I enjoy watching Dave Despain’s Sunday night TV show Wind Tunnel on SPEED TV. I’ve been a fan of Despain ever since the good-ol’ days of Saturday Night Thunder over on “the other network”.

With Indy 500 qualifying just a month away, Robin Miller was on the show to help alleviate fears that we won’t see a full field of cars to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this May. Miller proposed a variety of car and driver combinations that are likely to fall into place in time for qualifying. As I listened attentively, I was reminded of just how much it tears into my heart that year after year in recent memory they’ve had to piece together a driver field for “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.

I remember a time when Indianapolis 500 Pole Day Qualifying drew the second-largest crowd in the US for a sporting event, second only to the race itself of course. These days there isn’t a crowd to even speak of. Once televised on ABC and ESPN, pole qualifying has shifted to the Versus network this year. And although the race remains a sell-out — or near sell-out — television ratings have slid markedly over the past decade. There’s no way to whitewash it: interest in “The 500″ has clearly waned.

And what to make of it?

Indy 500 Qualifications: Not much interest these days.
(Photo by cmakin from flickr.com / CC 2.0. May 19, 2007)

I decided to take a step back 25 years and scan over the starting lineup for the 1984 “500″. What becomes immediately evident is the number of “household names” in the field that year. Names that I think any non-racing fan would easily identify with Indianapolis: Foyt, Unser, Andretti, Mears, Rutherford. Broaden it out to “casual sports fan” and many more names are familiar: Sneva, Johncock, Rahal, Sullivan. Draw in the average race fan and names like Bettenhausen, Ongais and Pancho Carter surface.

Should we compare that field with what’s expected in 2009? Who would be the “household names”? The names of drivers we’d get if we randomly asked people on the street, “Who drives at Indianapolis?” Well we might get Danica Patrick, thanks to GoDaddy.com’s heavy promotion and, well, obvious other reasons. They would probably identify with Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti because of the last names, but wouldn’t know a thing about them. But other than that, I can’t think of any other drivers that permeate the American psyche. And even when you get down to the average racing fan, you don’t come up with much more. Race fans will know Dan Wheldon and Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon most likely. However, our 2009 field is likely to contain Mike Conway, Mario Moraes, Robert Doornbos, Raphael Matos and the like. I’m sure these are great people and good drivers… but what can I say? I have absolutely no idea who they are or what they’ve accomplished in racing. And I’m inclined to believe that I’m not the odd man out. Why do they bring so little fan following? Probably because they cut their teeth in the forms of racing that generate virtually no fan interest in America.

So here it is: Somewhere along the line, somehow, “Indy” cars turned into “Formula” cars. That’s what they race now. They can call it whatever they want, but they’re formula cars — expensive and designed for road racing, not oval racing. The driving styles of America’s short-track racers — you know, the guys who actually have fan followings in this country because people watch them week in and week out — are totally incompatible with road racing formula cars. So “drivers” like Milka Duno from God-knows-where buy rides into the most prestigious race in world history while racers like Chad Boat and Jerry Coons, Jr. watch on TV. And the result? Nobody cares. It really is that simple.

I grabbed a cold drink and some chips Sunday and sat down to watch the IndyCar opener from Florida. I figure it’s a new year, things have changed… I’ll give it a try and see what to expect in 2009. I mean… how bad could things be?

It’s bad.

Real bad.

Worse than a Robin Miller column.

The first thing I noticed is that the starting lineup only sported twenty-two drivers.  Twenty-two!  After all the hype about how reunification was going to save the IndyCar world and increase field sizes and all that, they came up with 22 starters — for the season-opener.  Not to mention, I didn’t even recognize an easy third of the drivers starting, and I sometimes fancy myself as being a reasonably interested fan of auto racing.

After the race started and the field bombed into the obligatory turn 1, lap 1 crash to bring out a full-course yellow I noticed the next travesty:  of all the amazing, first-class racing facilities that are readily available in this great country, they decided to throw some temporary barriers up on the public roads of St. Petersburg to race on a narrow, single-lane street course with virtually no passing opportunities.  Ummm… why?

But the thing that most intrigued me was the new tire gimmick.  For 2009, Firestone will be bringing two tire compounds to the street and road races.  A softer compound — called “reds” since they’re identifiable by a red sidewall — to provide extra grip, and the traditional black slick tires that have the durability.  Well, okay… having a couple of tire options for the teams isn’t such a bad idea I guess.  But then the sanctioning body decided to get in on the idea by writing a new rule requiring each team to run at least two green flag laps on the “red” tires.

And so there it is… now they have a new “element” to add to the racing story and something for the television folks to talk about.  Because heaven knows there’s nothing going on on the race track to talk about. Now we have to keep track of who’s on what tires.  So Firestone brought a soft tire for better passing to a street course… where there’s no passing?  Holy smokes — I haven’t seen this much of a circus since A.J. Foyt slapped Arie Luyendyk in Victory Lane at Texas.

Tony George… what happened, man?

Here’s the deal:  IndyCar racing has turned into a “club sport”.  It has virtually no fan appeal and has essentially become irrelevant in the American motorsports psyche.  Take out the 500 and it is irrelevant.  Broaden the audience to the “casual sports fan” and nobody has a damn clue who those guys are racing out there.

Sometimes I get crazy ideas, so here’s one to share:  How about concentrating on building fan interest by racing real cars on real race tracks with drivers that race fans know and can connect with?  And maybe leave the gimmicks to… oh I dunno… Monster Truck racing.

(PS:  I was just kidding about the Robin Miller thing… Come on — who doesn’t love Robin Miller?)