Re: 2015 Open Wheel Racing - The Devil comes to Ferrari & the return Wayward Driver!!
Re: 2015 Open Wheel Racing - The Devil comes to Ferrari & the return Wayward Driver!!
Seems like it's been a long time since I've been able to see a race, and even longer since it's been an Indy race. But caught the one at the Mile yesterday- good race, I thought.
Especially that Bourdais and his team changed to a speed strategy vs. a fuel economy strategy- which made most of the field look like they were standing still. So nice to see someone DRIVE to win a race vs. conserve, sometimes. He was SO much faster that you would have thought that other team leaders would have done the very simple math that over the 40 laps of a stint you would (and did ) get more than enough time to add the one extra stop, let alone two more. Had that gone green instead of that late caution, I think he would really would have had all but a few lapped. Curious that so many cars were slow after the last start....
I can stand watching that.
Milwaukee was great. I was about 35 rows up above the flagstand.
The strategies were interesting. Clearly Bourdais' team nailed it. I thought Helio or Montoya would have something for him in the end with tires that were about 12 laps fresher but they must not have had the set-up dialed in.
Unfortunately, the late start (4:30 on a Sunday? Are you ****ing kidding me???) killed attendance along with a lack of the omnipresent advertising they had in the early 90's.
I don't think Andretti will promote this race again. Indycar's leader (Miles) doesn't give a **** about the series as a whole, only the 500's bottom line, thus the schedule is in a constant state of flux etc. and this inconsistency in dates, along with the split that killed Indycar before it, has resulted in maybe 12-14,000 going to Milwaukee. You want to know your hardcore fans? Those were the people in attendance on Sunday. But you need the Chicago/Minneapolis/Indianapolis/Detroit etc people coming to fill the stands and maybe push it towards a sell-out and you cannot do that a start time of 4:30 on a Sunday and only one support series race to offer those who come.
If Milwaukee continues, it NEEDS to be run on the Sunday after the INDY 500 like it was traditionally for about what? 60 years? 50? Problem is Penske won't move that ****y Detroit race (and let's face it, Penske has never cared about the series health, only his own team). But I digress. Run Milwaukee on the Sunday after INDY, at 12pm or 1pm. Have Indy Lights and Pro Mazda race on Saturday or have qualifying for all 3 series on Saturday with Pro Mazda race Saturday afternoon and Indy Lights race after the Indycars on Sunday.
The answers for Indycar seem so obvious and Milwaukee isn't like Louden, New Hampshire or that **** track in St. Louis. IT ABSOLUTELY can and should work here...the powers that be must acknowledge what worked in the past and act on that knowledge.
Kudos to Michael Andretti, I believe his group did everything they could but so much of what could make Milwaukee successful is out of his hands
