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A thank you..

Word emerged Wednesday that long-established IndyCar blogger Jeff Iannucci, of MyNameisIRL.com, has decided to stand down for personal reasons. You can read his ‘letter of resignation’ here.

I very much respect the decision, it shows certain priorities are in order. Many lesser bloggers would attempt to carry on under what I presume to be difficult circumstances (without knowing details, without needing to). Sometimes a break is needed to focus on more important things.

Nonetheless, My Name Is IRL’s absence in the community will be greatly felt. His was one of the first racing blogs I started to read, and became one of the first of what I consider the ‘big’ IndyCar blogs. This was at the time of the ChampCar/IndyCar ‘merger’ and his site had been running for a while by then. It has grown in popularity quite substantially since.

Personally-speaking, I said it in my very first post at the old site and I’ll say it again, without My Name Is IRL, Pressdog and Meesh, I would never have started blogging. They were the first to link little ‘ole me, even when I had little to add. I was astonished they’d even give me the time of day. Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m no way comparing my humble efforts to any of them, just they were jointly the inspiration to start writing.

I get the impression from the comments to his post, there are others who can relate similar stories. Jeff, I thank you for that, even if it were unknown and unintended. Not only that, but the quality of writing was always impeccable, whether it be a race report, a snippet of news or hilarious piece of satire. I like to think that attitude rubbed off on several bloggers.

Jeff: the blogging community owes you, mostly in the IndyCar community but also in a wider sense in the racing world, maybe even wider than that. I wish you well going forward, and hope that some day you will be able to return to take your place, whether it be weeks, months or even years from now. We’ll keep the seat warm. Stay in touch..

The Games People Play

It is the time of year to start entering various prediction competitions and this year there seem to be far more than ever before. I noticed this partly through my efforts at promoting my own TMR Game, there have been comments from some quarters saying there are too many games this year – and perhaps there are. It is getting difficult to keep track of what’s what and where, so here are the games I plan to play in 2010. I’m not promising to stick with all of them because my memory is terrible – I will do my best.

I’ll start with F1 and move on to IndyCar. Why don’t you let me know what games you’re playing and perhaps I’ll tag along too?

SofaF1 Pole Poll (F1)

A nice easy going game to start from Alex and the guys at SofaF1. For each race you predict who will be on pole and the top ten race finishers (was top 8 last year). You get a point for a ‘near miss’ e.g. predicting 5th but actually comes 4th. Deadline is the start of qualifying, and the prize is a modest trophy… eventually.

I’ve linked to the extra part of the game, where you choose the top 8 (or ten?) finishers in the Championship which is worth double the points of a race. You don’t have to do that part to play the game during the year.

F1 Wolf (F1)

Fairly similar to SofaF1 in that you pick your top ten for each race, as well as driver with pole and fastest lap. There’s also a pre-season choice of championship winning driver, you have until 23.59 GMT Thursday to choose a champion and I’ve linked directly to that page, there should be another thread soon regarding Bahrain’s picks.

This will be my first year playing Wolf’s game, I’ve heard good things from others and I’m looking forward to it. The prize? 3 bottles of Mumm champagne!

VivaF1 – Predictions (F1)

This is a quirky one, my first time playing this too. Pick the pole winner, the race winner, the slowest driver in qualifying, the team that finishes 7th (what??!), and whether any ‘new team’ will finish the race. It looks like these questions may change from race to race which makes things interesting! Note you will have to sign up to the VivaF1 forum to take part.

VivaF1 – Quiz (F1)
Signing up also grants access to the chat area which is the home of the weekly quiz at 8.30pm UK time every Wednesday.

Fantasy Racers (F1) / Fantasy IndyCar / Fantasy WRC

A series of related games where you are given a budget with which to buy drivers, usually enough for 3 good ones or a more varied mix of 4 or 5. I have joined the Sidepodcast-affiliated leagues in all three variations. The prize is a trophy.

IndyCar.com

Pick several drivers, but you can only pick a driver so many times in the season. Being the official game of the series there are several prizes available although some or all may be US-only. I play in the Planet-IRL.com league – if I were able to play in two leagues without signing up a 2nd time I’d joined the Midweek Motorsport league too. Unfortunately at the time of writing the site is caught in a loop where I’m logged into IndyCar Nation but it won’t let me log in to the game section (and you do need a free login to play).

16thAndGeorgetown Fantasy Racing (IndyCar)

This is the dedicated game-site of the 16th&Georgetown blog. Pick one driver per race – but you may only pick a driver twice per season. You score the points of the position, so if your driver finishes 8th you get 8 points. The player with the least number of points at the end of the season will win a ride in the Indy Race Experience 2-seater IndyCar! Now I can’t collect that prize, not that I’m arrogant enough to think I’ll win it, I’m playing this anyway just for fun because it seems a challenging game (note – I did ask James if I could do this).

is it May yet? Izod IndyCar Series Prognostication Pool of Doom (IndyCar)

This is different. You choose whether drivers will complete 2010 at a higher or lower position than their 2009 ranking in the points table, the number of wins they will have, the number of top tens they will have, and answer some questions. There may be a prize, there may not be.

All-Racing Fantasy League (Multi-series)

This is an email-based game featuring F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, ALMS and GrandAm. You have 14 drivers and may play up to 10 of them per week, on a 5-oval and 5-road course split. The catch is that the drivers are shared among the players and no player may have the same driver as someone else! These facets combine to create a game of strategy. There is a small fee to enter and that creates the ‘pot’ for the winnings at the end of the year.

I’ll add a link to this later, this post took a while to write and I need to get to bed! (sorry Andy!)

TMR Game (Multi-series)

That’s here! It is based on the ARFL with huge thanks to Andy/Speedgeek, and adapted for blog-based entries and adjusted a bit for this blog’s target audience.

I’ve linked to this week’s entry but keep an eye on the blog for updates and there’s also the Game page. Just pick up to 10 drivers per week with no more than 7 from a single race. This week you can have 7 F1 and 3 IndyCar, or 5 from each, or just have 7 from one if you feel like it. It covers a variety of series but don’t worry if you don’t know about some of them, just enter what you’re comfortable with. The prize is merely to declare that you watch too much racing!

Let me know if you play any of these! I hope this prompts you to have a go at some of these games (hopefully mine!), and do let me know what you’re doing, even if I don’t end up playing them I’m interested to know.

2nd Furious Wedge Blogathon

The drop of the green flag for the start of the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona today will also signal the start of the 2nd Annual Furious Wedge Blogathon, featuring 24 hours of continuous blogging about Daytona and a host of other sports happening during the race

The Furious Wedge is a blog covering IndyCar racing and a variety of American ball sports so these (plus Daytona) will be the focus of attention.

Last year Allen Wedge and Ron Furious took on this mammoth task by themselves, and I believe Allen was the only one crazy enough to stick the whole 24 hours. This year they’ve called upon the assistance and resources of the IndyCar bloggers to support them.

Madly, I have been asked to take part, and since I know only a little about Indycar and almost absolutely nothing about the Daytona 24, NFL, MLB, NHL and the rest, I of course agreed without hesitation. I was promised a live chat roundtable discussion and some Mario Kart, who could say no? My only task is to stay awake long enough.

The other bloggers expected to take part are: Roy from Silent Pagoda, Andy from The Speedgeek, James from 16th and Georgetown, George from Oil Pressure, Paul from the Planet-IRL empire, Will from Is It May Yet?, Tony from Pop-Off Valve and the blogging luminaries Jeff from MyNameIsIRL and the master himself, Bill from Pressdog.

Check the inaugural FW podcast for more details, and be sure to read this preview post.

I’m not quite sure what I’m letting myself in for.

Thursday Thoughts: Borrowing Ideas

This week’s Thursday Thoughts question comes from the intriguingly-named Turkey Machine:

What features or regulations from other racing series would benefit F1, and why?

Sounds like my kind of question! Generally-speaking F1 does a good job, yet there are areas from other series it can learn from.

Openness
F1 is notorious for its secrecy. On the one hand it has been an integral part of the game for many years. On the other, we are in a different era now and fans expect a certain degree of openness, and thankfully some F1 teams and drivers are responding, with Twitter accounts and roadshows and so forth. But what at a GP weekend? BMW had the Pitlane Park, and I think it was Indianapolis that pioneered the pitlane walkabout at an F1 race (it having being commonplace in US racing for years).

Other series are still far better at this than F1. I recognise this is semi-deliberate in order to retain F1’s percieved ‘superiority’ and ‘exclusivity’ compared to other series, yet I feel it can be more open while still remaining top of the pile. How?

Let’s have a pitlane walkabout at EVERY Grand Prix, and on EVERY DAY of that GP. There isn’t a packed race schedule at most events (exceptions I think being Albert Park and Silverstone) so time can be found. You can mandate that teams must leave their garage doors open and unobstructed during the walkabout – because as we already know from past walkabouts, some teams put up screens. Some time before an ALMS race starts they line the cars up on the pit straight and allow the fans to walk up and down the straight, taking photos and meeting team personnel and drivers. I’m not necessarily suggesting going that far, but it could be an option.

Then let’s bring in mandatory driver signing sessions in an area outside Bernie’s security wall, with a fine for those who don’t show. This seems to go down very well in IndyCar and NASCAR. I’ve read reports of murmurings from some drivers that ‘extras like this aren’t part of their job’. If any drivers still feel this way, they need to have their attitude adjusting. They are paid millions in order to show their teams and sponsors off to the paying fans, they should give an hour of their time on a Sunday morning to meet them and let the fans get to know them. I argue that if a fan gets to meet their favourite driver they are more likely to associate themselves with that driver’s sponsor/s, whereas if the driver brushes them off that fan may decide to lessen their support or even drop it completely.

Media
HD TV needs to come in and it needs to happen immediately, from Bahrain onwards. No more testing the systems or whatever they are doing. We’ve been promised it every year for the last three or four and the excuses are wearing thin. IndyCar, NASCAR and even World Touring Car are in HD. Admittedly the other series that have gone HD have close relationships with broadcast partners, and F1’s coverage is produced in-house by an subsidiary of FOM – yet surely FOM makes enough revenues to be able to make this investment. I know, because they’ve blogged and tweeted about it, that the broadcasters are pushing hard to have an HD feed released to them – they can’t show what isn’t there. HD channels are currently ‘upscaling’ the standard feed.

The F1.com website needs improving. It is getting there, yet other series sites have tons of photos and videos available, either free or paid-for. Live timing is reasonably good though there’s room to include more information as some other series do.

Consistency of Rulings
Okay, I know you’d be hard-pressed to find a series anywhere that has consistent decision-making when it comes to things like penalties for blocking or running someone off-track. Wishful thinking. It would be nice if they could keep the decisions consistent, whatever those decisions are.

Finally, I’d make the numbers on the cars bigger. Maybe take up the whole rear-wing endplate like in IndyCar. Have you tried identifying drivers by looking at helmets? It’s not always easy.

TM went on to expand to a further question, let’s see if we can answer that as well:

If you can’t think of any that way, what about vice-versa, i.e. what’s F1 got that would benefit other borefests (sorry, motor racing series) around the world?

Certainly with IndyCar and NASCAR I’d bring in the yellow flag rules – don’t throw a Safety Car out there just because a car slowed down for 10 or 20 seconds and cleared the track immediately. I can see why you would do this on ovals where the speeds are so high and laptimes are 25 seconds – on road courses you definitely shouldn’t be going to a full-course yellow unless there’s a car in a dangerous position. It seems both IRL and NASCAR apply their rules to both types of track rather than making adjustments for each, which is a mistake. On a road course you usually have a bit more time and a bit more leeway to let the incident develop and see if it clears itself.

I wouldn’t necessarily take F1’s safety car procedure though, F1 has never really got the hang of when to deploy the car, or run the wave-by.

The producers of the TV feed for most series could probably learn how to cover a race, certainly a road course race, from the FOM crew. The way F1 races are shot is generally very good these days, this has been one of the biggest improvements F1 has made over the last ten years I think and that’s all down to bringing it in-house, not relying on ‘host broadcasters’ as we used to.

Great question. There’s bound to be plenty of other suggestions, feel free to add them either here or in a blog post of your own.