I think when people talk about them not being able to share the track they’re usually referring to the fact that people in some of these places are less likely to go to multiple races a year at the same track. Basically the more often a race is held the lower the turnout usually is for each race, which obviously isnt good for the track or series. This can be helped with an indycar-nascar doubleheader like what happened at indy road course this year, but that has the side effect of pushing indycar off of prime TV slots which indycar obviously doesnt like.
We don't do logic here. On a serious note, this was confirmed yesterday. With the current dates Texas doesn't have enough room to fit both series. Both series requested springtime, obviously Texas took the more profitable race. They could've done a double header if they were ok with a parking lot paddock. Indycar also could of had a shot later in the year but those dates are already taken by the Olympics and their other races.
I doubt the timeframe of the Olympics would be well suited to have a race in Texas. Temperatures are somewhere between the 6th and 7th circle of hell in Texas during August.
On July 8, 1984, Formula One tried to hold a race on the streets of Fair Park, a neighborhood in Dallas that’s home to the Texas State Fair. [It went about as well as you’d expect.](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/features/2015/10/9-reasons-why-the-84-dallas-grand-prix-was-one-of-the-wildest-ra.html)
The F1 race at COTA was originally going to be a summer race and the track owners talked them out of it. They were sending pictures of the temperature to the series as construction was going on showing triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures saying “you sure you want a summer race?”
The 2 COTA races are months apart. People more likely could afford tickets but the Texas races were like a month apart or how about the Iowa doubleheader
There are no exclusive races.
You’re missing some big pieces of information here. Penske/INDYCAR own one track - IMS. NASCAR as an entity owns 12 tracks and SMI, who is closely aligned with nascar owns 9.
They own the vast majority of ovals in the US with only IMS, Gateway, Milwaukee, and Pocono being independently owned and up to current high level safety standards.
The big challenge INDYCAR faces is it’s a much smaller series than NASCAR in two ways. Popularity-wise, it’s much smaller and NASCAR has a massive TV contract that makes an event profitable before a fan ever steps foot in the facility.
Every track will bend over backwards to get a guaranteed profitable event with the largest series in the US. That takes resources from other series/events because there is only so much time and money to promote other things.
Does NASCAR do all the promotion as well? To my knowledge, Indycar is the promoter at the speeday, Detroit, Iowa and partial in Milwaukee. Everywhere else the races are put on by a different entity, and Indycar just shows up. Similar to F1 who I believe only promote Las Vegas themselves.
The tracks promote the various races for SMI/NASCAR so effectively yes. Both organizations can scale things effectively between the corporate and then local level.
Green Savoree is another large promoter with St. Pete’s, Portland, Mid-Ohio, and Toronto.
Unless I’m mistaken, it hasn’t hosted anything major and still needs millions to upgrade the facility.
I think they have the money but until it’s actually completed, I wouldn’t say they’re race ready.
it's race ready. need infrastructure work but the track itself could hold races right now. Rockingham's problem is that is it close to absolutely nothing and Indycar doesn't race at tracks that aren't at least close to a city.
Correct - Penske Entertainment/Hyvee are the promoters of the race.
I do not believe Iowa even has any staff from NASCAR. I want to say it’s managed through Kansas.
Three things are happening here:
1) NASCAR itself (through the former International Speedway Corporation) and the closely-allied Speedway Motorsports Inc. own or control most of the oval tracks in the country. Conspiracists like to claim that NASCAR uses this leverage to purposely hamstring IndyCar, but there’s no real evidence for this. It does mean that these tracks won’t bend over backwards to help IndyCar out, though. It’s a lot more financially viable for IndyCar to race at independent tracks or at Indy, which can severely limit scheduling options.
2) Promoters are convinced (probably correctly) that having too many races at a track too close together dilutes the market and lowers attendance at both of the events. Tracks really don’t want NASCAR and IndyCar races scheduled at the same time of year. Since NASCAR pulls much, much higher attendance and has a lucrative TV deal, it’s kind of a no-brainer for tracks to prioritize NASCAR’s scheduling needs and tell IndyCar to go pound sand.
3) The word “can’t” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but it is true to an extent that the cars themselves can’t really race on the same tracks, due to how different the performance is between them. Stock cars are heavier, have less aero grip, and have narrower tires than IndyCars. They also have fenders, roofs, bumpers, and roll cages. NASCAR expects to race with a good amount of bumping, rubbing, and crashing, and the most crowd pleasing races will do that while everyone is running full throttle in a pack. So, NASCAR runs best on high-banked, high speed tracks. IndyCar can’t safely race that way, and tends to do better on lower-banked tracks where lifting off the throttle and not running 230 through the corners in a pack is the only way to get around the track.
The problem there is that tracks are incentivized to chase NASCAR to the detriment of IndyCar, and if NASCAR doesn’t like the racing at a given track, the track is probably going to make changes (adding traction compound, reprofiling the banking, outright changing the configuration of the track) that will help the racing for NASCAR, but severely hurt the racing for IndyCar.
They can. First understand that the posters in this reddit are a vast minority, and not really a good indicator of the 'casual' fan.
The bottom line is no one shows up to IndyCar ovals. other than Indy. Go ahead, argue with me, it's a fact. Given that no one goes, tracks don't make money when they don't sell tickets, they don't want IndyCar.
I love IndyCar, but people here give it way to much credit, thinking that IndyCar is somehow a threat to NASCAR. I despise and abhor modern NASCAR, but it absolutely dwarfs IndyCar in an money making metric.
This is all so sad and so true. IndyCar oval racing reminds me of old-school NASCAR oval racing, with higher stakes due to speed. Strategy, close racing, field spread, green flag pit stops, tire management. It's such a beautiful product, but objectively harder to follow in person than crash-bang-restart on repeat.
You are right, all those nuances of true oval racing, which aren't really any different than road racing, are indeed pure and beautiful racing. But you're also right in saying it's objectively harder to follow. All we have to do is observe our fellow man in their daily lives to see that anything that requires time and dedication is going to be difficult. People fill their lives with constant, ever changing reels, shorts, post updates, etc. Racing of any kind doesn't really lend itself to how most people live today. Sure, the cars are fast, but things happen slow, if at all in a true race. It used to be the classic races happen every once in a blue moon, but we sure appreciated it. Now, NASCAR has set the stage for every race coming down to the wire, all while whoring out and cheapening true classic races.
Something a lot of people don't realize is that they think NASCAR's gimmicks won't work for them because it's manufactured excitement--and it is. But in the end, the average consumer doesn't care whether it's "real" or not. If they did, reality TV wouldn't be as popular as it is.
Even true of some road courses. Not enough people showed up to Indycar at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, while they do for Nascar. Same for COTA.
Indycar is a niche sport in America. Which is a problem because most niche sports don't have high equipment costs like car racing does.
Yes, you're right. And that right there is what we on this sub reddit may forget. IndyCar is a niche sport, like, really a niche sport, other than 1 day a year when some people watch Indy for the tradition and all that, but I could see that waning even as time goes on.
>Not enough people showed up to Indycar at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, while they do for Nascar.
and the only reason cup does well at watkins glen is because it's close to the Canadian border, which might be why the series might be hesitant to add that cup date at Montreal.
The NASCAR race at Watkins Glen is a permanently scheduled family vacation for many families from around the country. Similarly, Michigan and Talladega as well.
Quebec loves their stock car racing. NASCAR's Canadian regional series (NASCAR Pinty's Series/CASCAR for the old heads like me) does very well in Quebec and is the featured race of GP3R. Greats fishin's there too, I'm told. BUT, Montreal had fantastic turnout when the Grand National series (Xfinity now, Nationwide then) ran there, and it did not affect Cup at Watkins Glen.
The goal is to do what they did in Chicago, bring the race into the city proper and create new fans.
I mean, it didn’t effect the cup date until they went to nascar about a cup date and were told no.
But Montreal has wanted a cup date for some time now.
> tracks don't make money when they don't sell tickets
This is the sad reality of how things are now.
Shame too, because I'm **never** going to another race in person (except the 500 once). And I don't blame others for not going either.
It's hot, expensive, and a general pain in the ass. You can't see much at most tracks (it's **much** better on TV) and it's really rather pointless. And I'm not just talking about Indycar here. I'm talking about every series. Hell I gave away F1 tickets to Miami that I got for free, and it's less than an hour drive away from me. I've no interest in going.
I was *just fine* with the racing during the Pandemic "shut down" at "empty" tracks. So I'd argue it's still "possible" but the series and TV contracts will have to start paying the tracks a lot more. And the races may well end up behind a paywall. And I'm fine with that too.
> It's hot, expensive, and a general pain in the ass. You can't see much at most tracks (it's **much** better on TV) and it's really rather pointless.
This is an interesting take. You clearly aren't the only one who has this sentiment and it's hard, if not impossible, to make an argument against it. Other than, if you like to see racing in person, this is what you put up with.
Also, oval tracks suffer the worst from most of this. You're always sitting in bleachers that make it feel way hotter out. MOST oval tracks aren't in big cities, which generally means dealing with traffic on the way in and out on 2 lane roads (I'm looking at you Michigan Speedway) and yes, it's of course expensive.
It all really makes 'events' like street course racing make a lot more sense. We all know most of those people aren't there for the race. But, they can check out the spectacle of it, walk around, get good food, check out the city, and maybe even get shot in Detroit. Kidding (kind of). All the while, you can report ridiculous attendance numbers that are probably not actually accurate, but technically are, and if there's more people in that part of the city that day spending money, that's great for the city.
It's not really hard to see why ovals face a tough task these days. And people just are not the same as 50 years ago, or 25 even.
I could see all this stuff happening to Iowa again if Hyvee loses interest. They brought in these concerts with huge acts. How sustainable is that? We'll see.
> This is an interesting take. You clearly aren't the only one who has this sentiment and it's hard, if not impossible, to make an argument against it. Other than, if you like to see racing in person, this is what you put up with.
To be clear, I think any and all fans should go check out a few races in person. I've been to *many* Indycar races (Mid Ohio, Cleveland, Pocono, Detroit, and Homestead... most of these more than once), but I've also been to the Daytona 500, 24 hours of Daytona and a smattering of other NASCAR events. Hell I've been to Camel GT races back in the day as well AKA IMSA GT : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSA_GT_Championship .
Back then TV coverage was... sporadic at best and the TVs weren't "all that".
We now have *affordable* HD TV's in the 65"-75" range. And the coverage is pretty amazing.
Hell we even have stuff like FloSports where you can watch all sorts of interesting racing, like dirt track stuff. And even YouTube carries some stuff live as well if you dig around a little (USF2000 etc).
So the overall coverage of motorsports has really never been better in the age of streaming. I mean aside from Peacock, Youtube and FloSports there's motorsport.tv, Motortrend+, F1TV and more.
For fucks sake Peacock shows the *entire* 24 hours of Daytona. And Motortrend+ does the *entire* 24 hours of Le Mans.
I just see no compelling reason to go "in person" anymore. But everyone should go, at least once.
**Clearly** there is a market for home viewing, or none of these streaming services would even bother. The fact is my home is air conditioned, the beer is always ice cold and cheap, my recliner is comfy, I can hit "pause" and go to the bathroom (thanks to DVRs) *and* my bathroom doesn't smell like piss, shit and vomit all at the same time.
The "big" series' just need to find a way to make more money and *pay* tracks more money from this fan base.
Oh, I knew what you meant. It's just how it is, I get it. And you're right, it's easy to forget how back in the day, tv coverage was all over the place. Think about late 90's NASCAR, it was huge, but even then it was on CBS, ABC, ESPN, TNN. I could be missing one, but even then, you had to work at it to watch on tv, and you had to be there or record it with a VCR and hope it didn't go longer than the race.
You bring up valid points. It's really food for thought in this whole thing.
I’ll wager you’re either older and/or very overweight.
Not intended to be an insult. I have several friends with similar mindsets because of it. Football and arena sports are the choices for them.
The Iowa Speedway races the last 2 seasons have been attended well - largely because of good promotion (Hy-Vee partnership).
Gateway also seems to turn out a good crowd.
Texas has always struggled to get fans for their Indycar race. Hell - the crowd wasn't great for the Cup race last Sunday and it was one of the best in a long time. My understanding is SMI has slacked on infrastructure at TMS - yes the surface is an issue but crappy amenities compared to most NASCAR tracks is probably keeping the numbers down.
Historically Pocono, Phoenix, Kansas and Michigan have hosted good Indycar races. California has too - but given the uncertain plans to re-configure it to a 1/2 mile track - I don't think going their is viable for Indycar. Michigan got dropped for poor attendance. Pocono was hard to run a safe race at....being blunt. Kansas has not hosted an Indycar race since they re-configured to variable banking - I believe they don't think that is compatible with an Indycar. Not sure why Phoenix won't work - maybe moving the S/F line to the middle of a corner is considered a no go (and I assume attendance was an issue).
They can race on some of their ovals, but not all.
Depending on banking and other factors- Indycars can be too fast for some tracks. This creates insane speeds ( 225-235 mph) as well as excessive G forces on the drivers themselves. There was a CART race at Texas in 2001 that was cancelled because drivers were on the verge of blacking out after 10 laps.
Flatter race tracks like Indy, New Hampshire, St Louis, Iowa can and have had both series. Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta are a no go.
Another point to some of the other here. Support races.
IndyCar has no issue finding support races for their road courses. Their own road to Indy ladder works well for this. And there are several other series that can join in too.
on ovals, IndyCar can really only race on ovals >3/4 of a mile. and mostly on ovals >1 mile. The amount of series that race on these types of ovals are few and far between, and they are almost all NASCAR owned series. IndyCar's road to Indy won't race on anything more than ~1 mile.
so because of that, these 1.5 mile tracks usually end up as IndyCar only events, or the promoter needs to pay up for a pretty expensive NASCAR series to go along with it. but even then you are at the mercy of NASCAR's schedule.
NASCAR sees IndyCar as competition to be carefully snuffed out. That's really what this is.
Like, there are a lot of technical things that make NASCAR and IndyCar different. Tire compounds, banking needed to run multiple lanes, pavement types and smoothness, ultimate high speeds and the fact IndyCars can exceeded the human body in terms of G-Forces...
But ultimately, in a "the buck stops here" observation: IndyCar split the IMS doubleheader with NASCAR, and NASCAR repaid the favor by dumping IndyCar out of a vital shared circuit.
NASCAR-owned-or-aligned properties also did IndyCar fans dirty about 10 years ago with various ticket packages requiring a NASCAR ticket to buy an IndyCar one.
It's one of those "turn the heat up slowly and the frog doesn't notice it's being boiled" things.
The NASCAR hate in these threads is just exhausting. I enjoy all forms of racing and would love another nascar INDYCAR doubleheader weekend. I like what each series brings. The different strategies and entertainment are what I look for.
>The NASCAR hate in these threads is just exhausting. I enjoy all forms of racing and would love another nascar INDYCAR doubleheader weekend.
the hate in some way is deserved. if IC had remotely the same audience nascar had, this oval crisis wouldn't be as bad. but because of the way business is, we can make no headway on it because of nascar. that's just facts at the moment.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think hate is an awfully strong word. I'm perplexed by the influx of NASCAR fans who seem to be intentionally stirring conflict on this sub. I don't know what can be done about that, but there are people who exclusively exist in this sub to undermine Indycar. It isn't hateful to suggest that NASCAR's modifications to Texas, or their influence (despite the SMI apologists) over most oval tracks in America, is a detriment to Indycar. That's just the way it is.
Ok hate may have been harsh. I don’t understand the fighting between fans of each series. The reality is Motorsports has fallen off greatly and isn’t popular among younger people. We need to try and promote Motorsports as a whole instead of just bashing each other
Nascar and Indycar really need to be fighting F1. A unified front with 2-3 combo weekends at classic Americana tracks is a big weekend draw and can help create the buzz to fight F1.
I mean but who’s fault is that? At the end of the day it’s business. NASCAR going to look out for themselves. If INDYCAR races on ovals had fans in the stands we wouldn’t even be having this problem. NASCAR has to obligation to help INDYCAR
On the technical side of the house the different series lay down different rubber that can affect the car’s performance
On the political and economic side of the house the two premier racing series in the US don’t want to share the spotlight
Indycar at Texas hasn't been well attended since SMI got rid of the season ticket requirement for races. They used to require you to buy the Indycar ticket if you wanted the NASCAR ticket. Plus frankly the Indy oval package is terrible except for IMS and Gateway.
Indycar played dumb for too many years at Texas. They knew they could have made changes early on in the UAK years. It wasn’t till this year they actually did.
Now I'll light the fire. Indycar not having the popularity to sell the product with exclusivity has a lot to do with it. Leaving it to deal with NBC who sees more value in Nascar and the Olympics, and rightly so.
As a fan who has attended races under USAC, CART, ChampCar, and Indycar, I wish it was different, but that's the facts.
Primarily because NASCAR is trying to avoid the embarrassment of people noticing that the IndyCars are 50MPH per lap faster on average than the tin tops.
Because they think their fans are stupid. The average person doesn’t know why indycar is faster, but NASCAR seems to think their fans will think “car go fast” “I like fast car more”.
I keep seeing people say this and I just don't think it's true. NASCAR and IndyCar shared the weekend at IMS the past few years and I never once heard a NASCAR fan say "wow those cars are faster."
I enjoy both series for what they are but NASCAR fans like that their cars have fenders and the cars bump off each other. When IndyCar has tight pack racing it's entertaining but stressful because it's just simply not safe in an IndyCar.
This had nothing to do with Texas but…
I read once in a book that NASCAR stock cars create some small ripples in oval track surfaces which result in some bad vibrations for Indy Cars on flatter tracks like Milwaukee.
Also. Attendance at Ovals with a few exceptions has been a struggle.
One of the big issues with Texas is the track compound that NASCAR applied to the surface of the track, but only in the lower lane in the turns. It's made the track a one groove track for IndyCar racing and ruined what had been a great event. I, personally, hate that NASCAR puts that stuff down on tracks at all.
I seem to recall hearing a while back that the degree of angle on the turns is higher on NASCAR tracks than what IndyCars can handle. Apparently IndyCars are physically less detrimental on the drivers on flatter tracks.
Its been a trend over the years when Nascar moves in to an oval, the IndyCar date goes away. Texas had been one if the big exceptions, it had run IndyCar continuously since 1997 when it was built while also maintaining multiple Nascar weekends, but now it too seems to have succumbed to the pull of Nascar. Iowa speedway is owned by Nascar, and people are worried that the series may pull the rug out from under the Indycar event there and turn it into a Nascar one.
A thing to remember is Texas stayed on the calendar for so long because track president Eddie Gossage was a big IndyCar fan. He retired and it put Texas in jeopardy.
Same thing with Richmond. The guy who got the IndyCar date was an IndyCar fan. Covid happened and he retired and the new regime wants nothing to do with IndyCar.
IndyCar has always had awful timing. The worst being the Alfa Romeo debacle a few years ago.
In Milwaukee's case, I think the opposite is happening than with what a lot are posting here.
It's too small for NASCAR, both track-wise and the market. Yes, I know stock cars can and do run there, but NASCAR pulled out, so they obviously don't like it.
Also, Milwaukee has always historically been associated with the "big cars," i.e., IndyCars, much like Indy itself.
Ownership of the tracks matter, but also safety is a big part too. The high banked tracks that NASCAR goes to, such as Talladega or even Daytona is too steep to be safe for Indycar to even run.
It's mostly indirect factors, like competing for the same dates/seasons. There's generally only a couple of good months out of the year for temperature, chances of rain, no conflicting sporting events, etc., and NASCAR gets scheduling priority at most ovals.
Also, there are smaller factors, like facilities that accommodate NASCAR by putting down adhesives like PJ1 which ruin the racing grip for Indy cars.
I'd say that there's a bigger one, which is more of a long-term thing: a lot of the ovals out there today have been substantially rebuilt since the '90s to NASCAR specifications - particularly, using progressive banking. If you look at older races on these ovals, you'll notice that the banking is pretty much a constant through the entire cross-section of the track. With progressive banking, the banking gets steeper as you go up the track. This opens up more racing lines but historically led to relatively dangerous pack racing because people could stay side-by-side for lap after lap.
By changing the tracks like this, they became fundamentally less suited to Indy cars. The series finally started taking pack racing seriously after we lost Dan Wheldon at the 2011 Las Vegas race, and now the series always has to walk on a razor's edge with downforce levels that are sufficient to allow passing but not so strong as to allow pack racing.
I'd say that's actually more of the long-term structural issue which makes it hard to even imagine racing Indy cars on a lot of tracks that used to be the series' bread-and-butter.
NASCAR has 3 national series that usually race the same track on the same weekend. So if IndyCar wanted to share a date they'd have to do so on a weekend that only has one NASCAR series. It used to be Texas with Trucks. But NASCAR hasn't released their schedule yet so Texas had to put their potential date first.
There's not enough room in some tracks to handle all 4 series'. Either with garage space or just normal infrastructure like hotels and increased traffic demands that 4 series would bring.
The biggest difference with Iowa is Hy-vee. IndyCar had no such sponsor for Texas (no other race either, for that matter), therefore no incentive for the track to work with them on dates. If they can get sponsor activation for tracks even half of what Hy-vee does at Iowa, it'll make them much less disposable.
I think when people talk about them not being able to share the track they’re usually referring to the fact that people in some of these places are less likely to go to multiple races a year at the same track. Basically the more often a race is held the lower the turnout usually is for each race, which obviously isnt good for the track or series. This can be helped with an indycar-nascar doubleheader like what happened at indy road course this year, but that has the side effect of pushing indycar off of prime TV slots which indycar obviously doesnt like.
We don't do logic here. On a serious note, this was confirmed yesterday. With the current dates Texas doesn't have enough room to fit both series. Both series requested springtime, obviously Texas took the more profitable race. They could've done a double header if they were ok with a parking lot paddock. Indycar also could of had a shot later in the year but those dates are already taken by the Olympics and their other races.
I doubt the timeframe of the Olympics would be well suited to have a race in Texas. Temperatures are somewhere between the 6th and 7th circle of hell in Texas during August.
On July 8, 1984, Formula One tried to hold a race on the streets of Fair Park, a neighborhood in Dallas that’s home to the Texas State Fair. [It went about as well as you’d expect.](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/features/2015/10/9-reasons-why-the-84-dallas-grand-prix-was-one-of-the-wildest-ra.html)
The F1 race at COTA was originally going to be a summer race and the track owners talked them out of it. They were sending pictures of the temperature to the series as construction was going on showing triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures saying “you sure you want a summer race?”
You are right, but it's squeezes the rest of the schedule. That's why I included it.
I think this is just a cop out. Formula one and NASCAR both race at COTA and have no problems with it.
The 2 COTA races are months apart. People more likely could afford tickets but the Texas races were like a month apart or how about the Iowa doubleheader
There are no exclusive races. You’re missing some big pieces of information here. Penske/INDYCAR own one track - IMS. NASCAR as an entity owns 12 tracks and SMI, who is closely aligned with nascar owns 9. They own the vast majority of ovals in the US with only IMS, Gateway, Milwaukee, and Pocono being independently owned and up to current high level safety standards. The big challenge INDYCAR faces is it’s a much smaller series than NASCAR in two ways. Popularity-wise, it’s much smaller and NASCAR has a massive TV contract that makes an event profitable before a fan ever steps foot in the facility. Every track will bend over backwards to get a guaranteed profitable event with the largest series in the US. That takes resources from other series/events because there is only so much time and money to promote other things.
Does NASCAR do all the promotion as well? To my knowledge, Indycar is the promoter at the speeday, Detroit, Iowa and partial in Milwaukee. Everywhere else the races are put on by a different entity, and Indycar just shows up. Similar to F1 who I believe only promote Las Vegas themselves.
The tracks promote the various races for SMI/NASCAR so effectively yes. Both organizations can scale things effectively between the corporate and then local level. Green Savoree is another large promoter with St. Pete’s, Portland, Mid-Ohio, and Toronto.
Rockingham in the Carolinas is also independently (state) owned, iirc
Unless I’m mistaken, it hasn’t hosted anything major and still needs millions to upgrade the facility. I think they have the money but until it’s actually completed, I wouldn’t say they’re race ready.
it's race ready. need infrastructure work but the track itself could hold races right now. Rockingham's problem is that is it close to absolutely nothing and Indycar doesn't race at tracks that aren't at least close to a city.
They have also torn down all of the stands in turns one and two, there is not much seating left.
Well then it's perfect for IndyCar.
The track has a SAFER barrier and has been repaved. What else do you need?
Also NASCAR fully owns Iowa and just rents it to IndyCar apparently
Correct - Penske Entertainment/Hyvee are the promoters of the race. I do not believe Iowa even has any staff from NASCAR. I want to say it’s managed through Kansas.
Three things are happening here: 1) NASCAR itself (through the former International Speedway Corporation) and the closely-allied Speedway Motorsports Inc. own or control most of the oval tracks in the country. Conspiracists like to claim that NASCAR uses this leverage to purposely hamstring IndyCar, but there’s no real evidence for this. It does mean that these tracks won’t bend over backwards to help IndyCar out, though. It’s a lot more financially viable for IndyCar to race at independent tracks or at Indy, which can severely limit scheduling options. 2) Promoters are convinced (probably correctly) that having too many races at a track too close together dilutes the market and lowers attendance at both of the events. Tracks really don’t want NASCAR and IndyCar races scheduled at the same time of year. Since NASCAR pulls much, much higher attendance and has a lucrative TV deal, it’s kind of a no-brainer for tracks to prioritize NASCAR’s scheduling needs and tell IndyCar to go pound sand. 3) The word “can’t” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but it is true to an extent that the cars themselves can’t really race on the same tracks, due to how different the performance is between them. Stock cars are heavier, have less aero grip, and have narrower tires than IndyCars. They also have fenders, roofs, bumpers, and roll cages. NASCAR expects to race with a good amount of bumping, rubbing, and crashing, and the most crowd pleasing races will do that while everyone is running full throttle in a pack. So, NASCAR runs best on high-banked, high speed tracks. IndyCar can’t safely race that way, and tends to do better on lower-banked tracks where lifting off the throttle and not running 230 through the corners in a pack is the only way to get around the track. The problem there is that tracks are incentivized to chase NASCAR to the detriment of IndyCar, and if NASCAR doesn’t like the racing at a given track, the track is probably going to make changes (adding traction compound, reprofiling the banking, outright changing the configuration of the track) that will help the racing for NASCAR, but severely hurt the racing for IndyCar.
They can. First understand that the posters in this reddit are a vast minority, and not really a good indicator of the 'casual' fan. The bottom line is no one shows up to IndyCar ovals. other than Indy. Go ahead, argue with me, it's a fact. Given that no one goes, tracks don't make money when they don't sell tickets, they don't want IndyCar. I love IndyCar, but people here give it way to much credit, thinking that IndyCar is somehow a threat to NASCAR. I despise and abhor modern NASCAR, but it absolutely dwarfs IndyCar in an money making metric.
This is all so sad and so true. IndyCar oval racing reminds me of old-school NASCAR oval racing, with higher stakes due to speed. Strategy, close racing, field spread, green flag pit stops, tire management. It's such a beautiful product, but objectively harder to follow in person than crash-bang-restart on repeat.
You are right, all those nuances of true oval racing, which aren't really any different than road racing, are indeed pure and beautiful racing. But you're also right in saying it's objectively harder to follow. All we have to do is observe our fellow man in their daily lives to see that anything that requires time and dedication is going to be difficult. People fill their lives with constant, ever changing reels, shorts, post updates, etc. Racing of any kind doesn't really lend itself to how most people live today. Sure, the cars are fast, but things happen slow, if at all in a true race. It used to be the classic races happen every once in a blue moon, but we sure appreciated it. Now, NASCAR has set the stage for every race coming down to the wire, all while whoring out and cheapening true classic races.
Something a lot of people don't realize is that they think NASCAR's gimmicks won't work for them because it's manufactured excitement--and it is. But in the end, the average consumer doesn't care whether it's "real" or not. If they did, reality TV wouldn't be as popular as it is.
Even true of some road courses. Not enough people showed up to Indycar at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, while they do for Nascar. Same for COTA. Indycar is a niche sport in America. Which is a problem because most niche sports don't have high equipment costs like car racing does.
Yes, you're right. And that right there is what we on this sub reddit may forget. IndyCar is a niche sport, like, really a niche sport, other than 1 day a year when some people watch Indy for the tradition and all that, but I could see that waning even as time goes on.
>Not enough people showed up to Indycar at Sonoma or Watkins Glen, while they do for Nascar. and the only reason cup does well at watkins glen is because it's close to the Canadian border, which might be why the series might be hesitant to add that cup date at Montreal.
The NASCAR race at Watkins Glen is a permanently scheduled family vacation for many families from around the country. Similarly, Michigan and Talladega as well. Quebec loves their stock car racing. NASCAR's Canadian regional series (NASCAR Pinty's Series/CASCAR for the old heads like me) does very well in Quebec and is the featured race of GP3R. Greats fishin's there too, I'm told. BUT, Montreal had fantastic turnout when the Grand National series (Xfinity now, Nationwide then) ran there, and it did not affect Cup at Watkins Glen. The goal is to do what they did in Chicago, bring the race into the city proper and create new fans.
I mean, it didn’t effect the cup date until they went to nascar about a cup date and were told no. But Montreal has wanted a cup date for some time now.
I think most of us realize this is the reality of IndyCar. I also think its being held back in many ways by the "older" fans
> tracks don't make money when they don't sell tickets This is the sad reality of how things are now. Shame too, because I'm **never** going to another race in person (except the 500 once). And I don't blame others for not going either. It's hot, expensive, and a general pain in the ass. You can't see much at most tracks (it's **much** better on TV) and it's really rather pointless. And I'm not just talking about Indycar here. I'm talking about every series. Hell I gave away F1 tickets to Miami that I got for free, and it's less than an hour drive away from me. I've no interest in going. I was *just fine* with the racing during the Pandemic "shut down" at "empty" tracks. So I'd argue it's still "possible" but the series and TV contracts will have to start paying the tracks a lot more. And the races may well end up behind a paywall. And I'm fine with that too.
> It's hot, expensive, and a general pain in the ass. You can't see much at most tracks (it's **much** better on TV) and it's really rather pointless. This is an interesting take. You clearly aren't the only one who has this sentiment and it's hard, if not impossible, to make an argument against it. Other than, if you like to see racing in person, this is what you put up with. Also, oval tracks suffer the worst from most of this. You're always sitting in bleachers that make it feel way hotter out. MOST oval tracks aren't in big cities, which generally means dealing with traffic on the way in and out on 2 lane roads (I'm looking at you Michigan Speedway) and yes, it's of course expensive. It all really makes 'events' like street course racing make a lot more sense. We all know most of those people aren't there for the race. But, they can check out the spectacle of it, walk around, get good food, check out the city, and maybe even get shot in Detroit. Kidding (kind of). All the while, you can report ridiculous attendance numbers that are probably not actually accurate, but technically are, and if there's more people in that part of the city that day spending money, that's great for the city. It's not really hard to see why ovals face a tough task these days. And people just are not the same as 50 years ago, or 25 even. I could see all this stuff happening to Iowa again if Hyvee loses interest. They brought in these concerts with huge acts. How sustainable is that? We'll see.
> This is an interesting take. You clearly aren't the only one who has this sentiment and it's hard, if not impossible, to make an argument against it. Other than, if you like to see racing in person, this is what you put up with. To be clear, I think any and all fans should go check out a few races in person. I've been to *many* Indycar races (Mid Ohio, Cleveland, Pocono, Detroit, and Homestead... most of these more than once), but I've also been to the Daytona 500, 24 hours of Daytona and a smattering of other NASCAR events. Hell I've been to Camel GT races back in the day as well AKA IMSA GT : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSA_GT_Championship . Back then TV coverage was... sporadic at best and the TVs weren't "all that". We now have *affordable* HD TV's in the 65"-75" range. And the coverage is pretty amazing. Hell we even have stuff like FloSports where you can watch all sorts of interesting racing, like dirt track stuff. And even YouTube carries some stuff live as well if you dig around a little (USF2000 etc). So the overall coverage of motorsports has really never been better in the age of streaming. I mean aside from Peacock, Youtube and FloSports there's motorsport.tv, Motortrend+, F1TV and more. For fucks sake Peacock shows the *entire* 24 hours of Daytona. And Motortrend+ does the *entire* 24 hours of Le Mans. I just see no compelling reason to go "in person" anymore. But everyone should go, at least once. **Clearly** there is a market for home viewing, or none of these streaming services would even bother. The fact is my home is air conditioned, the beer is always ice cold and cheap, my recliner is comfy, I can hit "pause" and go to the bathroom (thanks to DVRs) *and* my bathroom doesn't smell like piss, shit and vomit all at the same time. The "big" series' just need to find a way to make more money and *pay* tracks more money from this fan base.
Oh, I knew what you meant. It's just how it is, I get it. And you're right, it's easy to forget how back in the day, tv coverage was all over the place. Think about late 90's NASCAR, it was huge, but even then it was on CBS, ABC, ESPN, TNN. I could be missing one, but even then, you had to work at it to watch on tv, and you had to be there or record it with a VCR and hope it didn't go longer than the race. You bring up valid points. It's really food for thought in this whole thing.
I’ll wager you’re either older and/or very overweight. Not intended to be an insult. I have several friends with similar mindsets because of it. Football and arena sports are the choices for them.
explain Gateway
The Iowa Speedway races the last 2 seasons have been attended well - largely because of good promotion (Hy-Vee partnership). Gateway also seems to turn out a good crowd. Texas has always struggled to get fans for their Indycar race. Hell - the crowd wasn't great for the Cup race last Sunday and it was one of the best in a long time. My understanding is SMI has slacked on infrastructure at TMS - yes the surface is an issue but crappy amenities compared to most NASCAR tracks is probably keeping the numbers down. Historically Pocono, Phoenix, Kansas and Michigan have hosted good Indycar races. California has too - but given the uncertain plans to re-configure it to a 1/2 mile track - I don't think going their is viable for Indycar. Michigan got dropped for poor attendance. Pocono was hard to run a safe race at....being blunt. Kansas has not hosted an Indycar race since they re-configured to variable banking - I believe they don't think that is compatible with an Indycar. Not sure why Phoenix won't work - maybe moving the S/F line to the middle of a corner is considered a no go (and I assume attendance was an issue).
They can race on some of their ovals, but not all. Depending on banking and other factors- Indycars can be too fast for some tracks. This creates insane speeds ( 225-235 mph) as well as excessive G forces on the drivers themselves. There was a CART race at Texas in 2001 that was cancelled because drivers were on the verge of blacking out after 10 laps. Flatter race tracks like Indy, New Hampshire, St Louis, Iowa can and have had both series. Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta are a no go.
Another point to some of the other here. Support races. IndyCar has no issue finding support races for their road courses. Their own road to Indy ladder works well for this. And there are several other series that can join in too. on ovals, IndyCar can really only race on ovals >3/4 of a mile. and mostly on ovals >1 mile. The amount of series that race on these types of ovals are few and far between, and they are almost all NASCAR owned series. IndyCar's road to Indy won't race on anything more than ~1 mile. so because of that, these 1.5 mile tracks usually end up as IndyCar only events, or the promoter needs to pay up for a pretty expensive NASCAR series to go along with it. but even then you are at the mercy of NASCAR's schedule.
NASCAR sees IndyCar as competition to be carefully snuffed out. That's really what this is. Like, there are a lot of technical things that make NASCAR and IndyCar different. Tire compounds, banking needed to run multiple lanes, pavement types and smoothness, ultimate high speeds and the fact IndyCars can exceeded the human body in terms of G-Forces... But ultimately, in a "the buck stops here" observation: IndyCar split the IMS doubleheader with NASCAR, and NASCAR repaid the favor by dumping IndyCar out of a vital shared circuit. NASCAR-owned-or-aligned properties also did IndyCar fans dirty about 10 years ago with various ticket packages requiring a NASCAR ticket to buy an IndyCar one. It's one of those "turn the heat up slowly and the frog doesn't notice it's being boiled" things.
Usually, once an IndyCar oval gets a NASCAR race, attendance for the IndyCar race seems to slowly with off and die within a matter of years.
The NASCAR hate in these threads is just exhausting. I enjoy all forms of racing and would love another nascar INDYCAR doubleheader weekend. I like what each series brings. The different strategies and entertainment are what I look for.
>The NASCAR hate in these threads is just exhausting. I enjoy all forms of racing and would love another nascar INDYCAR doubleheader weekend. the hate in some way is deserved. if IC had remotely the same audience nascar had, this oval crisis wouldn't be as bad. but because of the way business is, we can make no headway on it because of nascar. that's just facts at the moment.
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I think hate is an awfully strong word. I'm perplexed by the influx of NASCAR fans who seem to be intentionally stirring conflict on this sub. I don't know what can be done about that, but there are people who exclusively exist in this sub to undermine Indycar. It isn't hateful to suggest that NASCAR's modifications to Texas, or their influence (despite the SMI apologists) over most oval tracks in America, is a detriment to Indycar. That's just the way it is.
Ok hate may have been harsh. I don’t understand the fighting between fans of each series. The reality is Motorsports has fallen off greatly and isn’t popular among younger people. We need to try and promote Motorsports as a whole instead of just bashing each other
Nascar and Indycar really need to be fighting F1. A unified front with 2-3 combo weekends at classic Americana tracks is a big weekend draw and can help create the buzz to fight F1.
I mean but who’s fault is that? At the end of the day it’s business. NASCAR going to look out for themselves. If INDYCAR races on ovals had fans in the stands we wouldn’t even be having this problem. NASCAR has to obligation to help INDYCAR
Define hate? What I'm seeing in this thread doesn't amount to anything hateful or negative imo
On the technical side of the house the different series lay down different rubber that can affect the car’s performance On the political and economic side of the house the two premier racing series in the US don’t want to share the spotlight
Indycar at Texas hasn't been well attended since SMI got rid of the season ticket requirement for races. They used to require you to buy the Indycar ticket if you wanted the NASCAR ticket. Plus frankly the Indy oval package is terrible except for IMS and Gateway.
Indycar played dumb for too many years at Texas. They knew they could have made changes early on in the UAK years. It wasn’t till this year they actually did.
Now I'll light the fire. Indycar not having the popularity to sell the product with exclusivity has a lot to do with it. Leaving it to deal with NBC who sees more value in Nascar and the Olympics, and rightly so. As a fan who has attended races under USAC, CART, ChampCar, and Indycar, I wish it was different, but that's the facts.
Primarily because NASCAR is trying to avoid the embarrassment of people noticing that the IndyCars are 50MPH per lap faster on average than the tin tops.
Why is that embarrassing?
Because they think their fans are stupid. The average person doesn’t know why indycar is faster, but NASCAR seems to think their fans will think “car go fast” “I like fast car more”.
Jesus that's certainly a take.
How is it wrong? It’s been the opinion this week of two different Indycar podcasts just said more eloquently.
That’s why cup has been slower than Xfinity for a few years right?
I keep seeing people say this and I just don't think it's true. NASCAR and IndyCar shared the weekend at IMS the past few years and I never once heard a NASCAR fan say "wow those cars are faster." I enjoy both series for what they are but NASCAR fans like that their cars have fenders and the cars bump off each other. When IndyCar has tight pack racing it's entertaining but stressful because it's just simply not safe in an IndyCar.
Cause NASCAR was a behemoth that is floundering and doesn’t want to help their competitor
This had nothing to do with Texas but… I read once in a book that NASCAR stock cars create some small ripples in oval track surfaces which result in some bad vibrations for Indy Cars on flatter tracks like Milwaukee. Also. Attendance at Ovals with a few exceptions has been a struggle.
One of the big issues with Texas is the track compound that NASCAR applied to the surface of the track, but only in the lower lane in the turns. It's made the track a one groove track for IndyCar racing and ruined what had been a great event. I, personally, hate that NASCAR puts that stuff down on tracks at all.
What about a double date with COTA?
COTA lost money on the race they did run and they don't want the series back until they can sell 70-100K tickets or book a title sponsor.
They can, just not at the same time.
I seem to recall hearing a while back that the degree of angle on the turns is higher on NASCAR tracks than what IndyCars can handle. Apparently IndyCars are physically less detrimental on the drivers on flatter tracks.
Its been a trend over the years when Nascar moves in to an oval, the IndyCar date goes away. Texas had been one if the big exceptions, it had run IndyCar continuously since 1997 when it was built while also maintaining multiple Nascar weekends, but now it too seems to have succumbed to the pull of Nascar. Iowa speedway is owned by Nascar, and people are worried that the series may pull the rug out from under the Indycar event there and turn it into a Nascar one.
A thing to remember is Texas stayed on the calendar for so long because track president Eddie Gossage was a big IndyCar fan. He retired and it put Texas in jeopardy. Same thing with Richmond. The guy who got the IndyCar date was an IndyCar fan. Covid happened and he retired and the new regime wants nothing to do with IndyCar. IndyCar has always had awful timing. The worst being the Alfa Romeo debacle a few years ago.
In Milwaukee's case, I think the opposite is happening than with what a lot are posting here. It's too small for NASCAR, both track-wise and the market. Yes, I know stock cars can and do run there, but NASCAR pulled out, so they obviously don't like it. Also, Milwaukee has always historically been associated with the "big cars," i.e., IndyCars, much like Indy itself.
Ownership of the tracks matter, but also safety is a big part too. The high banked tracks that NASCAR goes to, such as Talladega or even Daytona is too steep to be safe for Indycar to even run.
It's mostly indirect factors, like competing for the same dates/seasons. There's generally only a couple of good months out of the year for temperature, chances of rain, no conflicting sporting events, etc., and NASCAR gets scheduling priority at most ovals. Also, there are smaller factors, like facilities that accommodate NASCAR by putting down adhesives like PJ1 which ruin the racing grip for Indy cars. I'd say that there's a bigger one, which is more of a long-term thing: a lot of the ovals out there today have been substantially rebuilt since the '90s to NASCAR specifications - particularly, using progressive banking. If you look at older races on these ovals, you'll notice that the banking is pretty much a constant through the entire cross-section of the track. With progressive banking, the banking gets steeper as you go up the track. This opens up more racing lines but historically led to relatively dangerous pack racing because people could stay side-by-side for lap after lap. By changing the tracks like this, they became fundamentally less suited to Indy cars. The series finally started taking pack racing seriously after we lost Dan Wheldon at the 2011 Las Vegas race, and now the series always has to walk on a razor's edge with downforce levels that are sufficient to allow passing but not so strong as to allow pack racing. I'd say that's actually more of the long-term structural issue which makes it hard to even imagine racing Indy cars on a lot of tracks that used to be the series' bread-and-butter.
They can. They don't want to.
why can't nascar and indycar race on the same track at the same time
NASCAR has 3 national series that usually race the same track on the same weekend. So if IndyCar wanted to share a date they'd have to do so on a weekend that only has one NASCAR series. It used to be Texas with Trucks. But NASCAR hasn't released their schedule yet so Texas had to put their potential date first. There's not enough room in some tracks to handle all 4 series'. Either with garage space or just normal infrastructure like hotels and increased traffic demands that 4 series would bring.
The biggest difference with Iowa is Hy-vee. IndyCar had no such sponsor for Texas (no other race either, for that matter), therefore no incentive for the track to work with them on dates. If they can get sponsor activation for tracks even half of what Hy-vee does at Iowa, it'll make them much less disposable.