IndyCars: Motegi to have swansong race

And Tony George dropped Surfers from the schedule, while he is no longer the IRL CEO’s job the damage he inflicted American open-wheel is a sin I can never forgive. Since reunification I have tried to take a interest in the merged series, alas the appeal is just not there.

Matt, sorry but I must respectfully disagree with your comments. First, the Qld govt did nothing to lose to race, they were subsidising the event because of the huge tourist dollars it generated. TG dumped the Surfers round despite pleas to keep it on the schedule after reunification, the Qld govt had nothing to do with its loss

Second,if (quote) “all they need is more OVAL racing”; that is what the IRL was based on, TG’s series had only oval racing initially. Further, if oval racing was what was required, I need to point out that Surfers is not an oval.

Finally, your premise that ” what the fans want) and not so many road and street courses if they want to compete with NASCAR.” is flawed. CART/Champ & its success was always a combination of oval, super speedway, road course & street circuit. Only TG’s post 96 series was oval only.

Sorry for contradicting you but the historical past does not mesh with the opinion you have expressed.

PeterG, it’s great to see another person as passionate and knowledgeable about motorsport as Richard and myself. I also respect your opinion, but the IRL visited Surfers in 2008 purely as an exhibition race because it wanted to keep Surfers, not to mention it had a signed contract through to 2013, but they wanted the race held either in March or in September (which the QLD government wouldnt budge on due to conflicts with the F1 and the NRL/AFL finals series and were insisting on an October date, while Indy didnt want the season running that late). In my opinion, the event is now a shell of its former self with only one high-profile series competing and needs an international series to draw alongside the V8′s, especially following the 2009 A1GP debacle.

I’ve been following Indycars / CART / Champ Cars since 1991 and through many awful Australian telecasts (the days of Bill Woods and Neil Crompton hosting the Channel 10 telecast on Monday nights were the best) and I must clarify that I am not against having a mix of road/street and oval races, I’d just like a more even mix. The current CEO, Randy Bernard has said he wants tracks like Surfers, Fontana and Phoenix back in the series (while he’s at it, I’d suggest adding Portland, Road America and Laguna Seca back too), and he is off to a great start having succeeded with getting New Hampshire and Milwaukee back on the calendar. It is such a shame the series lost Kansas and Chicagoland, although i understand those races were not well attended so the need to go elsewhere was obvious. That’s just my belief.

Richard, I agree with you that Indycar shouldn’t leave Japan, but from 2012, they won’t need to visit Japan just to appease their engine supplier. Once their get their house in order domestically, I hope we’ll see Japan back on the calendar, hopefully along with Surfers and maybe even the UK (hopefully Rockingham Speedway) if Lotus maintain their involvement. But they should definitely not try to compete with F1 and become a global sport.

It wouldnt be difficult to provide more coverage on Indycars here in Australia than any other freely available media outlet. The races are only available on Foxtel and only get a 30 second spot on the news if there is a huge crash or an Aussie champion. Go for it!

A good debate people!! All excellent opinions!