They say that the Indianapolis region just got whacked with the sixth-largest snowfall on record for the area. I know I was landlocked out here in the country, west of the city, for the better part of 24 hours, the combination of a 4-wheel drive Toyota pickup and Bridgestone's most aggressive truck tires proving no match for 14 inches of powder and 2-foot drifts.
At times like these it's easy to wish you were someplace warm and dry. And not too long ago, I would have been. The IndyCar Series season used to start in late January with an event at Walt Disney World Speedway, the so-called "Mickyard." As racetracks or venues go, WDWS was far from inspirational, but at least it gave those working within the sport (not to mention open-wheel racing fans) an opportunity to get out of the frigid Midwest before the usual winter depression really set in.
Of course, IndyCar fans and participants still have a long time to wait until the Dallara/Honda spec cars hit the track for meaningful action.
The 2008 season officially ended last Sept. 7 -- there was a lame-duck, nonchampionship exhibition at Surfers Paradise in Queensland, Australia, that served only to tease anyone familiar with that fabulous event -- making for a seven-month layoff prior to the '09 season opener at St. Petersburg in early April.
Bottom line: the IndyCar offseason is just too long.
"Way too long," says Vision Racing's Ed Carpenter. "By the end of the season, it's nice to have a break. But after a couple of weeks, I'm ready to get back in the car and go racing."
Indy Racing League officials can reel off a litany of reasons why they don't either a) start the season earlier or b) end the championship campaign later. They don't want to go up against the Super Bowl or the Daytona 500 in February. There aren't enough warm-weather venues to fill up a winter and springtime calendar. They don't want to compete with the National Football League in the fall. Teams can save money by laying off staff for the bulk of the offseason.
Those are all mostly valid reasons, but I believe the interminably long offseason hurts the IndyCar Series more than it helps.
For starters, the January race at Disney World put the IndyCar Series back on racing fans' radar ahead of NASCAR and other major forms of racing. With the advent of spec-car racing, manufacturers, teams and drivers no longer need weeks of preseason testing to get up to speed before the first race. This will be the seventh season for the current basic Dallara/Honda package, so if a team is a second off the pace, no amount of testing is going to claw that back.
I can think of at least a dozen tracks where the weather is warm enough in January and February (or October, November and December, for that matter) to run a race. In Florida, you've got "The Mickyard," Daytona, Homestead, Sebring and St. Petersburg. Out west, Phoenix, Fontana, Infineon and Long Beach would qualify. And in between, Texas, Houston and even Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama would be climatically feasible in the run up to Thanksgiving or post-Valentine's Day.
There's a lot of talk within the IndyCar Series about thinking outside the box to shake up the formula for the next car and engine package that is scheduled to debut in 2011. Maybe some radical thinking should be applied to the series schedule as well.
John Oreovicz covers open-wheel racing for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.
John Oreovicz
