Things I have noticed about IndyCar:
- It seems popular in Indiana.
- There are no races between July 4th and August 8th.
It’s possible there’s a reason for that scheduling gap. Maybe heat, or tradition, or an attempt to imitate F1 by being European-like and spending the summer on holiday. It’s also possible there’s no reason, or that the reason is that they just couldn’t find places to race over those weeks.
Someone’s probably addressed this elsewhere. I haven’t so much as googled why the gap exists. Very few people read these posts, meaning they’re kind of just filler posts, in a way—laying a foundation of content to imply legitimacy while keeping myself more or less up to speed on IndyCar so that next year, if we decide to cover it more closely, one of us at least vaguely knows what’s going on. Given all that, I can say whatever I want and ask questions that may have obvious answers to those who know and care, and you all will most likely let me get away with it.
Anyway, my big idea here is that if IndyCar’s having trouble filling the gaps, they should just buy a few plots of land and build Field of Dreams-style circuits throughout the state of Indiana. One in the Region. One near Fort Wayne. One near Evansville. One near Bloomington. No seats necessary. Let people picnic in the fields. Let people sit in trucks and drink beers and watch cars zoom by just a little bit too close for everyone’s safety.
IndyCar needs this. IndyCar needs to double down on the Indy. You think Hoosiers won’t still come to the Indy 500? You think wrong. No other state has its own racing circuit that can claim to be among the two most significant in the United States. Indiana does, though, and IndyCar can invest in that and get the same people who will pack Assembly Hall for an NIT quarterfinal despite hating themselves for doing so to lift IndyCar above NASCAR by winning television ratings’ version of the electoral college.
Your move, Indiana Car. Thank me later.
