing system (years which produced far less results than most of us expected), Rahal begins his second season with his father’s team, and with National Guard backing coming across from the under-achieving Panther Racing, expectations are high for a guy who has shown glimpses of speed ever since winning his first Indycar Series start with Newman-Hass in 2008.
The key to growing Indycar racing is cultivating home-grown stars. That’s where NASCAR is leaps and bounds ahead. Their drivers are household names in America, even if you’re only a casual fan. With Rahal, Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay and rising star, Josef Newgarden, Indycar has arguably the best crop of Americans that we’ve seen in years. The thing is, they need to be regular visitors to Victory Circle.
A new engineer, and a renewed focus should help Rahal, a second-generation racer vital to Indycar, in 2014. National Guard brings a lot of money to the table – and, arguably, just as much pressure – and after lean years at Panther, they will be expecting big things.
This could be the year Rahal really steps away from the shadow of his father and becomes a legitimate, week-in-week-out threat. The way he conducts himself during media availabilities and with the fans makes me hope this is it.
Verizon Sponsorship: The new sponsor of the Indycar Series is coming into 2014 with a big portfolio of investment. Their logo has been emblazoned on the side of Australian Will Power’s Penske Chevrolet for a number of seasons now, and the naming rights sponsor of the Indycar Series will also be sponsoring returning Indy 500 champ Juan Pablo Montoya.
The real coup for the series is having the telco company, who has featured Power in advertising campaigns in previous years, coming on board as a series sponsor. The previous titular sponsor, IZOD, started off well, but a change of management and company direction effectively put an end to any promotional campaigning. Things will be different with Verizon. This kind of proactive series sponsor is exactly what the series needed.
Chip Ganassi Racing: This team took a hit during the off-season with the news that Scot Dario Franchitti would not be able to continue driving as a result of injuries sustained in a crash on the streets of Houston.
Despite the Franchitti blow, the powerhouse squad returns defending IndyCar Series champion, New Zealand’s Scott Dixon alongside promising American Charlie Kimball. With two seats to fill, Ganassi has gone to the bullpen and plucked Australian Ryan Briscoe for his second stint with the team, and reigning Indianapolis 500 champion, Brazilian Tony Kaanan.
There’s no doubt that Ganassi has a roster of very quick guys, all of whom are Indycar Series race winners, but their chemistry will be something to watch as the season progresses. Remember, this is the biggest shake-up this team has seen in years. There may be some growing pains early on, but probably nothing too major. Everyone’s far too professional for that.
Shortened Season: According to the Boston Consulting Group, who were retained by the Indycar powers-that-be during the offseason, the way to ensure people take notice of the series is by having a condensed season.
To that end, the season begins in Florida on the last weekend in March and winds up near Los Angeles on the last weekend of August. That’s eighteen rounds over fourteen race weekends – the temporary street course rounds at Toronto and Detroit are Saturday-Sunday double headers – in just five months.
Personally, I think it’s a bad move. The series needs to maintain at least some relevancy during football season. I get that going up against the NFL is a bad idea, but there are ways around it – Saturday races in non-college markets, for example – and the biggest shame is that we lose the excellent Baltimore street race on Labor Day weekend due to scheduling problems in the city. Instead, that weekend will see the series out west for the 500-mile finale at Auto Club Speedway.
The Indianapolis Grand Prix: Another brainchild of the Boston Consulting Group was a road course race on the rather bland circuit used by MotoGP (and formerly Formula One) to start the traditional Month of May.
As a keen historian of Indycar racing, I think it’s sacrilege to destroy the traditions of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway by introducing a road course race, especially on such an uninspiring course. If the Indycar Series absolutely insists on having a race here, make it at some other time in the season. Start the season there, if you must.
For the record, my thoughts on an IMS road course race are these: having a race Speedway road course race on the schedule when other great road courses like Road America, Watkins Glen or Laguna Seca is an indication of the series not really understand what the majority of the fans want. The powers-that-be should listen more to the fans than the Boston Consulting Group.
Engine and Chassis Reliability: There’s been very little to talk about on this front in the two seasons that we’ve had the Dallara-manufactured DW12 chassis and Chevrolet and Honda engines. No reason to think that we can’t and won’t enjoy similar reliability this year.
That’s an excellent thing, because the racing we’ve witnessed over the last two seasons, which has been nothing short of fantastic, is a direct consequence of such well-built, bulletproof cars and engines. Credit where credit is due; the oft-maligned Indycar tech people have come up with a great combination, and also to those at Honda, General Motors and Dallara who’ve implemented it.
Future Planning: As I mentioned above, the fact that the Indycar Series doesn’t visit Road America, Watkins Glen or Laguna Seca is an indictment on the schedulers. Yes, I know there are things like promoters fees, but if you want to bring fans back to the fold, the best way of doing that is by having races at great tracks.
There is a chance we’ll see at least Road America, the exhilarating 4-mile road course that runs through the Wisconsin countryside, next year, and I’d wager that very few of the Indycar fans – perhaps less than 0.1% - would be against such a plan. A double header with the Tudor Series sports cars would be awesome.
Where else should Indycar be? I’d love to see an effort made to bring back the Cleveland race, run on a Burke Lakefront Airport course. It was always one of the most competitive races of the season. A return to Baltimore would be awesome! A great track, with a supportive fan base.
A 2014 Championship Winner: I’d love to say Aussie Will Power, who will undoubtedly bounce back this year, but it’ll probably be a driver from our neighbours, New Zealand. It’ll be really tough for anyone to beat Scott Dixon. The Ice Man is as good as they come. He doesn’t always win, but he has an uncanny knack of being able to stack up podium finishes, killing the field with consistency.
Enjoy the season!!
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