Indy Car racing

[Brian Fein]

Anyone get into Indy racing?

Every year since I was a kid, I always parked in front of the TV on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and watched the Indy 500.  My brother and I used to have our favorite racers when we were little and we used to cheer for them once per year.

For some reason, I have always been captivated by the design and technology that exists in the Indy world.  This year, I have started following the entire series, last week in Detroit and this weekend, the Firestone 600.

I really enjoy it, and I'm typically not a racing guy.  Now, I'm starting to learn the styles and back stories of some of the racers and watch how they interact each race.

I've watched other racing circuits, like NASCAR and F1, and for whatever reason can't get my interest like Indy does.

Anyone else get into Indy racing?

[DZA]

SORRY im a Formula 1 guy. Indy car so friggin boring

[Sunstroke]

I can honestly say that I have never watched a single minute of an Indy car race, not even the Indy 500. Don't know why...it just never appealed to me.

[Brian Fein]

SORRY im a Formula 1 guy. Indy car so friggin boring

I hear this a lot.  Help me learn what I'm missing in F1 cause I didn't see it being much more appealing.  Is it the road courses?  I guess I like the oval tracks better for the higher speeds. 

I'm willing to check out more F1 events, but I don't know why people call Indy "boring."

[Cathal]

I'd say both are quite boring. It's pretty amazing that such pieces of machinery can cause so much noise, go at 200 mph, crash, and still be so boring...

[Brian Fein]

So I watched a F1 race over the weekend, since everyone was telling me how much better it was... 

Meh.

Knowing nothing more than what I saw on the surface -
The cars seem to be more regulated.  The aerodynamics didn't seem vastly different.  In Indy, the Hondas and Chevys have wildly individual aerodynamic designs, which is interesting.
The guy that won was the pole-sitter, and led from start to finish.  Super exciting.  (Go Team BlackBerry)
The pit stops take 2-3 seconds because they have an army of people there.  Not much room for strategy because they are fairly insignificant.  Its much easier to build a 2 second lead than a 8-9 second lead as in Indy where pit stops matter.

I dunno, sample size of 1 but I saw a lot of things in the F1 race that I thought were worse as compared to Indy.

[DZA]

To each his own. I think its one of those thing you have to enjoy as a kid. I have been watching F1 since the 80s.  So its exciting thing for to watch. You may enjoy it if you actually attend a race. I remember yrs back when F1 came to Miami, i was living in Daytona Beach. I had to get tix to watch the race.

What i Like about F1 are the Cars.
F1 not constricted to a boring Oval.
FASTER.... to me
When you understand the point system it becomes amazing.
The Rivalries.  Anyone remember Aryton Senna vs Nigel Mansel.  Team Mercedes vs Ferrari.

I DON'T get that watching  Indy car.

[bsmooth]

Pit strategy is huge in F1. They are required to run two different sets of tires during each race, and they have a limited fuel load, so deciding when to pit and when to switch tires in bigger in F1 than any other race series.
F1 cars go faster than Indy cars, and have more advanced technology.

[fyo]

Speeds these days are fairly close. Well over 200 mph for both Indy Car and F1 racers. Much of that is due to the nature of the tracks, of course, but still...

I've watched quite a bit of F1 and some Indy Car and I will say that F1 is much more complex as a spectator today than it was a decade or two ago. The strategies were much simpler to figure out back then. Watching a Formula1 race today is hard if you don't know a lot about the sport and the teams. That's a shame, IMHO, but on the other hand I'm not sure how it could have been avoided.

F1 regulations today are a direct result of the insane amount of money being poured into R&D by the top teams. From about the mid 90s (and especially since 2000), the governing body has really tried to reign in spending, increased safety, and increase the perceived excitement, mainly through increased overtaking. The overall objective, naturally enough, to provide a more compelling product.

Spending has been targeted in any number of ways, from limiting the amount of testing teams can do to regulating the use of "exotic" materials, particularly in the engines. McLaren, for example, used a beryllium alloy for the pistons in its engine in the late 90s, which (while insanely expensive) increased performance significantly. Engines also have to last a set number of races, as do gear boxes.

Safety has similarly been attacked in multiple ways. Refueling was banned (also a cost-cutting measure), all sorts of flexible and/or moving parts on the cars were banned. Many of the rule changes driven by safety were also cost-cutting measures.

To increase overtaking, the cars were made less aerodynamically stable (all sorts of wings and diffusers were banned/limited) and a sort of "boost" mode introduced (called KERS, it's a mechanical energy storage device that can be used to boost speeds at certain times at certain points on the tracks).

All in all, F1 today is completely different from F1 15-20 years ago.

Regulations in IndyCar are completely different. That's obvious, but they really are fundamentally different, more closely resembling the other "Formula" series than F1. Everyone uses the same chassis, the same engine, etc. 2015 saw the introduction of aero kits, a big step away from the "spec car" standard that IndyCar is (still) built on, although a capped cost of $70k on the kit limits what teams can do.

To exaggerate a bit, IndyCar regulations detail exactly how every car should be made, while F1 regulations just introduce a ban or limit on something if it's found to be dangerous/too expensive/politically incorrect/ugly/whatever. Despite recent moves by IndyCar away from the "spec car" and F1 towards it, the differences are still enormous.

In the end, though, what matters is the entertainment value and IMHO they are both quite boring now.