Planet-IRL

Marshall Pruett misses the boat

It’s never happened that I have felt the need to offer a rebuttal to another article written here at Planet-IRL, but Planet-IRL does not pride itself in presenting only one side of such a passionate story. My feeling is that Marshall Pruett has a personal vendetta against Brian Barnhart and the current Indy Racing League administration, and he is using the 2012 IndyCar chassis to drive a wedge between the teams and the League where one does not currently exists – at least not to the point that Mr. Pruett would have you believe.

There is no doubt that a new chassis is well past due for the IZOD IndyCar Series. This current Dallara will enter its eighth year of competition in 2010 and it is well beyond dated already. The original plan put the IndyCar Series chassis on a three-year cycle, meaning that a new car should have been introduced in 2006 – and in 2009. Of course, with the downturn in the economy, such investments by the teams were not feasible and for that reason, among others, the IZOD IndyCar Series has been stuck with the Dallara chassis for way too long. To its credit, Dallara became the de facto spec car for the Series because it built a better can than G-Force/Panoz and the market chose it over the Panoz. Had Panoz made improvements, and built a better racecar, we would still likely see two manufacturers today, but I digress… Regardless of how we got here, we are now here and it’s time to get out of this box.

At some point over the past year or so, Ben Bowlby, engineer for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, decided he was going to start formulating HIS idea of what a new IndyCar machine should be, starting from a completely blank sheet of paper. Without limitations of updating a current car and using preconceived notions of what makes an “Indy car” (small “c”), Bowbly formulated a radical design, a revolutionary design that we know at one point had only three wheels. It was truly an “out of the box” design. Somehow, and I don’t know how, this design was circulated to a number of other teams and got the approval of several other team owners in the IndyCar paddock. Apparently, to some folks, that means that a large group of team owners is ready to break away from the IRL.

When Planet-IRL spoke with Mike Hull, managing director for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, a couple months ago, the issue of the 2012 chassis came up, specifically the Delta Wing design put forth by Ben Bowlby. Here is what Mike had to say about the topic:

“We’re racing a car today – a car with an underwing, downforce, big wings front and rear, with some form of either controlled or non-controlled horsepower, the same tires and wheels. If you go find a picture from Indianapolis from 1975 and you take that photo and put it next to a current Dallara, what do you see? You see the same car. The car hasn’t changed since 1975. Now the rule makers, all they’ve done is tweak the rules to keep the speeds to a certain level. They’ve continued to dumb the car down. We’ve shoved ourselves into a corner with a spec car. It’s no fault of the IRL. It’s no fault of the competitors. It’s just the nature of where we’ve been for such a long time. It’s time for a change. It’s time for a real change. Its’ time for innovation to be reactivated following technology. Certainly I’d be an advocate of what Ben Bowlby wants to do because I’ve worked with Ben here at Chip Ganassi Racing for a long time. I believe in what he does because he’s a very innovative, forward-thinking guy, but I don’t want to get sucked into a group-think situation here to where that’s the only answer. The most important thing is to realize that the one thing we’re missing with IndyCar Racing is… we’re into this comfort zone with car technology. Comfort zones is not what created the IndyCar brand. That’s what’s important about the future for Indycar Racing in terms of that and that’s what the IRL needs to look at. They’ll look like heroes if they choose to go down a different path than a revision of the current race car. They’ll look like zeros if they don’t. It’s the reality of where we need to go. We need to push this forward. Whether Ben’s got the right idea or not, all it’s done is open the avenue for discussion.

The entire interview with Mike Hull can be heard here: http://planet-irl.com/podcasts/hull.mp3

That to me sounds like Mike Hull is saying that IndyCar needs to really think outside of the box and come up with something different, but it certainly stops well short of saying “If IndyCar doesn’t select the Delta Wing, we’re gone.” In fact, Mike even admits that the Bowlby design might not be THE answer and definitely shouldn’t be considered as the ONLY answer. Judging from Mike’s words, the goal of the Delta Wing project was to open the minds of League officials, car designs, owners, etc. to the possibility of coming up with something completely different. I don’t want to speak for Mr. Hull or Mr. Bowlby but I never got the impression that further participation in the IZOD IndyCar Series by a majority of the teams was contingent upon the League’s acceptance of the Bowlby design. Has the Delta Wing project caused the League to come up with something totally radical and unlike anything we’ve seen before? Judging by the images of the Dallara concept cars (Seen Here), I would say ‘no’ at this point. Without seeing the Delta Wing car though, as well as concepts from Lola and Swift, it’s hard to know exactly just how radical Mike Hull and Ben Bowlby were thinking when they said IndyCar Racing needs something that represents “real change.”

Now, let me address some other points in Marshall Pruett’s article – the first being this charge that Brian Barnhart has plagiarized the Delta Wing technical concept. I don’t really see a whole lot in the story released by the Indy Racing League (http://www.indycar.com/news/?story_id=15726) that should really be considered revolutionary and beyond the talking points the League has stated for several months. There are only so many ways to skin the cat and honestly, it’s not like one of the points was “The new chassis shall have three wheels.”  Look, do I agree with everything that Brian Barnhart does and says? No. Hell, I don’t even agree with everything I do and say.  Do I think Barnhart is perfect in his execution of race control? Hardly, but for all his flaws that people point out, I think people would be hard pressed to name any races of which he has directly affected the outcome.  None the less, he has a responsibility to shape the future of the sport with the technical specifications that will soon be handed down.  It will be his responsibility to determine whether it is time to abandon ship altogether, trash everything that currently exists, and start over completely from scratch or whether it is more appropriate to take something slightly larger than baby steps and work our way towards a better product.  Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision.  To best determine the future path of the sport, Brian and the Indy Racing League have laid out a series of six goals that the future car must meet.  In laying out those goals, did Brian or the IRL remotely imply that they just came up with these ideas on a whim? If they did, I certainly didn’t see it.  Is it feasible, or even probable, that PERHAPS Mr. Barnhart might have consulted with the team owners, yes the very same team owners that comprise the Delta Wing Group, to come up with goals?  I have no doubts that Ben Bowlby is a very bright guy but I doubt he is the ONLY person in the racing industry that is qualified to determine what should be required of the next chassis.  Mr. Pruett offers no evidence whatsoever that Brian didn’t consult with team owners and other engineers to develop these criteria.  Such information would have made his argument significantly more substantial.   More to the point, does it really matter who wrote the “rules”?  If the point of the Delta Wing Group was to get the League to look into these points, have they not succeeded if their goals have become the criteria by which the new car proposals will be judged?

Perhaps more irritating to me in the insinuation that Brian Barnhart orchestrated the release of the Dallara images to steal the thunder of the Delta Wing presentation at next week’s Chicago Auto Show. I received an e-mail on Thursday afternoon with the images of the Dallara concepts that did not come from Brian Barnhart or have Brian’s name anywhere on it. There was no IndyCar employee named in the CC. Furthermore, I’m pretty certain that I’m on the IndyCar mailing list and I did not receive any communication from the League or Dallara on Friday morning showing these concept cars. If Dallara sent out these images to the entire Indy Racing League mailing list, I need to contact someone at the IRL and figure out why I’ve suddenly been removed from the list. More to the point, let’s get one thing clear here. Brian Barnhart didn’t just bring up the discussion of “parallel development paths” within the last week or two. The IndyCar fanbase has known about these two possible chassis for a long time – since at least last summer and yet the Delta Wing group has insisted that everything about their car be shrouded in secrecy. Why?? What exactly is it that is so top-secret that a.) none of the public can know about it, b.) the only people that do know have had to sign confidentiality agreements and c.) all other design concepts must wait until the Delta Wing is revealed to go public? At this point, the Indy Racing League is down to crunch time before a new chassis has to be decided upon. The common belief is that 18 months is required for adequate research, development, testing, and production of a new chassis and that is an evolutionary chassis. The racing world has likely never seen a leap as radical as the Delta Wing project so it’s likely that such a car could require an even greater amount of lead time. (I do understand that CFD and other computer models would likely reduce the lead time by some margain so perhaps the 18 months is not inconceivable, even for the revolutionary car.) We are now 24 months from the start of the 2012 racing season. Why has the Delta Wing group waited so long to unveil their designs? Furthermore, why should the other manufacturers have to wait to release their concepts until after the Delta Wing group releases theirs? We already know that Switft is planning to release its three concept cars next week, though whether it will be before or after the Delta Wing announcement is not known at this time (though it’s not as if it really matters). Is that because Brian Barnhart forced their hand in a desperate attempt to undermine the Delta Wing faction? Seem like a stretch to me.

Now, allow me to address Jeremy’s criticism of Brian Barnhart directly relating to the “we’ve gotta learn how to crash those cars” quotation. I know that Jeremy knows his racing so I’m really not sure why he threw out this line as if it didn’t make sense. I don’t have the entire transcript of the conversation that had this line in it but I do recall the conference. This was not the entire quotation of Barnhart’s and even if it was, any rational-thinking race fan can see exactly what Barnhart was getting at. Brian Barnhart, contrary to what his detractors might want to insinuate, is in no way whatsoever implying that the Indy Racing League is interested in designing these cars to crash for spectator excitement. Brian was not saying that he wants these cars to have really cool, explosion-y (yes, I know that’s not a word!!!) crashes that make fans Oooo and Ahhh. Anyone without an agenda clearly knows what Brian was talking about in this context. He is referring to the fact that the cars have to be safe and that it is just as important to understand how the car responds to a crash (i.e. breaks apart, distributes engery, protects the driver, etc.) as it is to understand how it responds in turbulent air at 220 mph. Imagine that, looking into the safety of the drivers before accepting a car from a blank sheet of paper and thereby discarding 30+ years of crash response data. That hardly makes Brian an incompetent leader or the buffoon that some would like to make him out to be.

There is a sense among many IndyCar fans that if the Indy Racing League hasn’t turned the corner, it has at least bottomed out.  Just since  IZOD has come on board, the IndyCar Series has seen more exposure from marketing than it has seen in probably the last 10 years combined.  There are more teams all the time that are interested in joining the Series.  It finally seems that the split is starting to move into the past and the future is coming a bit more into focus.  However, articles like Mr. Pruett’s, which attempt to sow seeds of doubt into the IndyCar fanbase and insinuate that another disastrous split is just around the corner, do nothing but attempt to instill a sense of doom and gloom into a fanbase that is all too familiar with that uneasy feeling.  I guarantee that there exists not a single owner in the IndyCar Series that would pursue an alternate series at this juncture.  If CART couldn’t make it in 1996, at it’s pinnacle, without the Indianapolis 500, there is no way that anyone thinks a series NOW could make it without The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.  I know that.  You know that.  The team owners know that.  And Marshall Pruett knows that.  Of course, that doesn’t make it any less imperative that the Indy Racing League and the IndyCar teams work together, as a cohesive entity, to move the sport of IndyCar Racing forward with new, fresh ideas.  It is crucial that the League genuinely work with the teams and all other parties to ensure that the product set forth is relevant to current to the automotive industry and continues to produce a good on-track product.  Another split in open-wheel racing at this point in time would be the end of the sport, but with the teams and League moving forward together, IndyCar Racing is poised for amazing growth.