Preach on, Eddie

Texas week is always interesting for two things.

One is, of course, the race -- usually the most entertaining on the calendar.
The other is, what the heck is Eddie Gossage going to do?

Last year, he used an on-track feud between Dan Wheldon and Danica Patrick to help sell the race, among other things.

This year, Eddie spoke words that many on the IRL side of the divide have been thinking, but might have been afraid to say.

Ever since February, we've heard calls from ex-CC people (and some of their cheerleaders in the media) that the IRL needs to adopt, well, everything that CC had. More road courses (Gordon Kirby wasn't the only one beating the drum for one-third roads, one-third streets, one-third ovals), podiums (never got to even fight that one), turbocharged engines (there's another pimpage of that in today's newsstand), push-to-pass, heck, even replacing the Dallara with some version of the Panoz DP01 chassis. Adding Cleveland, Mexico City, Portland, Toronto, Long Beach, Road America, Edmonton, Eur (and on and on and on) to the schedule. The series is already 1/4 of the way there, and it looks like Toronto is a lock, Mexico City is a possibility and Cleveland is at least on the radar screen.

Meanwhile, at least a couple of ovals appear to be casualties.

And so, as we watch the IndyCar Series accelerate its morphing into CART II -- the series that was committing a slow suicide a decade ago by going to too many road races -- Eddie Gossage comes in to say what we've all been feeling.

To be viable in the United States, IndyCar MUST be a predominately-oval series.

Gossage told ESPN.com's Terry Blount that to be successful, the IndyCar Series must have at least 80% ovals (that would be, say, 15 ovals and 3 road courses on an 18-race schedule).

The ratio might not need to be that high, but ovals should be the primary focus of the series.

Why?

Oval racing is the foundation of American racing.

NASCAR didn't get popular because it ran Riverside and Watkins Glen. Formula One has never had much of a presence in the United States, even when it ran Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Detroit, Phoenix, Indy ... While writers wax poetic about CART's heyday in the mid-1990s, its best-attended races were on ovals -- Indianapolis and Michigan, and the series was (and still is) carried by the Indianapolis 500.

The two biggest races in the United States are the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 -- races on 2.5 mile ovals.

Eddie as much as said so, calling Champ Car's history "failed" and correctly pointing out that what popularity IndyCar racing has comes from ovals like Indy and Texas. He also correctly points out that the losers in a battle don't get to set the agenda.

Unfortunately, Tony George and the IRL have been more than willing to bend over backwards to almost let the ex-CC guys do that.

To be successful in the States, a sport requires three things -- close competition, something that translates well to television and heroes/villains. The close competition can even be manufactured -- see NASCAR with its famous "debris cautions" late in races, and idiotic rules like the lucky dog and green-white-checkered; the NFL with its salary cap; and the NBA with, well, the first 46 minutes of every game. But there has to be a close finish, a tight battle. Oval racing provides it, most of the time. Road racing doesn't. The second is television. Like it or not, oval racing translates well to TV -- it's fast, there are four corners, and you can tell by watching the broadcast where the cars are on the track. Road racing doesn't. Unless you're familiar with the course (or have a map of the track in front of you -- which is how I end up watching road races), it's difficult to envision a road course from a limited TV shot. The third thing is heroes -- something no type of course can provide. More TV coverage and more ratings can help provide heroes and villains, which is going to have to come with ovals.

The heroes will be easier to find if the sport if young American drivers are more attractive to teams. While U.S.-trained road racers are more prevalent than in the past (Danica, Rahal 2.0, Andretti 3.0, RHR), 20 of the 28 starters in the Texas race are from outside the U.S. A few (Helio, TK, Dixon, Wheldon) have garnered fan bases in the U.S., but a series that's chock full of foreign road racers is too easy to dismiss by the casual fan, especially when the guy running at their local short track is in a tintop.

Oval racing is like football -- easy to watch, easy to package for television, and while not technically-perfect all the time, usually rewards the best team unless it makes a mistake (fumbles a lot/crashes). Road racing is like soccer -- technically enjoyable, great to watch when you know what you're looking for, but difficult to watch on television, and therefore hard to translate the nuances of it to the masses.

IndyCars belong on ovals. They're the fastest cars in any form of closed-course racing -- and high-speed ovals allow them to stretch their muscles and display their speed (which blows tintops away). They also can work on road courses, but the technical brilliance can be as easily shown at Milwaukee or Phoenix as at Long Beach and Belle Isle.

And, to be popular, IndyCars need to be on ovals. There is room for road racing -- this series needs to be diverse. But a good mix of short ovals (Milwaukee, Phoenix, Loudon, Richmond, Iowa), high-banked medium-length ovals (Kentucky, Kansas, Nashville, Texas, Chicagoland) and longer ovals (Michigan, Indianapolis) can combine with a few good road courses -- Watkins Glen being one. Road America is another. You can even toss in a street parade or two -- St. Pete is a great race, Long Beach always draws a crowd.

Questions are asked -- drivers have complained a lot about the perceived danger of IndyCars on higher-banked, higher-speed ovals. But while the current spec Dallara has had its share of harrowing accidents -- including one tonight with Dan Wheldon flipping across the frontstretch at Texas -- it has seen very few serious injuries. Take, for example, for all of the chirping Flying Scotsman Dario Franchitti made about safety last year (and all the testing he did of the Dallara's safety), he survived both of his flights with barely a scratch. He hasn't been so fortunate in an allegedly-safer stock car.

IndyCar racing needs some diversity. But the foundation of the series must be ovals. While Eddie Gossage is speaking as the owner of an oval track, his statement about 80% is a bit high. But the number of ovals should never dip below 60% if the IndyCar Series expects to expand in the American consciousness.

To grow and become mainstream in the United States, ovals needs to be a major part of the schedule. And the highest-visibility races need to be on ovals.

Otherwise, the IndyCar Series can be content to be auto racing's verison of the NHL. A better product than its direct competitors, for sure. That battle has already been won. But it would be vastly-improved if it was a product that gained mainstream success. The only way to do that in the United States is to run a substantial number of races on ovals.