IndyCar Series: 60 Laps Versus 30 Minutes
Yesterday, the Izod IndyCar Series announced that qualifying for the remaining four oval races of the 2010 season will be shortened.
In case you haven't read the details yet, here is a link to the full article on IndyCar.com:
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There are some pros and cons to this change, and at least one big question in my mind as to what the major effect will be.
As a fan who sat in the stands to watch qualifying at Homestead last year, any decrease in track time for the IndyCar competitors is a bad change. I now have less motivation to attend a race weekend a day early.
The pole lap time last year at Chicagoland was 25.5 seconds. We'll use 26 seconds as an average, two laps per car, 29 cars...and the qualifying session just got shortened by 25 minutes. To me, that's significant.
Add in five minutes of commercials, and you get to 30 minutes of broadcast time.
How is Versus going to handle this change? On Friday, Versus has a one-hour qualifying show scheduled. If more of that broadcast is spiked with driver and team interviews and special interest pieces, it's a step up.
If the qualifying show on Versus has some re-run footage as filler, that's a step down. If the show is shortened 30 minutes, that's a big step down. With four events to go, the two hour reduction in on-track coverage will not leave me with the "super-served" glow.
We'll see on Friday how this works out, and what the real reason may have been for the change. At Chicagoland, there is no schedule conflict that would limit the length of IndyCar qualifying. Just 25 minutes less of it to watch in person.
There will be a similar decrease in track time for Kentucky and Homestead. Twin Ring Motegi qualifying will be shortened too, but not many of us were planning the trip.
The first entry to this blog in April is one that was deleted: I freaked out when 20 negative votes were cast on a poll about the content. That's funny, since the top brass at IndyCar recognized the value of the idea.
The suggestion was made to move the Versus re-broadcast of the Long Beach Grand Prix to the following Monday night, in a time slot right after the Versus NHL Playoff game broadcast. The idea was posted with four days to get the job done.
That would have put the race on sports bar screens at 12:30 AM EST, and in prime time at 9:30 PM on the west coast. At least some hockey fans would have gotten a taste of IndyCar action, even if the idea falls far short of the "ratings bonanza" category.
Instead, the rodeo was on Versus as scheduled. IndyCar re-broadcasts are delegated to Monday afternoons. That's a little better than nothing at all, which is what the Indy Lights Series now gets.
Some people like to bash Versus as well as ABC/ESPN for the quality and content of their IndyCar broadcasts. I maintain that these arguments are insignificant: getting people to watch is the goal, and they will stay tuned if the entertainment product of the racing is good enough.
Nobody turns the channel and never returns when "side by side" commercials are run, or a boring "special interest" segment is inserted. You watch the race because you want to, or because you surfed to the broadcast and found enough entertainment to keep your interest. The hired hands who bring you the show are not the deciding factor.
The question is open as to what future IndyCar broadcasts will look like on Versus. Randy Bernard is meeting with their top executives this weekend in Chicago. When we will learn the results of these discussions is unknown.
In my opinion, the broadcasts have to be advertised on other networks to promote the races and attract new viewers to Versus. I doubt many viewers surf there: most other Versus programming is of no interest to racing fans, and it was a cable channel I didn't even know I had. And lost.
Versus and ESPN are adversaries, competing for the same audiences. It's no wonder that ESPN does not promote IndyCar more, or accept the advertising dollars from a rival who has clearly stated their intention to grab market share.
The Versus "super-served" approach has not been expanded this season, and has decreased with the elimination of the Indy Lights coverage. It will be interesting to see how this latest change, with 25 minutes cut from IndyCar's qualifying schedule, will be managed.
I hope it becomes an opportunity for Versus to improve their coverage of the IndyCar Series. If I can find a sports bar to watch the show on Friday, I'd like to think a toast will be in order.
One other unrelated point to mention before closing...
If you have the opportunity, watch a practice session on IndyCar.com. The online streaming quality is now acceptable, and the announce teams are never bad enough to make you turn the action off.
What you will see is something unique. Often at the start of a session, or a re-start after a caution period, something pretty cool goes down. All of the cars exit their pit boxes simultaneously, usually with the rears lit up, in the closest approximation to a standing start that you will see.
Halfshaft failures? Blown clutches? No, the Honda engine and transmission management ECU's modify rev ranges to decrease the incidents of such failures. Simona lost a clutch this year, Justin Wilson broke a C.V. joint leaving the pits in a race last year, but that's about it.
If you worry about the mechanical toll of standing starts for a road course event, fuggedaboutit. But the sight of it, as it now occurs during practice sessions...that is magic.
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