Auto Club 400 NASCAR Qualifications Format Renders A Stubbed Toe To Series

He was undefeated in each round of qualifying - @austindillon3 wins the #BuschPole! Image Credit: @ACSupdates (2019)

Auto Club 400 NASCAR Qualifications Format Renders A Stubbed Toe To Series

NASCAR fans who took Friday off from work were treated to a bone-headed display of over-reaching gamesmanship by all of the teams fielding the 38 cars (especially the top 12) set to participate in the Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Southern California's only NASCAR race of the 2019 season.

NASCAR reset the template of what propels these custom made representations of stock cars that adhere to a formula designed to equalise the competition in the field and reduce the overall costs associated with the equipment needed to participate in a 41 race 2019 season. This 2019 reset effectively reduced the horsepower while increasing the downforce which has the effect of keeping the cars glued to the track at lower speeds. The other effect that, at some tracks has missed the prediction, effects competition is some felt this would increase "pack racing" where the lead car punches through the air having the cars behind the lead car work less hard to achieve full speed until a group of cars pull out and around the lead car, passing at a greater speed overall thus having an advantage of having ones car squarely in the pack for a higher average speed.

With this background knowledge, and having the qualifications for NASCAR be the fastest speed achieved by the top 12 previous fast times during the third qualification round/session shootout to set the field (as opposed to having each car take to the track for a singular three lap try at a top speed as how it is done in IndyCar at oval track races), all of the teams waited until the last minute or so to attempt to put in a lap to be scored.

Consequently, no team was able to actually register a lap time at a race speed before the time of Qualification 3 round ran out causing the race director staff at NASCAR to make the call that the order would be set from the fastest lap times set during Qualification 2 round.

Fans were never treated to the race off by the 38 drivers - and the top 12 who will compete in the Auto Club 400 to see who will start at the most coveted positions at the head of the "PACK" ... which is exactly why many who follow motorsports competition would never become an embedded fan of NASCAR, ever.

This type of tepid race management and competition thinking is a blight on what it means to actually be in competition as a professional pursuit. If this were the only time this type of strategy (lay in wait and reduce the damage) were employed, then Friday's odd call to use the times achieved in Qualification 2 round in order to fill the top 12 of the field would amount to a stubbed toe in the landscape of professional stock car racing ... but this points to a much larger problem - over regulated over management of a racing template placed on formula racing.

Here's what others are observing from this somewhat unusual NASCAR Race Control call to set the top 12 of the field on Qualification 2 round track times achieved.

STARTING ORDER FOR AUTO CLUB 400 >>>

Penske Racing #22 AAA Southern California Ford Mustang of Joey Logano being pushed from Tech with the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains including Mt. Baldy in the background during Qualifications at Auto Club Speedway. Image Credit: Tom Stahler (2019)

This excerpted and edited from Crash.net -

Austin Dillon claims ACS pole after no one makes a time
By Josh Farmer

Austin Dillon takes pole in wacky qualifying session

Austin Dillon proved that you have to be lucky and good in qualifying for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at the Auto Club Speedway.

The driver of the No. 3 Dow Chemical Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing led the first two 10-minute qualifying session on his way to his fourth career Busch Pole award. NASCAR reverted to the Q2 times when no driver posted an official time in the five-minute pole shootout.

With drafting key to a fast lap at the 2.0-mile superspeedway, drivers hesitated to make runs in all three sessions. The final group was the most extreme with no one taking off until less than a minute to go, which was too late for anyone to cross the start/finish line in time to turn a lap.

Every session featured a last-minute dash with nearly all drivers waiting until just over a minute to go to attempt their qualifying lap. Kurt Busch was the only driver to break the trend in Q2 and logged a lap of 40.644 seconds by himself.

The rest of the field took their laps with just over a minute and 15 seconds to go. When it was all said and done, Dillon was the man on top being the only driver in the 39-second bracket (39.982s).

Dillon, who also won the pole at ACS in 2016, noted that finding an open hole in the pack made all the difference in session two.

“That goes back to round two with Andy Houston (Dillon’s spotter), getting us a hole,” said Dillon. “Our Dow car has been good the whole day, I felt that it was the fastest car here. It feels good to get that pole.

The pole is Dillon's the fourth of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.
[Reference Here]

As the Monster Energy Cup cars of NASCAR line up at the pit end line waiting for a good time to take the track and set a time for Qualifying, it looks like the traffic on the I-10 during rush hour. Image Credit: Image Credit: @ACSupdates (2019)

This excerpted and edited from Racer -

Boos send a message about the current state of NASCAR qualifying
By Kelly Crandall

NASCAR will look to have “something different in the queue” by the time Monster Energy Cup Series drivers show up to qualify at Texas Motor Speedway in two weeks.

After all 12 drivers advancing to the third and final round of qualifying at Auto Club Speedway on Friday failed to post even a single qualifying lap, Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, suggested tweaks would have to be made.

Ultimately, the top 12 for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 were determined based on second-round speeds, giving RCR’s Austin Dillon the pole.

“I saw obviously what our fans don’t want,” said Miller outside the NASCAR hauler after an all but silent final qualifying session. “Having the fastest 12 cars wait until they couldn’t get a time posted on the board, making kind of a mockery out of qualifying, is not what our fans expect.

“It’s a little bit on us in that we hoped things would go better than that. It’s an exciting show when they’re all out there on the race track, but obviously, there’s work to do [with the format] on our part so things like that don’t happen. We want to provide our fans with what they deserve, and we and the teams didn’t do a very good job of that today. We’re all really disappointed.”

In both the first and second rounds of qualifying, drivers sat at the end of pit road until late in the session. Then, charging onto the track, drivers tried to position themselves where they felt would be best in line to get a draft.

No one wanted to be the driver pulling the line and in the final round, no one was willing to leave the pits first.

Texas will be the next time the series qualifies at a track where a draft could come into play. Next weekend, the series visits the Martinsville short track.

“We will definitely make some tweaks to [qualifying], not quite sure what,” said Miller. “We don’t want to go back to single-car qualifying. There may not be another way, but we want to exhaust every possibility before we [go back] because that’s not as much fun, not as much of a show as the group situation.

“We’ll try to figure out a way to adjust the group qualifying thing and not go back to single car; but we got some work to do on that.”

Chase Elliott acknowledged no one wanted to be first out on the big Fontana track today. The Hendrick Motorsports driver doesn’t know what the fix should be, but said it was certainly entertaining to see drivers drafting and battling to set up the right gap to benefit from in the first two rounds.

Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer, who will start second and ninth respectively, said the fans in the grandstands clearly voiced their displeasure.

“We got booed,” said Bowyer. “It’s disappointing for everybody involved. I don’t know — I saw this coming three weeks ago. I think we all did. Unfortunately, we are going to have to be reactive instead of proactive.

“It’s a learning process, the whole package is. Everybody knew that going in, and everybody has been patient, but I am a little bit out of patience now with Fridays.

“There is so much hard work and dedication by so many teams to go out there and build the fastest car known to mankind inside the walls of their organization, and it just doesn’t matter. That is not racing.

“I feel like we are capable, as an industry, of putting on a better show than this. I know [NASCAR] will take the right [steps] to correct things, but unfortunately, it took something like today to [force] adjustment.”

“I think the crowd booing tells the story,” said Harvick, who deferred to NASCAR about whether a change in the format is necessary. “We do the best that we can, though, to try to put ourselves in the best position; and it was just a handful today.”

Fifth-place qualifier Joey Logano said his No. 22 Team Penske team blew it in the final round, but so did everyone else.

“That’s the game,” he said.

Ryan Newman qualified seventh but was another driver unhappy about how qualifying has played out recently.

“I don’t think that was a very successful use of TV time for our sponsors,” he said. “I told you all back in Vegas that I am still a big fan of single-car qualifying. That is all I need to say, really. That is the way qualifying should be.

“The gamesmanship that goes on now, the lack of giving it 100 percent — that’s not what qualifying is all about.

“But that is the program that NASCAR set forth, the rules they laid down and the box they put us in. Shame on us for not getting a lap in today.”
[Reference Here]

BOOS, Shame, and a less than satisfying Fan Experience was what NASCAR treated the crowd gathered for the only race scheduled for one of the largest concentration of humans a series could have and engage with - at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Toe stubbed in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time - thanks for nuttin', NASCAR.

... notes from The EDJE




TAGS: Auto Club 400, Auto Club Speedway, Monster Energy Cup, NASCAR, Austin Dillon, No. 3 Dow Chemical Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing, @ACSupdates, Tom Stahler, The EDJE

Post #MAVTv500 & #CokeZero400 Superspeedway Event Observations

Ryan Briscoe has a moment of personal conversation with his helmet as he prepares to be a competitive factor in the MAVTv500 superspeedway five-hundred mile race held at Auto Club Speedway on Saturday June 27th. Image Credit: Ken Manfred (2015)

Post #MAVTv500 & #CokeZero400 Superspeedway Event Observations

This was NOT a good week for ‪#‎NASCAR‬. Last week they ask fans not to fly the ‪#‎ConfederateFlag‬ and we see more Rebel Flags at Daytona International Speedway than we have seen in years.

They pull the hard cards of the crew guys who should have been celebrated as heroes for rushing to help Austin Dillon after his crash and have to explain they just wanted to talk to them, they will not fine them at all.

Subway is the presenting sponsor of the Xfinity Series race and is at Daytona ... this week Jared, the face of Subway advertising, had his home raided as part of a child pornography investigation.

But all of this serves as a distraction to the real issue at hand - Pack Racing.

Pole sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr. held off the pack (a very good view of the definition of "pack racing") to win the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.  Earnhardt led 96 laps en route to his second win of the season.  Jimmie Johnson finished second, while Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch completed the top-five. Image Credit: NASCAR via RiverBender.com

This weekend's heavily promoted race on NBC at Daytona, the Coke Zero 400, was delayed from its normal broadcast window and pushed way past midnight on the West coast was won by Dale Earnhart Jr. in a journeyman display of restrictor plate, raceline control, superspeedway PACK RACING.

If it were not for a couple of incredibly hairy Pack Racing crashes where everyone survived and about three spectators (it could have been a lot worse) were injured due to debris from a car flying into the catch fence ... the race was a total bore as are most NASCAR oval racing restrictor plate events.

The week before, a race that was also on a NBC broadcasting property (NBCSN), but not heavily promoted, the Verizon IndyCar Series held a race at Auto Club speedway.

The MAVTv500 would have been a good news event for the series if the race was able to draw spectators because the racing was anything but just a pack of cars playing "Follow The Leader" behind a very experienced driver/tactician. The product on the track and the lack of spectators attending the event show a dichotomy of efforts between the teams and drivers versus the Verizon IndyCar Series (VICS) management.

The product is the best it may be in years from top teams to the bottom of the points paying order ... this may be the most professional and talented to ever be assembled - the VICS management, however, may be the second worse ever (2015 explained here) with the worst management team being the last years of the Tony George regime, many of whom occupy positions in this current management team.

No.5 Ryan Briscoe (L) and eventual MAVTv500 winner No.15 Graham Rahal approach the Auto Club Speedway Start/Finish line side-by-side as a sparse crowd witnesses one of the best, most competitive races held in the annuals of open-wheel racing - world record 83 changes for the lead. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

This reaction to the MAVTv500 was posted by a friend of a longtime NASCAR fan on Facebook - this reaction has to see the light of day:

Geoff Gray (posted to facebook timeline)

One of my best and oldest friends came to visit us for the fourth of July weekend. He is a good ole boy NASCAR fan from Arkansas. We got to having a drink or two with dinner and he asked me what all this "business" was regarding "those crying tea and crumpet" Indycar whiners ... I told him that I had recorded the race so just sit back and watch. His response was the NASCAR fan typical "Why would I want to watch follow the leader IndyCar racing?" crap but I was able to convinced him regardless...

To say the least , from the drop of the green flag he was transfixed ... after 20 laps he was cheering and had already decided on a driver he wanted to see win ... Merican of course ... by the end of the race he was on his feet cheering on the race like a true fanatic. And then .... yup ... the after race whining began ... the Wheldon name was slung about wrecklessly as though there were even some semblance to that tragic day at all. 

Then my friend pointed out, most astutely pointed out, that:

(1) This not even remotely "pack racing" like them-thar "restrictor races" as there were rarely any one following or side by side for any length of time at all! In fact most of the time they were jumping out of line to actually pass one another!

(2) Don't these guys get paid a lot of money to do just that?

(3) Why wasn't there anyone there in them grandstands?

(4) Was it because it was a 500 mile race scheduled to run in the middle of the desert in the middle of summer?!?!?

(5) Who the hell was officiating when that fuel buckeye got ripped off .... Ain't that a penalty? It ain't like Rahal couldn't have made the time up ... hell, that crazy Brisco guy got a "drive through" and damn near won ifn' he didn't get wrecked!!!

(6) By the way ... I kinda like that Brisco guy ... he was Mr Spectacular and didn't cry boo after the race ... now that's a driver ... he oughta' drive NASCAR!

At the end of evening my good friend said to me " That was probably one of the best races I ever saw ... Maybe the best ... Ya'll got a good thang goin' there if they keep on drivin' like that and the management would shut those clowns up"! "Yup ya got a good thang goin there ... just dont tell anybody" ...
ENDS

Long Time Coming: Rahal, Andretti Names Share Podium Again: Drivers with two of the most recognizable surnames in IndyCar racing shared the podium following the exciting MAVTv500 at Auto Club Speedway on June 27, when Graham Rahal won and Marco Andretti finished third (Tony Kanaan in P2). Surprisingly, it's the first time in their Indy car careers that the two - who each now drive for teams owned by their fathers - have celebrated together in Victory Circle. The last meeting on the podium for a Rahal and an Andretti was Sept. 1, 1996, in the Molson Indy Vancouver street-course event. Marco's father, Michael, won that day and Graham's dad, Bobby, finished second. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

Inside the box score - MAVTv500: Numbers to note following the MAVTv500 at the 2-mile Auto Club Speedway oval - the 11th round of the Verizon Indy Car Series season:

6 - Positions gained by Stefano Coletti in the final 25 laps of the race (18th to 12th). ... Podium finishes in his last seven starts at Auto Club Speedway by Tony Kanaan, who was the race runner-up.

7.77 - Average running position of winner Graham Rahal for the 250 laps.

14 - Drivers who led at least one lap, the most to lead a race at Auto Club Speedway since November 2001, when a track-record 19 drivers led.

18 - Positions improved by Rahal (19th to first), most of any of the 23 starters.

21 - Indy car wins for cars owned by Bobby Rahal, who won 24 times as a driver.

74 - Top-three career finishes by Kanaan, tying Rick Mears for 13th on the all-time Indy car list.

76 - Laps in which rookie Sage Karam improved his position, most of any driver.

80 - Lead changes in the race, an Indy car record. The previous was 73 at Auto Club Speedway in November 2001.

124 - Starts between Indy car victories for Graham Rahal, the longest streak between wins by an Indy car driver. The previous record was 97 starts between wins held by Johnny Rutherford.

244 - Consecutive starts by Kanaan, extending his all-time record.

2,537 - Total on-track passes for position. Kanaan had 204 (in 250 laps), most of any driver.

3,173 - Total on-track passes. Of the 6,248 total on-track passes this season, 51 percent occurred in the MAVTV 500.
(ht: VICS)

As the Verizon IndyCar Series heads to race on "the oldest speedway in the world" known as the Milwaukee Mile, let's hope that the attendance gap closes up so that folks can actually witness competitive open-wheel racing on a flat oval venue and come away with the appreciation for the toughest competition in motorsport. NBCSN Race Broadcast - Sunday, July 12, 2015 - 5:00pm ET.

Regardless, it is still time for a change in management to one that actually has someone who drove a car in competition as opposed to a committee of people who occupy Race Control who make most of their decisions, post race, in a vacuum of direct competitive track knowledge driving in open-wheel cars.

... notes from The EDJE


TAGS: #MAVTv500, @ACSUpdates, Auto Club Speedway, Brian Barnhart, Country Club, Derrick Walker, Mark Miles, MAVTV 500, Race Control, The EDJE, Verizon IndyCar Series, NASCAR, Coke Zero 400, Daytona, Pack Racing

Embarrassment And Riches Color Rahal's #MAVTv500 Win In Fontana

Graham Rahal survives a record setting race (83 lead changes) to win for Honda power and aerodynamics. Race winners at Auto Club Speedway, participate in a recently implemented tradition (2009) while in Gatorade Victory Lane: the ringing of "Mobell" ... a full-scale replica of the hundreds of bells that line California's El Camino Real. The 700-mile-long El Camino Real linked California’s 21 Franciscan missions, which were founded by Father Junipero Serra in the late 18th century. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

Embarrassment And Riches Color Rahal's #MAVTv500 Win In Fontana

If one were just talking about the level of professionalism and talent found throughout the paddocks and race track of the teams that had come to compete in the 4th MAVTv 500 at the record holding superspeedway, Auto Club Speedway, we would be saying "Embarrassment Of Riches."

But we cannot ignore the embarrassment bestowed upon the riches that were on display for a record-setting 500 miles for 250 laps that recorded 80 lead changes, four and five wide lane competition for the lead where a driver was able to breakthrough a seven year, 124-race winless drought to take the trophy for a Honda-powered and aerodynamically-wrapped Dallara, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Graham Rahal.

Three of the four Dallara IndyCars in this image from the beginning of the MAVTv 500 will not complete all 250 Laps. From L-R, #14 Takuma Sato led for 8 times for 31 laps but got squirrely and took out #1 Will Power, #5 Ryan Briscoe led 5 times for 7 Laps collided with #28 Ryan Hunter-Reay and flipped on Lap 249 of 250,  #15 Graham Rahal goes on to win (third car from the left - Red), and #67 Josef Newgarden was taken out as his teammate #20 Ed Carpenter slide up to the outer lane of the track. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

The embarrassment was that this monumental display of automobile racing talent put on by the teams and drivers of the Verizon IndyCar Series was only physically witnessed by (depending on who one listens to) 3,000 / 5,000 / well under 10,000 people who had come out to watch the race in the Fontana, California afternoon sun at Auto Club Speedway (ACS). A racing facility as large as ACS routinely hosts and supports crowds as large as 70,000 to 80,000 for its annual NASCAR stock car race in Southern California, where the market has 15 million people, is no problem.

This shortfall in attendance can most legitimately be placed on the racing series management.

The first point-of-order to consider is the movement of the date and the change in the importance of the scheduling of the race at Auto Club Speedway, itself. Over the previous three years, IndyCar had chopped the schedule to end before the beginning of Professional Football season for it was perceived by management that this kind of direct competition for entertainment dollars was not good for gate and television receipts. The season had to end by late August or early September to accommodate this view.

Helio Castroneves comes in hot for a pitstop and locks up his tires in order to get to 60mph pit speed. The first half of the race was caution-free with 43 lead changes and heading for a record for all-time average speed. The first yellow came out on Lap 136 when the cars driven by Castroneves and Briscoe made light contact on the backstretch. Five other caution periods followed, including two for debris. Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

As to the change of importance of the MAVTv 500, during the previous three years this race was the last race of the season, and in each case, since the points race was so tight, the race decided who would be crowned the champion of the season.

Lastly, the MAVTv 500 was a race ... again, for three years ... that started in the late afternoon sun and transitioned into the evening giving the race on a high-speed oval some additional mystery due to changes in the light, temperature, and strategy employed by the teams in order to finish on top.

In 2015, it was decided that the MAVTv 500 was to be moved to an all-afternoon race at the end of June when the summertime heat was beginning to get its legs in the desert climate Los Angeles is known for.

Normally, temperatures are in the mid-eighties but the weather pattern became humid and hotter just before the race was to be run where two days before practice took place on Friday, June 26, 2015, the temperature broke through the 100 degree mark. On raceday, however, the track was blessed with a little monsoonal cloud cover reducing the near 100 degree predicted temperature to be only about 90 degrees.

The MAVTv 500 was just race number 11 in a shortened 16 race season for points and the championship. The way the season was planned by management was 17 races for points to decide the championship, but just before the season was to start, the race to begin the season in Sao Paulo, Brazil was cancelled. No make up race for points was ever scheduled.

The MAVTv 500's previous significance as Season Finale, with the pomp and circumstance of evolving day-part change -- to "just another" oval race to begin a stretch of oval races at The Milwaukee Mile on July 12 - Iowa Speedway on July 18 - & Pocono's Tri-Oval on August 23 over the summer months was just too big a change for the public to handle.

Further, with very little promotion to bring awareness to these changes in the months leading up to the race date by IndyCar management, there was very little that the racing venue could do to unbake this cake ... and evidence suggests that everyone at Auto Club Speedway did their best against these scheduling change odds placed upon them by IndyCar.

Graham Rahal, driving the No. 15 Mi-Jack Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (center), won under caution as the cars driven by Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay made contact in a pack battling for position coming to the white flag. Tony Kanaan finished second in the No. 10 NTT Data Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet (left) and Marco Andretti placed third in the No. 27 Snapple Andretti Autosport Honda (right). Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

The riches were enjoyed by those who were there or watched on television. On the web, most all of the comments were in support of the MAVTv 500 being one of the most entertaining races held in years where full crowd attention appeared to be focused on the track for all of the 250 laps of competition. Cheers could even be heard throughout Auto Club Speedway by the (depending on who one listens to) 3,000 / 5,000 / well under 10,000 people at the track when a RED Flag was displayed in order to preserve the final four laps to competition as opposed to having the race cars circle the track to end the race under a YELLOW Flag. This could be pointed to as the best decision Race Control and series management made in support of the MAVTv 500 ... save a non-penalty call for the race winner Graham Rahal.

The No. 15 entry driven by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing's Graham Rahal will face a post-race review for potential penalty because of a Lap 187 pit stop in which the gravity-fed fuel coupling broke off still attached to the car as Rahal sped away. It dislodged, forcing a caution for debris.

Big Race-Control-By-Committee meeting takes place in pitlane between Derrick Walker and Brian Barnhart while one car qualifies and Sebastien Bourdais waits for the signal to go out on his qualifying run. Wasn't the main purpose during this timeframe qualifications for the MAVTv 500 as opposed to sorting out the finer points of Race Control ... or was this just a social call? Where's the decorum? Image Credit: Edmund Jenks (2015)

To be blunt, this has been nothing but an embarrassment of series management - and things need to change from a culture that believes:

** It is perfectly ok to plan a series for 17 races that ends before there can be the threat of any competition for the entertainment dollar by Pro Football.

** Plans a race that happens on the West coast over the same weekend as a major NASCAR road race in wine country (and this is not calculated as competition for the entertainment dollar)

** Loses a race to cancellation at the beginning of the season, and is just fine to not schedule a make-up points race. If Series management isn't serious against the plan how does one expect the fan to be serious?

** Race-Control-By-Committee without having one race car driver with real racing competition under his/her belt on the committee - let alone that experience tells us that too many cooks spoil the broth.

** With a country that has a population of over 300 million people, bringing back, and adding, Brian Barnhart to the Race-Control-By-Committee.

** Increased use of post-competition penalty assessment when many infractions cited in this way were clearly visible as on-track infractions.

** Lack of clear understanding of the discretionary usage of YELLOW, RED, and BLACK Flag track condition employment.

** Series Management through the reliance on information from outside consultants - do they also have as clients ... Pro Football?

** Guts the importance of "Bump-Day" at Indianapolis 500 on the premise the only thing that matters is the Month of May in Indianapolis - because outside of two races, the rest of the season is window dressing and ultimately does not really matter against plan. After all, "our country club is the only country club."

... add your own perceived professional racing series embarrassment here.

The MAVTv 500 at Auto Club Speedway was heralded by some as one of the most exciting races in the sport's history, which was reflected by a more than 100 percent increase in overnight television ratings. The 250-lap event at Fontana, drew a 0.37 overnight rating as reported by Nielsen - up from a 0.18 rating in 2014. It was exhilarating to watch these incredible drivers race each other so closely, so fast, for so long, without putting a wheel wrong, and we all were enjoying the thrills. The most common word used to describe the action was “insane.” Image Credit: Timo Hulett - TRACTALK Pulications (2015)

This template of thinking must change to a corporate and racing competition culture:

** That adheres to a full race season points schedule (and 20 races would be nice).

** Where the season championship points race is of prime importance over the course of seven to eight months.

** The absolute fear of competition of other sports, especially Pro Football, be damned.

** Automobile craft and innovation is fostered.

** The development and recruitment of talent is paramount.

... add your own perceived culture improvement here.

Robin Miller, of Racer Magazine and the NBCSN broadcast team, had been somewhat quiet until race end at the MAVTv 500 where he placed out a challenge to all of the team owners to wrest control of the management, and thereby the culture, of professional open-wheel racing from Mark Miles and the country club crowd that calls Indianapolis their home.

The riches shown by the drivers and teams this season has been something to behold. The last 20 laps of racing at the INDY 500 were probably some of the most exciting and professional on display - ever ... as could be said for the MAVTv 500.

Those who have the greatest investment in the outcomes need to begin the process of inculcating a culture of determination and competency as opposed to a culture of control, dictate, and fear of  entertainment competition.

We need to honor the talent and efforts of these drivers and teams.

... notes from The EDJE


TAGS: Verizon IndyCar Series, MAVTv 500, #MAVTv500, Auto Club Speedway, @ACSUpdates, Race Control, INDY 500, Robin Miller, Mark Miles, Brian Barnhart, Derrick Walker, Country Club, The EDJE, Milwaukee Mile, Iowa Speedway, Pocono Raceway, Tri-Oval, Bullring, Banked, IndyCar,