New Car Fever

At one point or another, we've all seen an episode of The Price is Right. That classic of consumer lust and greed, where the great unwashed from Oxnard to Bangor can get a chance to "come on down" and grab all sorts of merchandise if they can only bid correctly.

Five days a week, breathless everymen and -women bid on all sorts of stuff, from toilet brushes to trips to tables to toothpaste. But we all know the real reason why most people watch the show.

"It's a new caaaaaaar!"

That's right. Whether it's the dingiest entry-level Ford Focus or a super-hot Corvette sitting there under the studio lights, the appearance of a new car is always the biggest moment on the show (except for those Plinko loonies... don't get me started on them).

It's because automobiles are as deep in the American vein as apple pie and baseball. Yankees love their cars so much that they are more likely to go into debt to get one than virtually anything else - including a house.

The reason I bring this seeming non-sequitur up is that the thrill people feel when Rich Fields yells, "It's a new caaaaaaar!" on The Price is Right is perhaps the one thing that can get the American public interested in IndyCar racing again.

Look - you know and I know that IndyCar racing is (at least in theory, if not in recent practice) one of the greatest forms of motorsport in the world. The Indianapolis 500 alone would make that statement true - but the cross-training aspect of IndyCar racing that include various types of oval, street, and road circuit events elevate IndyCars above other series that limit themselves to one discipline.

On paper, the IndyCar series should capture the imagination of anyone who loves automobiles going fast.

In practice, it hasn't happened that way - at least not lately. I'm not going to dig up the history of the past decade-and-a-half; it's a useless exercise because we all know it better than we know our own names. Suffice to say that the IndyCar racing we have now fails to live up to its promise - at times, it fails badly.

Why? There are so many reasons. Gene Simmons is one, not just because he and his otherworldly tongue and fourteen-volume history of STDs couldn't market their way out of a paper bag if KISS isn't involved. No, his real problem is that he tried to turn IndyCar racing into "rock stars in race cars." And that's just not going to work.

It's not the drivers' fault. To a man (and woman) they are professional, courteous, and even intriguing. But they're not rock stars - the nature of their relationships to their sponsors automatically precludes them from the kind of Lohanesque kind of misbehavior that seems to tweak the salacious public interest. Simply put, the closest they're going to get is a shoving match in the pits (and we're not going to see much of that until someone gets PT a full-time ride - hollah to Meesh!) or a temper tantrum from Danica before some PR flack gets hold of her.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that, in terms of racing personalities, this country is fixated on stock car racing and the "all-American" folks (sorry, Marcos and JPM) that compete there.

That leaves the racing. And lately, the racing has, in a word, sucked.

It sucks basically for two reasons - the inequity between the haves and have-nots, and the race car itself.

There's not a whole lot we can do about the first problem. There's only so much money in motorsports right now - actually, thanks to the recession, there's virtually no money in it - so the racing oligarchs like Penske and Ganassi are going to be able to outspend everyone else until the economy gets dug out of the giant hole it's in.

The second problem, however, is fully addressable. Now, don't get me wrong - Dallara is a very capable chassis-builder, and Honda certainly makes fine racing engines. But when you put everyone into the same engine-chassis combination, it puts the power in the hands of the rich and influential. With the resources available to them, Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi can massage and tweak their "spec" IndyCars in ways that the other teams simply can't. They have the wherewithal to work within the small margins allowed by a formula where everyone gets the same basic equipment. Hence, each IndyCar race is virtually guaranteed to have a winner driving a red-decorated race car (unless Ganassi runs one of those weird pink or green cars).

An additional problem is that the current Dallara/Honda package is not attractive. I can't sugarcoat it, people. When non-fanatics tune into IndyCar races, they see a blocky, ungainly race car that only looks fast when it's going in a straight line. On the more technical street and road circuits, the cars appear to labor in and out of the turns like an elephant performing Swan Lake. On ovals, the wake turbulence from the blocky chassis makes overtaking a rarity.

Beyond all that, though, there's no general sense of innovation around IndyCar racing anymore. The engineers out there justifiably will dispute that notion, but to the layman (or -woman) an IndyCar race has none of the technical wizardry that Formula 1 has. Americans used to tune into the Indy 500 to see what the hell someone was going to bring this year to beat the other 32 teams.

Granted, these days innovation is tough to afford. But that doesn't change the fact that the public responds to innovation. There's such a thing as "wow factor" - and the IndyCar series doesn't have that right now. The closest thing to "wow" the IndyCar series can manage is whether that zipper will go down another inch on Danica's jacket in those GoDaddy.com commercials.

That's where Rich Fields and The Price is Right come in. Since it's obvious that there isn't going to be a UFC-style three-way beatdown between Paul Tracy, Helio Castroneves and Danica Patrick any time soon, the next best thing for the IndyCar series to do is get that "It's a new caaaaaaar!" feeling back into the series.

Last I heard, the IRL was planning on a new car in 2011 (although I've heard whispers that that deadline might be pushed back with the bad economy). I hope that's true. I hope that, when it's unveiled, the new IndyCar will make people "ooh" and "aah." I hope that those manufacturer summits that were held bear fruit and more folks join the show to give the engine scene some variety.

The fame tree in IndyCars goes like this: the track (IMS) made the cars, and the cars made the stars. It's that simple. The IndyCar series is about spectacle (it's even in the Big Race's name!), and as such the series needs a car (or, even better, a handful of cars) that will create one.