As an opening to his July 18 article on Indy Racing League CEO Randy Bernard, Jeff Pappone of Canadian national newspaper The Globe and Mail cited a quote from Pierre Trudeau, the country’s former prime minister, that had him comparing living to the U.S. to sleeping with an elephant and how Canada feels the effects of everything its southern neighbor does. Of course, Pappone went on to label NASCAR as the “personal pachyderm” of Bernard, who’s been charged with reviving major-league open-wheel racing in America.
On Monday, the elephant sneezed. And apparently, there will be more of those in the next few days. Sure enough, they’ll have an impact on IndyCar’s 2011 schedule.
Next year, NASCAR’s opening race of the “Chase for the Sprint Cup” will be held at Chicagoland Speedway. Also, Kansas Speedway and Kentucky Speedway are set to receive Cup races, the former getting a second Sprint Cup date and the latter getting its first one ever.
All in all, it’s a noticeable shift in the schedule from the stock car juggernaut. There’s a few questions to be answered due to all of this.
Can IndyCar find another suitable date at Chicagoland or will the series have to leave the Windy City (our bud Paul Dalbey over at Planet-IRL.com is leaning toward the latter)? Where will Kentucky’s IndyCar event end up (Bruce Martin is thinking early June, with Baltimore going in to fill the Labor Day weekend slot)? Does NASCAR have a death wish in choosing to pit its prestigious Chase opener head-to-head against DA BEARS (although there is that whole NFL lockout thing)? And has New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the soon-to-be former home of Chase Race No. 1, been punished for deciding to host an IndyCar event next season (conspiracy theory-ish, I know)?
We’ve known that IndyCar would have to do some schedule shuffling for a little bit of time now, but the major issue appears to be Chicagoland, a track that has produced some of the best racing in Indy Racing League history. Unfortunately, its stature as an International Speedway Corporation-owned facility likely means that IndyCar will be getting the short end of the stick while the track pushes its new status in NASCAR’s ‘Chase.’
I wouldn’t be surprised if Chicagoland goes off the schedule eventually for that reason. I also wonder how the League will maintain their current format of splitting the docket into four or five race stretches of ovals and road/street circuits. It’s certainly much easier on the teams, even if it gets monotonous for fans that find themselves wishing for a speedway or a twisty in the middle of these “blocks.”
In any case, the IndyCar schedule is set to be released by the end of the month, at least according to Bernard. We’ll see how much tweaking it’ll have gone under then, thanks to NASCAR’s realignment.
