Ugh... How Much Longer?

Well, it has been a terribly long time since the season ended, and it feels like an eternity before the season starts up again at St. Pete in April. Over the offseason, we've gotten good news and bad news and no news. Unfortunately this is going to last for a few more weeks before we hit the streets again.

But as much as I want to get going again, I feel that it is imperative that fans don't get lured into wanting to run a schedule comparable to the N-word. On some of the forums I visit, specifically the Talkback forum at Indycar.com, it seems like some people want Indycar to run longer seasons and more races. And while that is good and all, and people are simply stating their opinions, I feel that I should throw my opinion into the mix.

I've felt for a long time that the Indycar season is a couple of races too short. think there are too many great tracks left off the schedule in the series. There are tracks like Cleveland, Road America, New Hampshire, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Montreal), and Portland on the sidelines.

But running a schedule that compares to Nazicars 92 races in 40 weekends is pure insanity. It would drive up operating costs for the teams, fans would lose interest over the course of the season (the same problem that is beginning to occur down south), and it would just be too damn long.

Fans also seem to think that we need our schedule to compete with theirs simply because they start earlier and end later thus they steal a bunch of our spotlight. Well, right now if we want to compete with them, we have some serious problems, and I doubt we would win this one. They are still much stronger then us unfortunately and would squash us if we went out of our way to compete head to head with them.

I believe in the long run, we should be running 22 races from the second week of March until the end of October. This gives us a slightly longer season but still gives us some breaks in between races, thus giving us that compact feel without tiring the teams and the fans out. It also keeps us from competing too long with the NFL.

Here is my ideal 22 track schedule including a couple of courses that just won't leave the schedule. No dates as I'm nowhere smart enough to piece this together, and obviously don't know the tendencies of each specific track.

Current Tracks
St. Pete - S
Long Beach - S
Milwaukee Mile - O
Texas Motor Speedway - O
Watkins Glen - R
Toronto - S
Inidianapolis - O
Edmonton - A
Kentucky - O
Mid-Ohio - R
Chicagoland - O
Motegi - O

Proposed Additions
New Hampshire - O
Cleveland - A
Michigan - O
Pheonix - O
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve - R
Portland - R
Laguna Seca - R
Road America - R
Las Vegas - O
Mexico City - R

Well there you have it, my 22 race schedule for the Indycar Series. However, I don't want this implemented asap. Let's give it four or five years until we get growing a bit and then we can piece this together.

Hell, without trying, I even pleased all you folks who think it should be 50/50 (Oval/Twisties), which I disagree with, but that is for another discussion.

If anyone has some issues with my proposed 22 tracks, let me know how you feel in the comments section.