INDYCAR has made the following updates to the 2013 rulebook, effective immediately. 7.6.1.2–Restarts On restarts within 15 laps of the finish of a race, all lapped cars will be moved to the back of the field. 9.2.2–Race Procedure Penalties If circumstances do not permit a penalty to be served during a race, the Race Director shall declare the results provisional and officials shall review the penalty. The review is independent of technical inspection. (Basically, time penalties can be issued.) 14.14.6.6.5–Tires If a car receives tire damage during a race, the…
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OP-Ed – Does INDYCAR’s “Faux-vertaking” Rule Encourage Avoidable Contact?
Comparing the number of accidents in Formula 1 and other open-wheel series and in IndyCar in the past couple of years has me wondering if the INDYCAR overtaking rule (faux-vertaking as @MikeOpenPaddock would call it) doesn’t in fact encourage avoidable contact rather than discouraging it. There has been a lot of talk about INDYCAR’s overtaking rule on road and street courses that demands that a driver leave open the inside line in approach to a corner, and usually not in happy tones. This rule comes from Tony Cotman and the…
Read MoreIndyCar – Welcome Back, Mr. Cotman
This past weekend, the Indy Racing League officially hired Tony Cotman to be the league’s technical director in charge of developing all of the rules and regulations pertaining to the construction and operation of the new chassis and engine packages for 2012. It’s certainly not a new role for him. He was Vice-President of Operations of the Champ Car World Series where he oversaw the development and production of the extremely competitive and cost-effective Panoz DP-01 chassis. Can he do the same thing here in the Indy Racing League? Probably,…
Read MoreOP-Ed – Rebuilding the 500 – Part 2 of 5 – Safety First
Rebuilding the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race Opening Up The Rules One aspect of the 500 that drew in crowds of fans, competitors, and manufacturers was that the rules were open enough for teams to build their own car and develop their own innovations. If the current culture of IndyCar racing had existed in mid-20th century, we would never have had seen diesel power, turbo chargers, that amazing gas turbine engine, and most amazing of all no wings. We would still be running front-engine, naturally-aspirated, carbureted roadsters all made by the…
Read MoreIndyCar – Aerodynamic Changes Debut at Kentucky
In an effort to improve the oval-racing product, the Indy Racing League, sanctioning body for the IndyCar Series, will loosen up some of the aerodynamic rules that it had previously tightened in the name of cost-savings and parity. The problem with tightening the engineering rules in oval racing is that the large teams still spend just as much as they would have before, but now they spend it on the minutiae rather than on more substantial engineering. For the Meijer Indy 300 at the Kentucky Speedway on August 1st, team…
Read MoreIndyCar – Rules and the Law of Unintended Consequences
Since the last weekend in April, the IndyCar series has been oval racing but the excitement of high-speed side-by-side racing has certainly been lacking. At the end of the Kansas Race, I wrote a short editorial, What Happened to Competitive Racing, where I went on a little rant about the new wheelbase rules further limiting the freedom of the engineers and reducing the drivability and competitiveness of the cars. It was pointed out at the time that the extreme weather might have been the primary factor for the lack-luster racing…
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