n.kuiper
8 Jun 2008, 01:13
i know this may sound stupid but how many north american drivers are in this championship -marco, danica , graham rahal they are probably the only good drivers out there in good teams compared to non americans -dixon ,briscoe, castroneves,kanaan ,wheldon,mutoh - is this why the champonship isnt doing so well?
by the way i dont know where all the drivers came from im just guessing by last names
captain crunch
8 Jun 2008, 22:12
Thus far this season, including long beach and indianapolis one-offs, we have had:
2 Australians
9 Brazilians
3 Canadians
5 English
1 Finn
3 French
1 Italian
1 Japanese
2 Mexicans
1 Kiwi
1 South African
1 Spaniard
17 Americans
2 Venezuelans
so that makes for 22 North American drivers and 27 from elsewhere.
courageous
10 Jun 2008, 19:33
Its a vicous (sp) circle IMO - the IRL/CART split turned a lot of fans, sponsers & up and coming drivers off of single seaters so instead they went to NASCAR (and to a lesser extent sportscars).
Now the top US drivers are in NASCAR, so that is where the sponsers, fans & up and coming drivers gravitate to.
& with that said, I predict 3 posts until somebody starts the schoolyard whinging about whose fault the split was.
well, nascar now has a columbian, scotsman & australian in it... still, it would be great if aj allmendinger & scott speed where in the indycar series :banghead:
madman16
11 Jun 2008, 08:49
& with that said, I predict 3 posts until somebody starts the schoolyard whinging about whose fault the split was.
i hope you're wong.....i'd like to think that's done and dusted now. I've long believed that the lack of american drivers had hurt both series. But now there are some good young american drivers in good machinery combined with 1 open-wheel series maybe in a few years the perception for young drivers career options will begin to change.
With any luck, in a few years Indycar will be a viable career option. At the moment the money is in Nascar, so that's where the drivers go. The trick is convincing sponsors to join Indycar teams as major sponsors rather than being a minor one on a Nascar because from what i've read it's cheaper to run an indycar than a nascar
