Quote:
Originally Posted by ffracer
Single seater racing is clearly in trouble, at least in the UK. I’m now involved in the organisation of single seater racing, but I’m also an active competitor and this post is a purely personal one. [...]
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I agree with pretty much every word.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ffracer
I do think one theme, or dimension, does stand out. We do not seem to be able to understand how to manage the tensions between amateur vs professional, team vs individual, simple-car vs complex-car, career vs enjoyment. Today the most often proposed solution is to polarise the sport along these axis and treat the resulting parts separately. So it appears that currently the “influential” people in the sport seem to believe both the problems and the solutions are to be found only within the “top-level” categories of single seater racing.
I think they are wrong.
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Well, there's reason for the polarisation. IndyCar needs the Road to Indy ladder. They are trying to build a ladder for the career-minded (young drivers who want to become professional). So they created USF2000, because F2000CS didn't adapt to their needs.
IndyCar wants each step to develop the driver as a whole. Drivers must learn to driver faster and faster cars, eventual more and more complex cars, and learn to drive longer races. They must attract major sponsors. They must learn to relate with team owners, engineers and mechanics. They want each category to showcase drivers.
In addtion, IndyCar can't spend insane amounts of money to fund the ladder. They must attract major sponsors too. The easiesr is car and autoparts manufacturers. Manufacturers usually want to show cutting-edge tecnology. That's why we'll see direct injection and tubochargers in the long term, like it happened with the FFord Ecoboost.
This can be expensive, so either they find ways to decrease costs or they hush poorer drivers away. Also, some amateur drivers (drivers who enjoy racing for pleasure) will want to build their cars with their own hands. meanwhile, IndyCar and other development series will want spec cars to level the field and make faster drivers win, not faster cars. That's another divide between amateurs and professional hopefuls.
There's way to bridge between them. If cars are cheap enough, many amateurs will gladly race against career-minded racers. Or the car rules can be made clear enough so drivers-builders won't have a chance to outperform drivers-renters by building faster cars.