ESPN John Oreovicz Blog

The Indy cars will look and sound pretty much the same as they have all season for this weekend's Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway. But Indy Racing League officials are cautiously optimistic that subtle changes to the aerodynamic specification of the cars will create better oval-track racing than in the series so far this year.

For a series that was long known for exciting side-by-side speedway racing, the competition in 2009 has been anything but. In fact, every one of the oval races has resembled the follow-the-leader parades that CART was criticized for in the late 1990s, albeit for completely different reasons. While CART fields got spread out because of the diversity of the equipment, the IndyCar Series has suffered this year because its 7-year-old spec cars are just too similar for anyone to gain enough of an advantage to pass another car, or even draw alongside for extended periods of time.

Hence the changes, which allow teams to use existing parts in their inventories that have been recently banned, including inner wheel blanking plates, sidepod extensions and flip-ups or ramps ahead of the rear tires. The IRL has also mandated the removal of the half-inch trim tab or wicker from the car's rear wing. The aero changes -- which are optional, except for the wicker -- are expected to produce an extra 300 pounds of downforce while also reducing drag.

Last but not least, in the latest move copied from the defunct CART/Champ Car World Series, the Indy cars will feature an overtaking function accessed by a button on the steering wheel that temporarily adjusts the air/fuel mixture and the rev limit of the standard 3.5-liter Honda V-8s. Depending on what fuel setting the driver has already selected, the "push to pass" function will provide a short burst ranging from 5 to 20 extra horsepower. Each car will have 20 12-second power boosts available during the course of the race, each corresponding to about half a lap of the 1.5-mile Kentucky track. There is also a 10-second "recharge" period between bursts, to prevent drivers from saving their extra power for one continual blast at the end of the race.

To be fair, Champ Car didn't invent the overtake button. It was first used by Formula One during its turbocharged era in the mid-1980s and successfully revived by the Formula Palmer Audi training series in the late 1990s. It's a much easier function to create for turbocharged engines; Champ Car's P2P gave the drivers up to 75 extra horsepower from their turbo Cosworth engines for short durations.

At least one pundit believes the aero changes proposed by the IRL will not completely address the problem of poor oval racing. Former IndyCar driver Robbie Buhl, now co-owner of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing and a color commentator for Versus' coverage of the series, said as much last week during the broadcast of the Edmonton race. At the time, the P2P and wicker changes had not been announced.

"I don't think it's enough," Buhl said. "Three hundred pounds of downforce is going to be a good change, but it's not enough. Those changes are between the wheelbase, so it's really not going to affect the balance of the car. I think where they are going to have to go to really separate things and create some more disparity and get more of that side-by-side racing is to look at the wing elements and maybe even back off what the mandated rear wicker rules are."

The drivers are happy about the extra tools at their disposal, though Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing's Graham Rahal pointed out that the P2P will also be used to defend from getting passed or lapped.

NHLR senior engineer Craig Hampson said he believes the aero changes are a positive step by the league, but he would like to see additional areas of development opened up to teams.

"The IRL has not created any new parts for the speedways, but they have re-legalized parts which were previously banned several years ago," he said. "I think the teams which were in the IRL many seasons ago will have some small advantage with the rules changes because they do have the experience and aero data from when these parts were last legal. We don't have that, but the good thing is that we had all of these parts in our inventory already, so we didn't have to purchase anything new. In this economy, that's good for everyone's budget."

Hampson is also enthusiastic about the P2P functionality added to the normally aspirated Honda engine. Unlike the aero mods, the power boost will be used for IndyCar Series road races, beginning with the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course next weekend.

"It's very good that both our drivers previously used an overtake button in Champ Car, though here it works a little differently, and the effects will be a lot smaller," he said. "The thing I do very much like about Honda's system is the 'hold-off time' they have put on the backside of each use. This will likely set up a few 'pass and then pass back' scenarios, where the drivers trade off who leads at different ends of the track. Certainly the driver will need to be smart about when to use the pass button because you only get 20 shots of it. It will surely be a thinking-man's game.

"I do wish the power boost was larger, but with a normally aspirated engine, there is only so much you can achieve. The only other approach would have been to de-tune the engine power for the majority of its running -- and that's not a path anyone wanted to see [the series] go down."

Although the changes should make the racing more competitive on ovals, there is no reason to expect to see an end to the dominance shown by Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing on those tracks. The last time a driver outside those two teams won an oval race came in June 2008 when Tony Kanaan won for slumping Andretti Green Racing.

Kanaan, who suffered minor burns in a pit fire last Sunday in Edmonton, has been cleared to race this weekend.

Twenty-three cars are entered in this weekend's race. With the Canadian swing done, KV Racing has cut back to one car and Conquest Racing has dropped out altogether, but Dreyer & Reinbold Racing is running a third car for Milka Duno, and Sarah Fisher resumes her limited program in her own team's car.