If I were Tony George

... and I'm not -- the closest I've come to being TG is that I've hung out at his track a lot, spent a lot of hours watching his racing series and we used to attend the same house of worship.

Anyway, if I were TG and were the czar of open-wheel racing in America, what I would do to improve the product.

Of course, this fantasy requires having an unlimited amount of cash -- which nobody has except the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S. Mint -- but I digress.

One thing I really can't stand are sports talk show hosts who spout off their opinions on everything, assuming that you care because they have a microphone and you've bothered to stumble onto their station. Anyway, because I'm bored, I'm going to do the same thing. Just navigate somewhere else if you can't stand to read it.

Schedule
One reason NASCAR is appealing to so many drivers is the number of races they run. To me, 36 is overkill (I'm sure it is to team members, too), but there has to be a healthy medium in there between NASCAR -- which has a 10-month-long season and never seems to take a week off -- and the current ICS schedule, which crams 17 races into a 6-month window, and then leaves us yearning for more for the next 6 months. (Hey, it's better than the once-every-three-weeks schedule we had a decade ago).

I understand the desire to get away from the football behemoth, but one can't disappear from sight forever -- especially when the "other guys" are tossing their debris yellow on the season and having an excitingly contrived "chase" to a "championship." However, a good happy medium would include a 25-race schedule, move Motegi into the fall (and couple it with another Japanese or Asian race for economies of scale) and create some balance.

To stay away from football, I'd begin in late January -- possibly the week in-between the NFL conference championships and the Super Bowl -- with the season opener.

A perfect schedule:
(3) Big ovals (2+): Indy 500, Michigan, California (reinstate the last two) (I'd love to see Pocono, too, but it won't happen as long as the Mattolis are around)
(8) Medium ovals (1.1-1.5): Homestead, Kentucky, Texas (2 races), Nashville, Kansas, Chicagoland, Las Vegas (reinstate)
(5) Short ovals (1.0 or less): Milwaukee, Richmond, Phoenix (paired with reinstated Copper World), Iowa, Sacramento (if it gets built)
(5) Roadies: Daytona (roval), Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio, Road America, Sonoma (OK, I'd like to dump it, but it is on the schedule for now)
(2-3) Temporaries (as few as possible): St. Pete (as long as AGR wants to promote it, it's going to be there), Belle Isle (not a fan of this track, but it's on the schedule for at least 3 more years), Long Beach* (if CCWS goes belly-up).
(1-2) Foreign races: Motegi, another Asia/Pacific Rim race (Suzuka?) in the fall, before the season finale stretch.

Ovals: 17 (counting Motegi)
Permanent roadies: 6 (counting Suzuka ... pair with ALMS on the domestic circuits)
Temporary circuits 2-3 (again, pair with ALMS on the domestic circuits)
Total races: 25-26

Marketing buzz
This series BADLY needs a hook. The best thing to do ... reinstate the Triple Crown.

3 holiday weekends over the fall -- Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day.
Memorial Day: Indy 500
Fourth of July: California or Michigan 500
Labor Day: Texas 500 (OR run Texas 500 as the season finale in October if it's too close to NASCAR date/June race date)
All 3 races on ABC, at least one in prime time. Give a *big* bonus to whomever wins.

The other thing that needs to happen is, this series needs to promote the heck out of the drivers.

That's one thing NASCAR has always had a leg up on us on.

I was joking with my wife today that I should freak out some NASCAR fans and put an "8" (with the RLR number font) in my Accord's back windshield. Not that I'm a huge Sharp fan -- I respect all of the drivers and really don't have any massive favorites -- but I wondered "how many times am I going to hear 'hey, you got ripped off. That's a cheap, knockoff "8", not Dale's "8.'" Or, do the same with Helio's "3." Or Danica's "7" (seriously, would anybody think I was a Robby Gordon fan ... I think not).

But NASCAR has managed to promote not just fandom of the drivers, but an emotional attachment. You can't pass a pickup truck in these parts that doesn't have a number in the back -- some standing by themselves, some being watered by Calvin. But, when you see the "6," you think not of Sam, but of Mark Martin. The "7" is Robby Gordon's number, even though Danica is a heckuva lot more popular. The "9" says Kasey Kahne, not Scott Dixon. Heck, watch a cab race, and the drivers even refer to each other by number (of course, it's usually to make sure they never mention the other guy's name). I just can't imagine TK saying, after Kentucky, "y'know, ah'lmost got ran over by the 3 raght thar, and even if he did, if anyone except the truly faithful would've known who he was referring to.

Can IndyCar get to that level? The driver lineup is currently as stable as it has been in the history of the league. Nearly everyone on the circuit is an ICS veteran, to the point where RHR is going to be the ROY even though he had never turned an IndyCar wheel until the middle of the year. It's time to build brand identification and -- with the help of sponsors -- saturate the market (it doesn't help that the most visible ICS team has its hands tied with the tobacco regulations on "non"-sponsor Marlboro). Find a way to get TK cardboard cutouts and "11" stickers in 7-11s. Get Hornish & Helio into Mobil 1s -- an associate sponsor of Penske. Get Dario & Scott into liquor stores. Help get Dan & Scott (along with Reed Sorenson) in Target stores and provide some brand identification. Get Danica's face in every cell phone store that sells Motorolas. I understand, part of this is sponsor-driven. Some sponsors -- Ethanol, for example -- have been great about using the ICS and its drivers in its marketing (Simmons was everywhere shilling Ethanol when he was with RLR).

But the league and the teams can help the sponsors brand their products. Companies like 7-11 and Target and Motorola and Argent and Aamco and AAA and Patron and Canadian Club and Delphi and Marl ... uh, anyway, they've made an investment in the ICS. They've made an investment in the drivers. But they have to understand the symbiotic relationship that exists -- more exposure for their drivers means more people know of them and begin looking for that logo on the racetracks. And, in turn, it means more eyeballs seeing their advertisements.

Branding brings eyeballs. Eyeballs develop an emotional attachment. Eyeballs also bring more sponsors and more $$ into the series, which brings more cars, more races, more teams, et al. To me, this is the key point where IndyCar racing has been deficient since Mario, Big Al, JR, Rick, A.J., Sneva and Gordy all retired within a couple of years of each other.

Drivers
The connection with the short tracks *must* be reinstated. I liked the WoO program a few years back, but there has to be a path to the ICS, rather than roadblocks thrown up. Also, cultivating and developing young American drivers like Phil Giebler and the next Dave Steele are also vital.

Rules
No major tweaking of the rules. I like the "wave-around," although I'd like to see the pace car on the track for restarts instead of pulling off one lap too early. I'd like to see the blocking enforced more. That, and go back to the pre-2006 tire compounds. The high-side pass has become a distant memory in the last two years.

Car count
There's not a soul alive that thinks 18 is an acceptable number. The car count needs to be in the 25 range, which means courting some of the IPS teams and some other teams (Fernandez, et al) to come back to the ICS.

The 2003-present IndyCar Series package has produced some of the best oval racing I've ever seen, and the road racing isn't as bad as I had feared it could be (that said, I'm not much of a road-racing nut). However, to get the car count back, at least one more engine supplier needs to be found -- and I'd love to try to get the manufacturer support that exists in the sports car world, with Porsche, GM, Honda/Acura, et al, duking it out every weekend. I'd legislate the end of engine leases, too, but that would probably kill the manufacturer support, so find a way to make them affordable while keeping the reliability that Honda has been able to create. End badging rules -- if Speedway & Menard & Cosworth want to make engines and a financially-dire Detroit can't badge them, so be it. Diversity is still good, and the mid-1980s Indy 500 cars were rarely badged (the March-Cosworth being the dominant power plant of the day). Another chassis supplier would be a good thing -- luring Panoz back into the ICS (especially with any partnerships with ALMS on weekends), inviting Lola to build a chassis for the next cycle, et al.

There are two things, IMO, that are holding the series back in the eyes of potential customers.
1. Lack of emotional connection with the drivers. I've read plenty of stories where fans say they really like what they're seeing -- especially at the Southern races like Richmond. But "they're NASCAR fans." They've made an emotional connection with the drivers in NASCAR. That has to happen here, too. Right now, too many people are watching ICS races and wondering "who are those guys? I don't know any of them." And they conclude that IndyCar racing is boring or bush-league without ever giving it a shot.

2. Low car counts. 18 cars *makes* the series look minor-league in the eyes of people who are used to watching 35-43 cars on a track every weekend. There needs to be a way to add 10 cars to the grid, whether it's through lowered costs (updating the Panoz would help until the next chassis cycle), more competition in engines & chassis ... I'm not sure. Every other series has had to resort to gimmicks -- Lucky Dogs, competition yellows, championship "chases," rules that change every week, Power 2 Pass, mandatory use of undesirable tire compounds, et al -- to try to gain favor with fans. The ICS hasn't had to do any of that, and has continued to put together something that most would've thought unthinkable in OW racing a few years back -- close, wheel-to-wheel open-wheel racing at 200+ mph with some hair-raising finishes. It has become everything NASCAR claims -- fan-friendly, exciting racing, close finishes, wheel-to-wheel throughout the field. The only obstacle now is, getting people hooked onto it more than one Sunday a year.