Palou's doing great things this year but it's fucking tiring. He was handed this one repeatedly.
What I think he wanted in the mid-90's was a return to the days when everyone was just some kid from Iowa or Ohio driving an Offie-powered car and not a real series of international renown. Now that everything's much more expensive for the spectacle people want, those kids who he wanted to be the stars are even further off from greatness and NASCAR ate his lunch, dinner and next day's breakfast. Still, it's rather amazing how one man being so stupid managed to ruin so much.
That is what he wanted, but that was never going to fuckin' work. When you'd watch like WoO back then you'd have drivers like Steve Kinser saying "Trying to get an IRL ride together" but I don't think any of them made it without other experience. And the attempt ended up inverting one of the big advantages open wheel had over stock cars ("You're a regional sport!"). Talking to Indycar fans now it's a bit worrying how most I talk to aren't just 'from Indiana' but the colloquial 'inside 465'.
Hubris is a powerful drug, especially if one doesn't pay attention what was happening outside the continent. They like to imagine everything happening in a vaccuum and no innovation ever happening anywhere else, even if some big players like Porsche or one of the japanese conglomerates came in with a proper all-cylinders firing entry of maximum effort. Then again, I don't really see how a company like Dallara Automobili, who manufactures all these chassis would be able to function in the states where every company's expected to be more profitable every year regardless of sanity.
Thermal turned out to be one of the best races of the year. Like it or not, it’s staying.
...they literally said it's gone, though? Which I somewhat agree, it was a decent race this time. But for next year at minimum it gone. (But it will be used for testing.)
Sorry, I missed that. The race was good today. I have no issue with Palou. I like clean racing and he promotes that. I guess the issue is attendance because Fox’s ratings have been good. IMO most of the races are good and the ovals and competing with NASCAR are the issue. NASCAR is fucking boring outside of a handful of races like Daytona and Talladega, IMO.
Nascar's Truck and Xfinity races routinely get better attendance and television viewership than Indycar. And Indycar is nowhere near Cup Series. Xfinity beat Indycar again this week in television ratings. And this is with zero promotion from NASCAR. And Indycar running promos on Fox literally every hour. Indycar has major issues attracting crowds and the Fox deal is a disaster.
Roger Penske is killing Indycar. This is the worst year since the split years for sure. The series is close to being down to one manufacturer which is a death sentence. NASCAR is on its way to having possibly four or five manufacturers in Cup and possibly Trucks as well in the next decade.
CW's promo of the Xfinity races is lowkey nuts though. One of their owners owns a ton of stations and they promo it on every one of those, regardless of affiliation.
Ratings only matter when the races occur over the same time period. Of course NASCAR is more popular. But ratings aren’t the threat. NASCAR sucking attendance is.
Firing the one guy who wins you a race this season would be Ferrari-tier, but I can see it happening, unfortunately.
Herta to F2 will be one of the dumbest moves in recent history, but the Andretti bigwigs are dead-set on trying to get him to F1 even though his time has already passed. He's too old and there's too much to lose if he gets Mechacrome'd and beaten by 18-year-olds. If they're that adamant, he could just run FPs and do testing.
Yeah. It's not even that they got rid of them. That's stupid but not terrible. Stringing the guy along the whole year to limit his options before dropping him, that's the bad part. Not that it worked, the entirety of silly season was just waiting on him.