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James Jakes' new ride:

Meh

I can't wait for the 2013 season to start to see what kind of bullshit happens in Indy Car this year...and other exciting things.

Will Will Power finally will himself to his first championship? Will just didn't have the will power in the Fontana race to fight for it I guess.

Wow Jakes' car looks horrible.

Really? I kinda like it.

All the double headers are on roads so its pretty much Powers to lose

Boston Consulting Group suggestions on how to improve IndyCar product.


— The Hulman-George family should retain ownership of the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway

— A new marketing strategy promoting IndyCar's "daredevil drivers."

— IndyCar should split the schedule into two seasons — a 15-race U.S. calendar from April to August and an international series during the offseason. The championship would be decided during the U.S. season, and the hypothetical schedule proposed by BCG included seven cities not currently visited by IndyCar. It opened at Houston, then Phoenix, the Indy 500, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Pocono, Toronto, Seattle, Sonoma and Fontana. The "playoffs" portion included Texas, Long Beach and the Indy road course. BCG argued for a playoff because "the current IndyCar schedule lacks consequence and the television ratings are at the lowest at the end of the season because the series does not have a mechanism to create suspense."

— One television partner, preferably ABC/ESPN, or placing as many races as possible on ABC. The report also suggested the NBC Sports Network may be in violation of its contract with IndyCar if it promotes any other motorsports series more than IndyCar. NBCSN will broadcast Formula One this year, but the promotional clause in the contract pertains only to the cable channel and not network television. The report said NBCSN has indicated it would "release the series from the deal" because the rights fees increase from $5.5 million this year to $10 million in 2018 when the contract expires. But NBCSN has indicated it's happy with the IndyCar deal and wasn't interested in ending the relationship early.

— IndyCar should reduce the Leaders' Circle subsidy payments to teams and redirect the funds into a weekly purse based on performance. Under the current model, the league is giving teams a $1.1 million subsidy and race winners are earning just $35,000 per victory. BCG offered several different models, including one that shifted half of Leader's Circle money into prize money and upped the race winner payout to a minimum $240,000 per victory.

— Using Indianapolis Motor Speedway more. BCG Found that of the 132 days the track was used in 2012, only 21 were considered major revenue-generating events. By using the speedway for an IndyCar race on the road course, BCG found IMS had the potential to generate a $4.3 million profit.

— Resetting ticket price tiers: BCG found that IMS didn't really differentiate between high-end and low-end ticket pricing. The report targets Indy 500 ticketing, suggesting penthouse and deck tickets should be raised from $150 to $200, paddock seats from $90 to $150. Other seats should drop anywhere from $5-$20 and sometimes more.


http://racing.ap.org/article/ap-exclusi ... ndycar-ims

Talk about running the gambit between good and retarded suggestions.

There, that should sort 99.99% of what's presently wrong with Indycar.

Bring back Randy.

— The Hulman-George family should retain ownership of the IndyCar Series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway

No

— A new marketing strategy promoting IndyCar's "daredevil drivers."

Yes

— IndyCar should split the schedule into two seasons — a 15-race U.S. calendar from April to August and an international series during the offseason. The championship would be decided during the U.S. season, and the hypothetical schedule proposed by BCG included seven cities not currently visited by IndyCar. It opened at Houston, then Phoenix, the Indy 500, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Pocono, Toronto, Seattle, Sonoma and Fontana. The "playoffs" portion included Texas, Long Beach and the Indy road course. BCG argued for a playoff because "the current IndyCar schedule lacks consequence and the television ratings are at the lowest at the end of the season because the series does not have a mechanism to create suspense."

Fuck the Chase, therefore no

— One television partner, preferably ABC/ESPN, or placing as many races as possible on ABC. The report also suggested the NBC Sports Network may be in violation of its contract with IndyCar if it promotes any other motorsports series more than IndyCar. NBCSN will broadcast Formula One this year, but the promotional clause in the contract pertains only to the cable channel and not network television. The report said NBCSN has indicated it would "release the series from the deal" because the rights fees increase from $5.5 million this year to $10 million in 2018 when the contract expires. But NBCSN has indicated it's happy with the IndyCar deal and wasn't interested in ending the relationship early.

I'm a little indifferent about this

— IndyCar should reduce the Leaders' Circle subsidy payments to teams and redirect the funds into a weekly purse based on performance. Under the current model, the league is giving teams a $1.1 million subsidy and race winners are earning just $35,000 per victory. BCG offered several different models, including one that shifted half of Leader's Circle money into prize money and upped the race winner payout to a minimum $240,000 per victory.

That's a good idea!

— Using Indianapolis Motor Speedway more. BCG Found that of the 132 days the track was used in 2012, only 21 were considered major revenue-generating events. By using the speedway for an IndyCar race on the road course, BCG found IMS had the potential to generate a $4.3 million profit.

No. It should be used twice a year, and even that's too much. Other days are reserved for track day sessions.

— Resetting ticket price tiers: BCG found that IMS didn't really differentiate between high-end and low-end ticket pricing. The report targets Indy 500 ticketing, suggesting penthouse and deck tickets should be raised from $150 to $200, paddock seats from $90 to $150. Other seats should drop anywhere from $5-$20 and sometimes more.

Maybe they haven't seen NASCAR's ticket pricing scheme. It's even worse.

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Ducks Angels Sounders Spurs

They might have just put "do what NASCAR does" on a piece of paper and handed that back because that's what it sounds like to me.

My bit of paper would be "show the world how different this series is from NASCAR, increase the speeds a bit, less downforce, more power, bring it back to being a racers series again and the fans will want to see the fastest cars on US soil and not the ugly over-stage managed cars they have now"

Like the idea of an international off season though, like hell will it happen but Indycar just vanishes in September and doesn't even make any kind of ripple in the press until March. 6 months of downtime helps no-one, particularly when you're completing against the 10 month a year behemoth that is NASCAR....

And if you do anything with the subsidy payments you'd at least immediately cut the grid in half.
It's the reason all those teams left Champcar all those years ago ("What? you mean you'll pay me XX millions of Dollars to run in your series VS having to go out and find my own sponsorship? Yeah! Sign me up! I'll come up with some bullshit about a new challenge or the mystique of the Indy 500 for the press, don't you worry!" ), it's the main reason Indycar won the war and the teams are like drug addicts depending on that money now, remove it and you'd have Penske, Ganassi and maybe a couple of Andretti cars but that's really about it.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

or go back to 1995

"We're gonna be getting rid of these people here... First, Mr. Randy B... Be... Be...nar gonna work here anymore, anyway.

It's simple really, we kill the Tony George.

That wouldn't achieve much, you'd have to kill the rest of the board and most of the team owners too, to curtail the mismanagement of this series.

Don't forget the butterfly effect. Tony George jr is even more of an assclown than his father. So I would suggest you go back to at last 1984.

Oh if we're talking time travel, someone kicking Tony Hulman in the balls at the right moment would sort everything

That wouldn't do shit. You would have to kick A.J Foyt in the balls. Everyone knows that Foyt was balls deep in Mari on the daily back in the day.

I just realized the Pocono race this year is only 400 miles...apparently because ESPN/ABC didn't allot enough time for 100 more miles...

Well, that makes Indycar looks like anyone's bitch, tbh.