Ed Carpenter is right.
After Race 2 of the Hy-Vee IndyCar Weekend at Iowa Speedway on Sunday (July 14), the NTT IndyCar Series owner-driver told Frontstretch and other media members that the series hybrid effort with the additional expense falling on the team’s shoulders is just making “the racing worse.”
After the dreadful show put on in the unique doubleheader format, it’s hard to argue against his logic.
Over the course of 500 laps on the seven-eighths-of-a-mile banked oval, the majority of the IndyCar show was a single file, follow-the-car-ahead procession, with overtaking happening when the second grove was swept before restarts. Other than when those conditions were present, it was a “snoozefest” as Race 1 runner-up Pato O’Ward said.
It’s a shame that this happened, as the race, while usually dominated by one car, would still provide full-field overtaking and multi-grove racing. When leaders caught traffic, the best cars prevailed in getting around the poorer-handling machines. That was not the case over the weekend as leaders either slowed down to prevent catching traffic, knowing drivers behind them couldn’t overtake, or were stuck in a gap that couldn’t be overcome. It felt like the races put on during the short return to Phoenix Raceway after 2016 and the early days of the universal aero kit’s debut in 2018.
Now, to be transparent, this is not a treatise on the hybrid program and its inclusion into the series. I’m very bullish on what the technology can do and am curious what it will become as it’s enhanced and improved. It does seem the series’ strategy to implement the new hybrid mid-season has had unforeseen consequences on the racing. With three rounds complete on two different types of venues, its clear so far the hybrid has not positively affected the on-track product.
This truth is a sad state of affairs for a series that consistently claims to have the best competition on whatever circuit they race. Unfortunately the motif is no longer backing that up on the track. As Frontstretch has touched on before, the series oval package on flat tracks isn’t a polished, perfect product quite yet. Now IndyCar has possibly another egg on its schedule when Iowa was the one event that stakeholders could point at to defend the close racing proclamation.
What happened? I’m not an engineer and can’t point at one thing. But the series has plenty of experts and they should be looking at every detail. From the weight of the hybrids, Firestone’s tires, new asphalt in the turns and the downforce package. Whatever combination of circumstances or data led to the lack of a show over the weekend, it must be figured out.
Besides owners who have shelled out unknown dollar amounts in new budget line items for the hybrids, the fans in attendance took on the biggest burden. With temperatures hovering in the tropical sauna range, and a heat advisory posted for both days, fans’ reward for sitting in the heat, not to mention forking over cash for $100-plus tickets, was to watch a parade. At least drivers sat in the shade before introductions and with an umbrella over their heads before rolling off, while the fans were stuck in the aluminum fryers, waiting for the eventual single-file contest to begin.
Hats off to the fans who showed their commitment by watching both races.
There was ample opportunity for this to be prevented. It’s important not to just cast blame though, because trying to engineer the optimal package isn’t easy, and even harder in a spec car in which the only difference is the person sitting in the cockpit.
The series might have been blindsided by the repaving job at Iowa which NASCAR completed to prepare for their Cup Series race in June. Communication between tracks and the series is generally kept off the public radar, unless it’s an announcement of updates to future races. But if the series wasn’t notified late in the game, or if at all, then it’s understandable that the project was a surprise. IndyCar ran a test there in June as part of further hybrid development, but if the results from that test’s data were the decisions that created the product over this weekend, then something still failed.
With fans clamoring every year for more ovals, it’s a disservice to them when a race like Iowa unfolds. I racked my brain with ways to address this because it seemed the spectators, the ones who are urged to go to the ovals and attend so that discipline doesn’t fade off the schedule, were taken advantage of. Then my 15-year-old son said one phrase that piqued my interest.
“Every oval race should be treated like the Indy 500,” he said.
As a fan of IndyCar, he knows that the Indianapolis 500 receives an overwhelming amount of testing and practice through the year to ensure the package is right. There is the open test in April, the Month of May and, usually later in the year, a tire test to set the baseline for next season.
Every oval race on IndyCar’s schedule deserves a similar approach, regardless of cost or testing restrictions. Yes, there was a test at Iowa in June, and both Nashville and Worldwide Technology Raceway at Gateway have had laps turned by teams for testing purposes. Even Milwaukee was the first test on an oval for the hybrid. That seems like enough effort is going on to try out new packages that will make the racing good. Then how does this weekend get the thumbs up from management? That’s not an effective test program if this is the result.
Full-field tests should be mandatory at each oval circuit, with multiple days in the conditions that will match the upcoming event. Then, after data is poured over, an additional test run the day before practice opens for the oval race, with the intent to try at least two options of tires, downforce, and aero configurations that might help the cars. Coming in with one choice isn’t the right direction
All that effort seems like overkill, right? That’s the point. It should be a universal policy in any racing series to never have a driver utter the phrase ‘difficult to pass.’ That is exactly what was said in various phrasing after each race this weekend. Unacceptable.
Putting together this type of standard operating procedures isn’t hard, it’s just painful due to the costs. What is truly hard is IndyCar looking in the mirror and asking the question: Should the hybrids be pulled off ovals for 2024?
Yes.
The series’ decision to not introduce the hybrids with a new car has possibly produced unintended poor results. Since the technology had to be developed on a chassis that was started in 2012, the restricted freedom to develop from the ground up has hindered the full potential of the power created, which doesn’t offset the weight in the cars. Now the racing is suffering.
Then add in the choice to debut the hybrids mid-season, it’s just another negative talking point that IndyCar has to deal with while the fans sit at home or in the stands wondering why the great racing at Iowa had to be sacrificed in the name of technology; or in the name of NASCAR, perhaps?
One more race is left to be completed before the Olympic break, then the series goes on a hiatus for four weeks. Perhaps a dedicated strategy session is in order to determine what to do going forward and how to make this technology work for fans, team owners and manufacturers on the ovals.
What can’t happen is another oval race like Iowa. The racing product can’t suffer so that hybrids can make it on track.
Otherwise, fans might elect not to go see racing at future oval events. You can’t blame them, not when the hybrids which were supposed to make the racing better only made it worse.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and the occasional Inside Indycar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. His full-time job is with the Department of Veterans Affairs History Office and is a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard. After graduating from Purdue University with a Creative Writing degree, he was commissioned in the Army and served a 15-month deployment as a tank platoon leader with the 3d ACR in Mosul, Iraq. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.
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I’m concerned about the rest of the season because Iowa was such a letdown. It happens, and I’m sure they’re looking into it, but it’s getting late in the season to be making too many changes.