Overtaking talk is taking over

In the week following the Indy 500 there has been no shortage of negativity aimed towards ESPN. Whether it be towards the announcers, the failure to show cars not leading, or the incessant "checking in with Danica", race fans who have been getting super-sized coverage by VERSUS this season have decided that the WorldWide Leader is just not up to snuff.

VERSUS owns the rights to ALL practice and qualifying this year, so ESPN was never able to get involved with televising Pole Day or Bump Day. However, the promotional effort compared to what VERSUS was noticeably less than, as I can attest from seeing more print and hearing more radio ads for the St Pete and Long Beach races than Indy. Given all of that it's easy to see why folks are saying ESPN/ABC is largely to blame for the ratings decline of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

But there's another thing that's contributing race fans ire, something on which commentators as disparate as Robin Miller and Chris Estrada both agree. That is, the dearth of green-flag passing during the most important race of the year.

This lack of overtaking is perplexing, because there wasn't a time long ago where green flag passing was not only prominent, it was the hallmark of the IndyCar series. I often refer people who have never seen and IndyCar race to watch the closing laps of the 2003 Chicagoland race to see how exciting the racing can be. Granted, that footage features a different course than Indy, but the fact remains that for some reason this kind of racing seems to be less and less existent, regardless of the track.

Now, there are folks that may say this is because we have a spec series where all entries in the IndyCar series are running the same chassis, engine, and tires. There may be benefits to having multiple manufactures of various parts of the car, but I'd like to point out there is another spec series that doesn't have today's lock-step problem: the Firestone Indy Lights.

WARNING - The following contains footage of actual passing. Viewer discretion is advised.



On his Trackside show the intrepid Curt Cavin mentioned that he had asked about this very issue with Brian Barnhart, who responded by saying that even though there was little passing at the front there was plenty of position changes towards the back.

I'm presuming the IHJ demurred from expressing any concern because he's been all about safety the last few years, and to that effect not having cars going two-wide around the speedway is obviously safer. Ensuring the safety of competitors makes not only moral sense, but has financial benefits as well. Not only do teams incur less expenses related to broken equipment, but the series benefits from having healthy, long-term careers of prominent drivers. Hey, who's not down with that, right?

But there is such a thing as too much of an emphasis on safety, as hopefully Mr Barnhart understands. I mean, this IS racing and it IS going to be dangerous, and although IMS could just sell tickets to watch a bunch of cars parked on pit road I suspect the ratings would be monumentally low. Even with the cars still running we may have crossed the threshold of over-officiousness that's deteriorating the racing product.

Consider for moment that compared to the early days of the IRL we now have lower speeds, more street/road courses, and green flag starts where drivers are instructed to fall behind the pole sitter. Throw in extended caution periods for pit stops and you've got yourself a high-speed parade, which under the best case scenario for excitement ends with Helio climbing the fence.

(And don't even get me started on whatever reason Security Chief Charles was instructed to try to prevent that moment - that's a whole 'nother post).

Anyhow, I don't want to belabor the point any further and I'm certainly not going so far as to call for anyone's resignation, but the fact is the last couple of years the actual racing part of the race has been obviously lacking. The good news is something is already working for the racing in the Lights series with cars that are very similar in size to the parent series, so if Brian Barnhart could please look into transferring that areo package or gearing or whatever it would be greatly appreciated.

These are challenging times for the series, but this seems like a total no-brainer. Do what you have to and put more racing back in the races, because even if the television coverage is horrendous it won't really matter much so long as the cameras are running.