IndyCar Needs To Leave Vs.

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Great, Robin Miller has written an excellent column , detailing IndyCar's ratings and, by extension, its sponsorship problems due most its races being on Vs., a fledgling sports network that many people do not get and is not a go-to network among casual channel-flippers . Miller shares this little anecdote from Paul Tracy, who ...

[Trevor -CA]

I totally agree with Robin.

Vs. network is retarded for not making the channel available to all racing fans and to all broadcast carriers like Directv- the largest in the world!!!!

I am going to miss the last IRL race of the season in 18 years of watching. That bites!!!

Vs. is hurting racing and should leave racing only to the big channels!!!

Trevor-CA

[tla]

emer and treva tla

[Fred]

I love Indy Car racing but they have a big problem in my opinion-----it's called lack of competition. Sunday's race was an embarrassing and boring. Halfway through the race; there were only 3 cars on the lead lap. The fourth place car was 2 laps down. Either the Penske and Ganassi teams are that great and everyone else is bad; or they are cheating the rules and getting away with it.

[Ski]

Fred wrote:

I love Indy Car racing but they have a big problem in my opinion-----it's called lack of competition. Sunday's race was an embarrassing and boring. Halfway through the race; there were only 3 cars on the lead lap. The fourth place car was 2 laps down. Either the Penske and Ganassi teams are that great and everyone else is bad; or they are cheating the rules and getting away with it.

Ganassi and Penske spend money to develope their cars. They test all year long. They practice pit stops for hours on end.
The other teams don't take the time or spend the money required to run at the front of the race.

[Fred]

You're probably right.

[Ski]

Fred wrote:

You're probably right.

No probably about it Fred.
I worked for Chip's Indycar/Grand Am team for several years. He has a very talented team that constantly is looking for ways to improve performance while staying within the rules. Like all teams, they will work the "grey areas" of those rules to the best of their ability.
Back to back IRL Championships are not luck my friend.

[ScarecroW]

Ski you are absolutely correct on saying its talent and hard work, the worst part is teams are willing to spend the money on talent which is the biggest thing that is making the sport suffer. I mean lets be honest Mike Conway, Milka Duno, Robert Doornbos, Raphael Matos, Richard Antinucci and Thomas Scheckter all have no place on the track at this time but teams still hire them because they are cheap drivers to get, while drivers like Alex Tagliani, Paul Tracy, John Andretti, Jaques Lazier and Oriol Seria all struggled to find full time rides this year because of their going rates of pay...All of that ontop of the fact that the IRL went to Versus for their network of choice really is killing the sport and for anyone who doesnt agree I want you to look back on how the sport was even 2 years ago and how many major sponsors were involved how much of a following it had and tell me that these choices are not hurting it in the end.

[Voice of Reality]

Ski wrote:

<quoted text>
No probably about it Fred.
I worked for Chip's Indycar/Grand Am team for several years. He has a very talented team that constantly is looking for ways to improve performance while staying within the rules. Like all teams, they will work the "grey areas" of those rules to the best of their ability.
Back to back IRL Championships are not luck my friend.

Ski, don't you think that lack of overall money in the IRL is a big problem for the level of competition? There was a time when I would not miss the Indy 500, however, now, I am not that interested as the number of cars, even at Indy, that are capable of winning can be counted on one hand.

I also think that from about the second year of IRL there was an idenity problem. I will never forget the original Tony George staement about the reason for starting the IRL. It would be an oval league where American drivers from USAC and other forms of open wheel drivers could advance to. We all know that the IRL morphed into just another CART type organization with very, very few American drivers. I do not know the answer, or if the organization even has a problem, however, at the last Richmond IRL race, the race was so bad that even the winner was saying he was sorry for the poor show. We all know that they will not return to Richmond.