The Indy Car Series hit a home run at the nifty small oval outside Newton, Iowa on Saturday night. The Disciple party who made the journey was very pleased with not only the facility, but the professionalism of the people who work there.
Some of the media pundits have speculated that the Rusty Wallace led group who built the facility have had money problems that can hopefully be resolved. Either way, that group knows how to build a race track. Everyone in the group was treated like royalty wherever we ventured in the facility. People went out of their way to help. Given the antics of operators like ISC treatment that seems standard at Iowa is very out of the ordinary.
The venue itself is great. It is easily accessible and getting around inside is no problem. The nice wide track provided the type of exciting racing Indy Car fans have come to expect and enabled two-wide restarts to go off without a hitch.
Fans were often on their feet soaking in the action. The weather was a bit schizophrenic; sunny and near 80 on Friday, then rain and in the 60s most of Saturday until late in the afternoon. The race was officially a standing-room-only sellout and most of them showed up.
If every oval would be as enthusiastically supported as Iowa none of the teeth gnashing by the worry warts would have any merit. This event has now become a permanent fixture on the Disciple calendar. It is also interesting to not that American drivers won all major events held at the track this weekend, including Marco Andretti ending his drought.
Defender of IndyCar 
Dear Defender:
Sure, the series would greatly benefit if all ovals attracted enthusiastic, capacity crowds at all of its oval stops but let’s face reality….ISC never bothered to promote the series properly at places like Homestead, Chicago, Phoenix, California, etc. and the once strong crowds dwindled until nobody came to these ovals and Randy wisely cut the losses and ditched these ghost venues for Bruton Smith’s tracks and the independents…now, please tell me what other sporting events were on tap this weekend in Newton, Iowa…I expect that there were no other professional leagues in play and that this event represented the best option for the locals…can’t expect this result in places like L.A., Chicago, Miami, etc. where spectator $$$ are scarce and there are bigger attractions for the causal fan…great race, however, especially the battle between TK, who can apparently still race even with substandard equipment and Marco, who should be driving like this every weekend and not crying about this or that like Danica and Hunter-Rey…this is the crying team!!!
1st. A significant shift away from International drivers to homegrown talent from the US, Canada and Mexico.
2nd. End overseas racing. Leave that to F1.
3rd. Get rid of the term “Indy” from their name as that is only 1 race and brings up memories of IRL.. the evil IRL.
4th. Need a new dynasty like Unser, Andretti etc.
5th. CAR rework to attrack younger fans. American market likes displacement and the resurrengce of musclecars is a prime example. Get rid of turbos, bring in a V8 with a lot hp.
Get Ford-GM-Dodge to be players again along with a couple of European guys on board. Forget about the asian market as the US don’t necessarily see Honda/Toyota in the same light as before. Be awesome to see BMW and maybe Audi take on Ford and Cadillac..
Imagine the grid being:
8 Cadillacs
6 Ford
4 Audis
4 BMWs
On slicks, V8, 900bhp, naturally aspirated, dual fuel electric gas (like the Volt), 90% of the grid of US drivers, Canada and Mexico. Help and encourage a racing movement within the African American community as well. Would be awesome to see a gird being a melting pot of many different ethnic communities that are prominant in the US-Canada-Mexico.
40% on Ovals
30% of street courses (Vegas, Toronto, San Francisco, Montreal, Miami etc.)
30% on road courses
Also.. get 2 out of 3: Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Jr to come over.
Get google to market the hell out of it as the best drivers in the best series in the world.
Interesting ideas, but your comments about “getting rid of the turbos/bringing in a big V8 with a lot of HP” and “get Ford-GM-Dodge and a couple of the European guys” involved are mutually exclusive statements. The European manufacturers largely do not make large, normally-aspirated V8s, except in their highest end cars (and even those are getting smaller and turbocharged) and are increasingly making more small, turbocharged engines. The American manufacturers are a few years behind the Europeans, but are doing the same thing (see the latest Ford F-150, which is scaling back production of V8 engined trucks in favor of the twin turbocharged Ecotec V6, due to nearly equal horsepower but significantly better fuel mileage). This is the path that IndyCar is going down with the next engine formula. Changing the formula to “all normally-aspirated V8 engines with 900 HP” would be about as likely to attract engine manufacturers as changing the formula to “all Wankel rotaries”, “all steam powered” or “all powered by old Citroen 2CV engines”.
Good example speedgeek with the ford. Large displacement V8s are out, The technology cannot keep up with the fuel efficacy required. Turbos are the wave of the future. My father has an F150 with the triton V8, Brother has new ecotec and is hands down the more desirable engine and gets almost as good fuel mileage as my 1.8l turbo jetta. Im going to say it now… we will never see a NA V8 at Indy ever again.
You seem to follow the ‘get this, get that, market it all and everything will be great again’ train of thought.
Yes, regardless of whether they’re normally aspirated or turbos, 900 hp motors would be awesome.
Yes, it would be great to have a completely domestic series.
Yes, it would be great to have Ford, Audi, and BMW as engine manufacturers.
Yes, it would be great to have Jeff Gordon, Smoke, and Junior driving in the series.
Yes, it would be great to have Angelina Jolie strapped buck-ass naked to the hood of the pace car for next year’s 500. Okay, I made the last one up, but right now that’s as realistic as the previous four suggestions.
It’s easy to throw pie in the sky ideas out there. You can also put a cat in the oven, but that don’t make it a biscuit. What are the next 10 words to your plan? How do you propose the series do it? (And sorry, simply getting google to ‘market the hell out of it’ doesn’t cut it.). Because I’m pretty sure the series has tried all of the above. And they have likely, with some variance in cordiality, been told to pound sand.
I enjoyed the IRL race at Iowa. Good little track that one.