Q: Does the IRL really believe their online shop is adequate? It’s an absolute embarrassment! If you take the time to browse the site, you will have the pleasure of choosing between 10 equally ugly T-shirts from a grand total of five drivers. Want a 1/18th scale die-cast replica of your favorite car? Hopefully it is one of the 11 available on the site (thankfully all you Milka fans are in luck). NASCAR teams and sponsors long ago realized that merchandise is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to advertise. Walk down any street in mainstream America and you’ll likely see a lovable redneck decked out in Wrangler jeans and a #88 hat. The marketing of NASCAR in the past 10-15 years has made it into the product it is today, offering up thousands upon thousands of collectibles and merchandise pieces all flying sponsor colors and logos. I love open-wheel racing but it’s amazing to see how amateur the IRL looks in some areas. If they actually produced attractive goods, fans would buy them. As is, there’s no way that lime green ICS 2008 series T-shirt is flying off the shelves.
Mike McKenna
RM: I’ve never checked it out (but I will now) and I know John Griffin and some of the IRL staff read this mailbag, so I’ll wait on their response. One thing that hurts IndyCar is that the same driver isn’t in the same car and it’s not painted the same way, year after year.
Q: I’ve recently been thinking about good racing venues. Naturally the train of thought would eventually get around to considering which street circuit layouts are good and which are bad, and I suddenly had a thought about something that I’ve always known about but never really THOUGHT about. You (if I recall correctly) and others have occasionally mentioned the many attempts to get a street circuit done in Philadelphia. There’s even been recent rumor that the ALMS wants to do this. My question is.... WHAT THE #$%@ ARE THEY THINKING? Have any of these people who considered it BEEN to Philly? I have, and I can’t see anywhere in the entire city that could feasibly be shut down for a racetrack which could produce a racetrack ANY racecar could get around.
You think Belle Isle is bad? Philly would make Belle Isle look like the world greatest racetrack. San Jose was godly next to Philly. If one more person from an active, major racing series suggests a Philadelphia street circuit, I’m gonna push this big red button and vaporize that entire racing series. All of its cars, tires, fuel suppliers, cash, etc. All gone. Pushed out of existence. Eliminated. Decimated. Annihilated. Eradicated. In short: Philadelphia is a nice city to go an have a laugh (especially if you go and watch all the people who go there just to do the Rocky), but it’d make a terrible street circuit.
Ryan “D-Boy” Hewitt in Ashtabula, Ohio
RM: Don’t waste The Button on that, I’ve got a much better target but that’s for later. As for the City of Brotherly Love, I remember PLN’s proposed course was down on the water and he wanted to make it a July 4th special. But, we don’t need another San Jose or Belle Isle, so let’s just make sure Cleveland and Phoenix get back on the schedule sooner rather than later.
Q: One car, one tire, two or three engine manufacturers? I can’t distinguish IndyCar from NASCAR anymore. There is no creative thinking allowed in either and both are like watching paint dry or corn grow. I grew up in Indy in the 1960’s (thank you, Lord) and there was nothing on earth that compared to the sweet sounds that emanated from the pipes of the Novi and the original four-cam Ford. The engineering brilliance and creativity of Thompson, Yunick, Meskowski, Bignotti, and Watson was something to behold every May. An era gone, to be sure, but still savored by those of us fortunate enough to have seen and heard it. I think the Indy cars could distinguish themselves, and make the championship a wide-open affair, by racing all three disciplines – paved ovals, road courses, and mile dirt.
Yeah, I’m old school sometimes but so what? Dig up the film of the ’69 Hoosier Hundred and watch Mario racing the last 12 laps of the race on three tires because he clipped the fence and flattened the left front trying to keep up with Foyt. Open face helmets and no cages – those boys had a pair of big ones. Robin, when are you going to write a book about that era of Champ Car racing? There are so many characters and tales from late ’50s into the early ’80’s, it would be criminal for you to not put them into print. Some of the ladies and gentlemen have gone to their heavenly reward and the others probably can’t aim well enough to hit any vital organs, so what would you be worried about – that they might sue you? Hell, Miller, you’re like the rest of us, you would have to have some money first to make it worth their while.
“Oldtimer” Koch
RM: I told A.J. I couldn’t write my book until he’d passed on because he’d want to kill me, but, seriously, it’s something I might do down the road (although the audience is dying off quickly) and it would obviously be a labor of love because racing books don’t make money unless it’s got Earnhardt’s name attached to it. As for innovation at Indy, I think all the old-timers and die-harders miss it a lot more than the people calling the shots today. But thankfully I can always pick up the phone and call Dan Gurney to recall the good old days.
