Five years after embracing road racing, the Izod IndyCar Series prides itself on being America's most diverse form of auto racing, thanks to its mix of oval speedways, street courses and natural terrain road circuits.
Most participants in the series are happy with the near 50-50 balance between oval and road racing. But the oval portion of the schedule isn't as diverse as it used to be. Iowa Speedway, which hosts the Iowa Corn 250 on Sunday, is the only remaining short oval in Indy car racing. In fact, other than the 2.5-mile long Indianapolis Motor Speedway, each of the other six oval tracks used by the IndyCar Series is a 1.5-mile speedway -- though in all fairness, only two of those tracks (Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway) are design clones.
One could argue that Iowa is a short oval in distance (0.875 miles) only, because it races like a superspeedway. Conceived by NASCAR star Rusty Wallace as a super-sized Richmond International Raceway (which measures 0.75 miles), Iowa is wide and steeply banked for a short oval. And in a modern Indy car, with just 650 horsepower and a lot of down force, it's easy to drive flat out. Too easy.
Part of what made tracks like the Milwaukee Mile and Phoenix International Raceway great for Indy cars is that they forced the drivers to balance throttle and steering inputs. By the 1990s, Phoenix was virtually flat out for CART Indy cars, with just a confidence lift needed for Turn 1. But Milwaukee still featured a considerable speed difference between straights and corners, making it much more of a driver's track.
Another short oval that was starting to build a reputation for quality Indy car races was New Hampshire International Speedway. The inaugural CART race at New Hampshire was one of the finest races I've ever witnessed, with Nigel Mansell going from third to first in the last 20 laps by passing Team Penske's Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy.
Chip Ganassi envisioned a "Super Milwaukee" when he constructed Chicago Motor Speedway in 1999, but the paper-clip track configuration coupled with CART's unsuitable short oval aero package at the time produced terrible racing. The inaugural IndyCar Series event at Iowa was also judged poorly, but racing has improved in the past two years and it's still too early to say whether, like CMS, the track is unsuitable for Indy cars.
The great news for short track enthusiasts is that New Hampshire and Milwaukee are back on the IndyCar Series' wish list. A year ago, NHIS expressed considerable interest in hosting an Indy car event but was rebuffed by Indy Racing League management. With Randy Bernard installed as IRL CEO, the IndyCar Series sanctioning body is being much more receptive toward NHIS, and Bernard is also working hard to re-establish Milwaukee on the IndyCar schedule, even if it means the IRL promoting the race itself.
The IndyCar Series will likely announce its 2011 schedule around Aug. 1, and I expect considerable change. The return of additional short ovals would be a step in the right direction.
