IRL at Richmond, 2006. Image by Streck/LAT

Q: Can we get some love down here in the South from IndyCar? Being an IndyCar fan in Florida limits driving distance events to St. Pete and Barber – everything else requires a plane trip, unless one has time to take an extended vacation. I was doing some Google Maps searching the other day, and found out from where I live in Central Florida, the closest track to me, other than St. Pete and Barber, is actually IMS – roughly 1,000 miles away.

Even though the South is regarded as NASCAR country, I find that hard to be a valid excuse for the lack of races. St. Pete and Barber are two stable and well-attended events on the calendar. Numbers two through five in the Top 5 markets for TV ratings last year were in the South (Richmond, Greenville, West Palm Beach, and Greensboro), with the No.1 market being Indy, of course. Right off the back, Homestead and Richmond come to mind. Homestead in particular seems like it would be a good filler for the gap that exists between St. Pete and Phoenix, and a gap that may be even larger if Phoenix drops off the calendar in 2019.

Road course-wise, I think we all know the story on Road Atlanta and Sebring, and nothing else comes to mind except for NOLA, but that doesn’t seem much like a possibility. Street courses require a lot of factors to come together and don’t just get put together overnight, so, it’s hard to speculate on the possibility of where those might be possible in the South.

With the positive momentum the series is carrying and TV ratings on the rise, a new NBC TV deal, and cars that race and look better, I would think IndyCar would be able to make a successful push into NASCAR country and add some more races where the majority of the top viewing markets are.

Stephen, Florida

RM: First off, I’d love to see a race at Road Atlanta and I’d like to see IndyCar go back to Richmond, where it drew a nice crowd every year, but not sure there is any interest on either side. Homestead never worked, whether it was the season-opener or the finale, and the only decent crowds were papered houses in the CART days. CART’s Miami street race in 1995 was a huge hit but now F1 is looking to go there, so I’d say St. Pete and ’Bama are going to remain IndyCar’s southern stops.

Q: Very interested to hear the news about the NBC group having the rights to both IndyCar and ISMA moving forward. It got me thinking and comparing the schedules. On two weekends, Long Beach and Detroit, the series race together. There were only two weekends where there were conflicting dates. I know it is farfetched for an individual to run both series full-time. With so many IndyCar drivers running the non-conflicting NAEC rounds at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta, as well as many owners having teams in both series, do you see the two series coordinating things like schedules? I see the opportunity for non-conflicting schedules, an IndyCar or IMSA race nearly every weekend from March to October on the same channels, with plenty of cross-promotion between drivers and owners that compete in both.

Jordan Glenn, Binghamton, NY

RM: I think people in IndyCar and teams in IMSA see the relevance because it’s the same fan base, but I don’t think Jim France has any interest in expanding the doubleheaders. Watkins Glen makes perfect sense in August and would help the crowd, and I wouldn’t care if IndyCar ran on Saturday and IMSA on Sunday. But maybe NBC can talk a little sense into everyone in the next couple years.

Q: Now that IMSA has signed a six-year deal to be on NBC and NBCSN, do you seeing the IndyCar Series and IMSA have a joint race weekends to increase their schedules and return to tracks like Watkins Glen, Mosport, Virginia International Raceway and Road Atlanta?

Alistair Fannell

RM: See my response above your question, but no way IndyCar would race at Virginia (too fast and too tight), and Road Atlanta and Mosport supposedly don’t have enough runoff area. But, to quote Bobby Rahal, how much runoff area is there in Turn 1 at Indianapolis? I think IndyCar needs to go to Mosport and Road Atlanta because they would both draw.

Q: I have a question regarding the weekend schedule at Barber this year in comparison to previous years. Normally there’s a morning warm-up on race day, and we noticed there were no on-track activities for IndyCar scheduled before the race this year from the get-go. As a fan, it’s been nice to be able to get to the track early on race morning and see the teams warm-up and do last-minute tweaks. I was thinking the morning warm-up was nixed after it was apparent it was going to rain like crazy, but that wasn’t the case. Any idea why it was like that this year?

Bryan White, Asheville, NC

RM: Let IndyCar Race Director Kyle Novak answer that:

“Thank you for the question. Warm-ups have been removed from the schedule for 2018 at the permanent road courses only (Barber, Road America, Portland, Sonoma). They still remain on the schedule at the street/temporary road courses outside of Detroit, which is not feasible due to the doubleheader format. At these events, the time previously reserved for warm-up has been added back into the practice sessions. IndyCar, in conjunction with the teams, felt that allocating more practice time at these venues would be more valuable. We are evaluating this procedure for 2018 based on team/driver/fan input, and may return to the traditional format or expand on the limitations for 2019.”

Q: I have a question regarding the 500. Let’s say that a huge weather front was moving toward the Speedway and it was going to rain for two solid days, and they had a three-hour window to get the race in prior to losing the track. Is it possible to start the race early? Who makes that call, IndyCar, ABC, or the promoter? By asking this question, I sure hope that I didn’t jinx this year’s running…

Dale Christensen

RM: It’s complicated. At Barber, we all saw Saturday there was a 100 percent chance of rain on Sunday, but it didn’t look too bad from noon to 2 p.m. There was a meeting between NBCSN, IndyCar and Barber on Sunday morning, and it was agreed to cancel our pre-race race show and move the green flag up to 2:05 instead of 2:35 p.m. local time. NBCSN could have gone an hour earlier since we had no conflicts, but apparently there is a rule that promoters can’t start a race an earlier than an hour before the time listed on the tickets or they are liable to be sued by fans.

Q: RACER just reported that IndyCar is actually considering allowing multiple chassis manufacturers. What kind of odds do you give that this will happen? I cannot stress enough, I think part of the reason IndyCar is less interesting to me than it used to be is due to the lack of chassis variation. I would love for IndyCar to open it up to multiple constructors. I already know what you are going to say: costs would force teams out of business. But here is how that can be mitigated.  IndyCar will allow anyone to build a chassis, but mandates the price of the chassis. Additionally, they could standardize the same floor tray and engine mounting points, but beyond that, give the designers some freedom. If a constructor couldn’t afford to make a profit then they wouldn’t build a chassis, but surely there could be some variety in constructor to add interest and intrigue.

P. Worth Thompson

RM: I have no idea, but it’s the owners and IndyCar that will decide.

Q: I understand the logic behind not allowing cars to be worked on due to a red flag. In many cases this makes a lot of sense. But when a red flag is thrown because of weather, and a compelling reason for the red flag decision is a car (or several cars) wrecking because of weather, I think the team should be able to repair the car under the red flag. Obviously this applies to Fast Willy P on two occasions. This year at Barber and a few years ago (I forget the race, I remember his reaction) when he gave a two-handed salute to Race Control, captured live on camera. Heck, teams got to refuel and reset Push-to-Pass at Barber; seems logical a crashed car can be reset to before conditions as well. How about flying this by the rulemakers?

Curt Larson, Clearwater, FL

RM: I thought the same thing back in 1966 when all Gordon Johncock needed to do was replace the nose on his car after the first-lap pile-up, but wasn’t allowed to touch it until the green waved again. Johncock rallied to finish fourth, but had the fastest elapsed time for 500 miles. I think it’s something IndyCar might look at, so I’ll send in your suggestion.