that was a massive crash and bourdais was lucky to keep his head after his tub failed.
is there any video?
man he destroyed that wall
Indycar added a chicane to baltimore
Urgh... Carpenter fell victim to that chicane
Very messy race. RHR's restart was legal by the rules, but the flagman ****ed up by not letting them equalize pace in the front row before throwing the green.
It was pretty thrilling though, either way the Fontana race should be suspenseful.
Will Power will lose the champ again...
Who puts the race on a Saturday? Was looking forward to watching last night but it wasn't on 
EDIT: Oh wait never mind. It's East Coast so I just got back too late yesterday :P
EDIT: Oh wait never mind. It's East Coast so I just got back too late yesterday :P
This it would seem
I'm curious if an American champion would help the series in its core market... Hmm...
Probably not
The main issue is the driver identification here in the states. The majority of people watch NASCAR because that is where the majority of people know the driver's names. If all of a sudden all of the Sprint Cup drivers quit NASCAR would lose most of it's popularity.
Around the time of the CART/IndyCar split the American motorsport of choice switched from CART to NASCAR. AJ Foyt, Michael Andretti, Mario Andretti, Al Unser, ect. These were all house hold names at the time and CART's popularity was up due to this.
Now very people know of James Hinchcliff other than from the commercials, or Will Power, or Ryan Hunter-Reay or Dario Franchitti. However, almost anybody would know who Jimmie Johnson is, or Dale Earnhardt Jr., or Jeff Gordon, or Tony Stewart, or Danica Patrick, or Carl Edwards.
That's just it. Star power. All of the American racing stars are driving in the Sprint Cup series now as opposed to CART like it was when it was popular.
Also, in person, NASCAR makes it easy to tell one driver from another on the track due to the size of the numbers on the cars unlike in IndyCar. The atmosphere at a NASCAR race is bigger in most cases due to the number of people as well and that accounts for alot. They say that if you're not a NASCAR fan that you'll become at least a casual one if you just attend a race.
Simply put, IndyCar isn't spectator friendly as much either which lends to the drivers in NASCAR becomming more identifiable in the first place. I'd like to see IndyCar become more popular, but I just don't see it happening just because it has an American champion unless he would become a household name like Jimmie Johnson has due to his dominance.
This is just silly. You ever been to an IndyCar race? They do more than most series to make it accessible to fans.
Yeah, IndyCar in St.Pete was one of the nicest racing events I have been to actually.
So many .gif possibilities. 
Yes, I'm talking about the oval events more than the road events because I've never been to a road event before. From the stands it's very hard to follow an IndyCar race on an oval because the car numbers are hard to identify in order to keep up with the race on the pylon. (Kentucky 2011)
As far as the road events go I'm sure that IndyCar beats most series' due to their speed and relative openness in pit passes and the number of people and such. When it comes to the ovals though IndyCar would be very difficult to follow for a casual fan let alone a first time race attender. It may be different at tracks other than Kentucky though
If you've watched more than one race in a season I can't imagine having a hard time following a race. The cars have pretty distinctive color schemes. I guess that doesn't translate to the pylon, but surely knowing a few of the cars you could figure it out.
Last year I think I watched 4 or 5 races before I went to Kentucky. Yeah, you got to know a few of the cars color schemes and such, but those cars that were primarily white or the cars that were red got confusing from time to time when viewed at a distance and the number wasn't there to correct that without some level of effort. The new cars may have improved this to a degree too with more sheet metal. Danica's car was easy to pick out though
Just a minor detail really. I did enjoy my experiance at Kentucky in 2011 though and was disappointed that they did not return there this year
. It was just a sticking point in an attempt to explain why the series doesn't have the star power here in the states like the Sprint Cup does. Through that, the popularity that it deserves.the Split nearly killed the series, now its basically in recovery mode but with a bad economy its proving hard, driver quality is as good as its ever been though.
fans fans fans
2012 IndyCar Series
(957 posts, started )
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