Missing The Forest For The Trees
http://www.atomicsportsmedia.com/articles/841/1/Missing-The-Forest-For-The-Trees/Missing-The-Forest-For-The-Trees.html
Nick Dorrington
By Nick Dorrington
Published on 06/5/2007
Dario Franchitti's big Indy 500 win a week and a half ago only illustrated the shortsighted problems plaguing open-wheel racing. Unless the sport's decision makers start taking a long-term view, its demise may be at our door. ASM's Nick Dorrington offers up a perspective from across the pond.
Dario Franchitti's big Indy 500 win a week and a half ago only illustrated the shortsighted problems plaguing open-wheel racing. Unless the sport's decision makers start taking a long-term view, its demise may be at our door. ASM's Nick Dorrington offers up a perspective from across the pond.
Missing The Forest For The Trees
“What can I say? I'm in shock at this point, I must say. I'm definitely in shock”
Those were the first words uttered by Dario Franchitti after finally winning the prestigious Indianapolis 500 last Sunday. The Scotsman, who has been racing stateside since 1997, held off late challenges from Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves to win the rain shortened race in his fifth attempt.
With all the lavish media coverage placed on the event, you would assume that the American interest in open-wheel racing is as strong as ever. Unfortunately for the sport, this is just isn’t the case.
Most of the British attention pre-race was based on Dan Wheldon, who having already scored two victories this year in the IRL (Indy Racing League), was one of the favourites for the victory. His resigned post-race words told their own story, “I wanted to win the Indianapolis 500, but now we'll focus on the championship”. That is, the Indy 500 has become more important that the Championship of which it is a part.
Franchitti also alluded to this in his own post-race interview, “But this whole month, it's an interesting thing to go through, the whole Indy 500, because you put all your eggs in one basket”.
Such a situation would seem strange to fans of other motorsports such as Formula One or NASCAR. Although each have races that are considered more prestigious than others – Monaco and Daytona spring to mind – you wouldn’t find many drivers who are willing to sacrifice a championship in favour of winning one of those specific races.
As is so often the case, open-wheel racing has been at the epicentre of its own downfall. In the earl y nineties the CART series ruled the roost, offering competitive racing, along with a number of famous drivers from outside the US such as Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell.
However, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, took offense at the non-US nature of the series, along with the ever increasing number of road courses on the schedule and decided to launch a rival series for the start of the 1996 season.
Despite the split, CART continued to prosper up until 2000. Aided by stunning drivers such as Juan Pablo Montoya, Alex Zanardi and Gil De Ferren, the series dominated TV coverage and controlled the majority of the famous races. However, George was not going to let this lie. By making entry to the Indy 500 as difficult as possible for non-IRL teams, he effectively forced the switch of most of the pre-eminent teams, such as Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske, over to the IRL.
Since the start of the millennium, the two series’ have competed against each other, but have at the same time lost most of the television audience that was once theirs. By diluting the product on offer, it has been hard for any network to justify investing the money to promote either of the series’ as they perhaps should be. Whilst IRL does in general sport the better drivers, Champ Car (as it is now known) has a better variation of circuits and more of the drivers famous outside the US, such as Sebastian Bourdias and Justin Wilson.
Whilst Open-Wheel racing was orchestrating its own demise, NASCAR has stepped forward and become the most popular motorsport in America. ESPN has invested a lot of money into promoting the series, causing its stature has grown in recent years and the prize money on offer to increase year on year. The series has always been popular in the south of America, but it is now a nationwide phenomenon and with the signing of Juan Pablo Montoya by Chip Ganassi, the sport has started to move towards a global audience. As a further sign of its growing dominance, last years Champ Car series runner up, AJ Allmendinger, has made the jump over to NASCAR for 2007. Although judging by his hillbilly-esque remarks regarding Bourdias at the back end of last years Champ Car series, he may have been better suited to the NASCAR of the nineties than today’s more cosmopolitan series.
With extensive television coverage comes sponsorship money, something that the open-wheel series’ are now struggling to get. The Champ Car series in fact lost both of its title sponsors ahead of the 2007 season and one has to wonder how long they can continue to operate, especially considering that they filled for bankruptcy as recently as 2003.
Open-Wheel racing in America has reached a crossroads that it doesn’t look likely to recover from unless the two series remerge. While that may have seemed as likely as George Bush admitting it was wrong to go to war in Iraq a couple of years ago, it seems that common sense may prevail. Current rumours suggest that ESPN, having added the rights to Champ Car to their line-up, alongside IRL, are pushing for the unification of the series’. In reality this is the only solution and hopefully ESPN will be able to persuade the series’ owners of the long term benefits of their proposal.
Of course, none of this matters to Franchitti at the moment. He is probably still coming to terms with his Indianapolis win. On the back of his victory, he has stated his desire to race an Acura Prototype in the Le Mans 24hr in the future. I don’t think anyone would begrudge him success there too, in a race that not even his great idol and fellow Indy 500 winner Jim Clark was ever able to win. Whether he’ll still have an open-wheel series to race in next year though is anyone’s guess.
Those were the first words uttered by Dario Franchitti after finally winning the prestigious Indianapolis 500 last Sunday. The Scotsman, who has been racing stateside since 1997, held off late challenges from Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves to win the rain shortened race in his fifth attempt.
With all the lavish media coverage placed on the event, you would assume that the American interest in open-wheel racing is as strong as ever. Unfortunately for the sport, this is just isn’t the case.
Most of the British attention pre-race was based on Dan Wheldon, who having already scored two victories this year in the IRL (Indy Racing League), was one of the favourites for the victory. His resigned post-race words told their own story, “I wanted to win the Indianapolis 500, but now we'll focus on the championship”. That is, the Indy 500 has become more important that the Championship of which it is a part.
Franchitti also alluded to this in his own post-race interview, “But this whole month, it's an interesting thing to go through, the whole Indy 500, because you put all your eggs in one basket”.
Such a situation would seem strange to fans of other motorsports such as Formula One or NASCAR. Although each have races that are considered more prestigious than others – Monaco and Daytona spring to mind – you wouldn’t find many drivers who are willing to sacrifice a championship in favour of winning one of those specific races.
As is so often the case, open-wheel racing has been at the epicentre of its own downfall. In the earl y nineties the CART series ruled the roost, offering competitive racing, along with a number of famous drivers from outside the US such as Emerson Fittipaldi and Nigel Mansell.
However, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, took offense at the non-US nature of the series, along with the ever increasing number of road courses on the schedule and decided to launch a rival series for the start of the 1996 season.
Despite the split, CART continued to prosper up until 2000. Aided by stunning drivers such as Juan Pablo Montoya, Alex Zanardi and Gil De Ferren, the series dominated TV coverage and controlled the majority of the famous races. However, George was not going to let this lie. By making entry to the Indy 500 as difficult as possible for non-IRL teams, he effectively forced the switch of most of the pre-eminent teams, such as Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske, over to the IRL.
Since the start of the millennium, the two series’ have competed against each other, but have at the same time lost most of the television audience that was once theirs. By diluting the product on offer, it has been hard for any network to justify investing the money to promote either of the series’ as they perhaps should be. Whilst IRL does in general sport the better drivers, Champ Car (as it is now known) has a better variation of circuits and more of the drivers famous outside the US, such as Sebastian Bourdias and Justin Wilson.
Whilst Open-Wheel racing was orchestrating its own demise, NASCAR has stepped forward and become the most popular motorsport in America. ESPN has invested a lot of money into promoting the series, causing its stature has grown in recent years and the prize money on offer to increase year on year. The series has always been popular in the south of America, but it is now a nationwide phenomenon and with the signing of Juan Pablo Montoya by Chip Ganassi, the sport has started to move towards a global audience. As a further sign of its growing dominance, last years Champ Car series runner up, AJ Allmendinger, has made the jump over to NASCAR for 2007. Although judging by his hillbilly-esque remarks regarding Bourdias at the back end of last years Champ Car series, he may have been better suited to the NASCAR of the nineties than today’s more cosmopolitan series.
With extensive television coverage comes sponsorship money, something that the open-wheel series’ are now struggling to get. The Champ Car series in fact lost both of its title sponsors ahead of the 2007 season and one has to wonder how long they can continue to operate, especially considering that they filled for bankruptcy as recently as 2003.
Open-Wheel racing in America has reached a crossroads that it doesn’t look likely to recover from unless the two series remerge. While that may have seemed as likely as George Bush admitting it was wrong to go to war in Iraq a couple of years ago, it seems that common sense may prevail. Current rumours suggest that ESPN, having added the rights to Champ Car to their line-up, alongside IRL, are pushing for the unification of the series’. In reality this is the only solution and hopefully ESPN will be able to persuade the series’ owners of the long term benefits of their proposal.
Of course, none of this matters to Franchitti at the moment. He is probably still coming to terms with his Indianapolis win. On the back of his victory, he has stated his desire to race an Acura Prototype in the Le Mans 24hr in the future. I don’t think anyone would begrudge him success there too, in a race that not even his great idol and fellow Indy 500 winner Jim Clark was ever able to win. Whether he’ll still have an open-wheel series to race in next year though is anyone’s guess.