The IndyCar series announced yesterday, a new TV deal with ABC and Versus for 2009 and beyond.

ABC will apparently get five races in 2009, with the balance to be shown on Versus. The Versus deal includes longer windows for coverage (minimum of 3 hrs), as well as additional coverage for IndyLights, qualifying coverage, rebroadcasts and other visibility that simply isn't available with today's package. The Versus deal is also reported at 10 years!

The usual fare on Versus are things like the NHL, the Tour de France, cage fighting, bull riding, college football and the like.

Now, there has been more than a little bit of curious reaction to this plan. For me, on the surface I think it looks like how F1 is on SPEED. You have most everything on SPEED with a few on Fox.

The trouble is, with IndyCar being mainly based in the US, we need more exposure to the US market and race fan, not less. Versus has the potential to relegate IndyCar to a network that relatively few people have heard of.

On the other hand, IndyCar could manage to write their own ticket in this deal because it's much less likely that they'd get booted off the air for another broadcast or delayed/tossed to a sub-par channel like we see with ESPN. It's pretty obvious that ESPN is NASCAR country these days.

Speaking of which, how many times has NASCAR's coverage changed networks? They're all over the place it seems to me.

So, in the end, this will be a very interesting road for IndyCar. It could be positive, it could flop.

Follow up:

A commenter in my "IndyCar 2009 Stop, Start, Continue" post said that it's nice that I say they need more sponsors and such but my saying that isn't a new idea and that I really have no solution. Well here's an idea then.

Since Comcast owns Versus, perhaps they'd like to be the title sponsor for the series. There's an idea for you. DirectTV is also an option simply due to their current relationship.

I think the sponsors that are sought out for IndyCar have to be those who want to establish themselves outside the normal NASCAR path. IndyCar is more economical for a sponsor, and unlike NASCAR's 43 car field - the sponsor stands more chance of being seen. With the diversity of circuits in the series many drivers from different backgrounds have the ability to come in and perform well, and that's good for a sponsor.

So there we go. What do you think?

There are now just a few races left in the 2008 IndyCar Series campaign, including this weekend's race in Edmonton. It is, at this point time to begin a review of the season thus far, and begin looking to the future of this now converged American Open Wheel series.

So, what can the IndyCar Series stop doing, start doing and keep doing for 2009 and beyond?

STOP

* Flying starts on road/street curcuits. They're ugly, the field is either too bunched up or too spread out. They don't work. Standing starts work far better for this type of track.

* Making such use of full course cautions on road/street curcuits. This has improved somewhat over the season but really the series needs to employ more crane systems like we see in F1, and get the cars out of the kitty litter without requiring full course cautions.

* Allowing rolling chicanes like Marty Roth from being a hindrance to others. I am all for opportunities in racing, and yes "buy a ride" is where we are today (or in the case of Marty, have more money than sense) but let's get real here. Marty needs to keep John Andretti out there and hang up the helmet himself. It's pretty sad to have him out there instead of someone like Sarah Fisher. Sadly the same goes for Milka Duno, who honestly is one of the nicer competitors out there, great personality but her driving is questionable even with a few "decent for her" finishes. Watching her hold up traffic at Texas is scary.

* Taking 5+ laps to get the field cleaned up for a restart when someone spins a car but doesn't hit anything! I believe IndyCar has a great safety team, some of the best in the business. They respond quickly and I think are respected by the drivers & teams. However, we've seen the league take waaaaay too long to get things restarted after the simplest of incidents - ones where no debris or actual contact occurs.

START

* Increasing the money pool available to participants. The current revenue sharing plan is good for some of the smaller teams but overall purses are down as a result. I don't mind seeing the revenue sharing but the overall purse for a race shouldn't suffer as much. There should be more of a prize to win. As Robin Miller's said, the Indy 500 should be a good $10 mil to win.

* Telling ISC to take a hike. They're solely interested in NASCAR and that doesn't work for IndyCar.

* Attracting more sponsors, especially a TITLE sponsor. This would go a long ways towards series viability.

* Building a better TV package. Marty Reid and Scott Goodyear are getting annoying. Granted, it's better than with Rusty Wallace. No insult meant to Rusty per se, but he doesn't belong in the IndyCar booth. I thought having Eddie Cheever in there was pretty funny but I doubt he'd do it long term since he's got the Rolex team to worry with. Part of what makes Formula One coverage on SPEED so dang good is the commentator staff. IndyCar needs to work on something like this for itself.

* Looking for solutions to yellow flag finishes. Now, let this be known - I DO NOT care for the Green, White, Checker philosophy of NASCAR. I think all this does is manufacture a finish. It isn't fuel strategy, it's crap. I don't agree with doing a GWC over & over until you get a finish.

edit: Apparently I need to clarify this statement. I don't personally have much of an issue with yellow finishes. Sure they aren't what I like to see but that's racing. However, and this is the major point, there are many fans who don't feel this way. Because of that, we have an issue. Heck, even Robin Miller agrees with that. Scary. : )

On ovals we tend to see more yellow finishes. And every time we do, especially when it's with only a few laps to go, fans react poorly. So we need a solution. Perhaps look at the way it's done on short track racing where only the green laps count. Start billing a race as "200 GREEN FLAG laps." In some ways I like this, in some ways I don't.

This is a tough one for me to figure out really. In some ways I hate the yellow finish, but in some ways I say look the race is supposed to be x number of laps or miles, and that's it. There's no overtime in racing. It is what it is.


CONTINUE

* Being open to female drivers. While some might think they're good PR but not worth it overall, I disagree. I think it's great that the IndyCar series is proving itself as a stage for women drivers. Good on them, bring it on.

* Developing interest with automakers. The engine summit we saw a few weeks ago is a great first step. I hope the series has the guts to open things up to more options other than one engine supplier and one specific formula. I'd love to see a diesel option, and certainly the return of turbos would be a good thing. We desperately need a new car and engine competition now that the series is unified.

* Having a solid working relationship with Firestone. They produce a good, reliable tire and with Bridgestone are clearly the best supplier for high profile open wheel series. Before the merger, Firestone/Bridgestone covered IndyCar, Formula One and ChampCar. We've seen how poorly Goodyear is doing with NASCAR of late and Michelin's had its issues and as such isn't in Formula One today. Tires is one place where I think a control tire isn't necessarily a bad thing but it has to be a high quality product. I think Firestone's done well there.

* Supporting alternative fuel sources. Ethanol, and especially corn based ethanol has taken quite a beating in the press, but I for one am happy that the series is at least trying something. You can't say that for NASCAR or even Formula 1 (at the moment at least). No solution is going to be perfect the first time out, but I think we'd all like to see any ethanol used to be based on something other than feed stock products like corn.

* Partnering with other series over a race weekend. ALMS at Mid-Ohio and St Pete among others is a great thing for the fans and adds a lot of value to the race weekend.

* Keeping ticket prices reasonable. NASCAR races have been overpriced for years now, while IndyCar prices have remained very reasonable. As consumer disposable income is reduced, IndyCar wins on value for the dollar.


So, has unification been good for IndyCar? Sure it has. Is it perfect? Heck no. Can it be? Who knows. I am not sure any series can be perfect. You can always make changes. But, IndyCar is at that point where they have to get some things worked out for the future, and now is the absolute time to get things going.

There seems to be some momentum and interest. Let's keep it up. There will be much more to write on this topic in the future, that much is guaranteed.

Since my division's annual partner conference is this coming week in Indianapolis, I decided to come up early and go to qualifications for the Indy 500 this weekend.

Saturday was a cool but mostly sunny day, and after some early AM track drying from rain the night before, cars went out on practice runs for a few hours before qualifying was scheduled to start at noon ET.

I took some time in the morning to do a bit of window shopping, with a plan to get some of our souveneir shopping completed this weekend so there's less to do on Race Weekend. Buying would mostly wait until later in the day since I don't need to add more things to carry around outside my camera gear.

I found a nice spot to hang out for qualifications to start, a good angle down on the track with no obstructions. Of course my selection was fairly popular, a good number of other people found the same spot.

During the morning practice there were several very impressive speeds recorded: Marco Andretti - 228.318 mph; Dan Wheldon - 227.223; Ryan Briscoe - 227.153; Tomas Scheckter - 227.015. Truth be told though several of these were with a tow, so they likely won't hold up on a single car run.

This year's qualifying process is a bit different, thirty-one drivers made attempts (23 recorded four-lap runs), but there were only 11 spots available on this first day of qualifying. The idea is to go at it again for another 11 spots on today, Sunday, May 11th...that is if the rain stops and they get the track dried off. In the meantime I sit here going through pictures from yesterday, watching the Formula 1 race from Turkey. We'll see what things look like when the F1 race is over.

Saturday wasn't without incident as we had a few early spins by AJ Foyt IV, and Bruno Junqueira, both of whom kept the car off the wall. Later in the day Ryan Hunter-Reay wasn't so lucky. Ryan had been bumped out of the 11-car 1st day field and was trying to get himself back in. The back end of the car snapped out, sending him into the wall. The car actually damaged the SAFER barrier, which needed to be welded back into shape.



Several drivers looked to be ready to make late day second runs in a bid for Pole. Marco Andretti rolled the dice, improved his position by one spot, but failed to reach the front row. He starts at the inside of row 3, 7th position.

At the end of the day, the Scott Dixon's 226.366 mph run, set roughly around 4 pm, held up to win the pole position for the 92nd Indy 500. Congratulations Scott!



Scott's teammate Dan Wheldon and Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe finish the front row. Two-time winner Helio Castroneves will start on the inside of Row 2, with Danica Patrick and Tony Kanaan.

Andretti Green teammates Marco Andretti and Hideki Mutoh qualified in Row 3, with Panther Racing's Vitor Meira between them. Ed Carpenter and Tomas Scheckter filled the final two qualifying spots.

An overall good day for The Captain, Roger Penske, who has had so much success at Indy over the years. Sure he'd rather see his cars 1-2, and between them, Castroneves & Briscoe had speed, just not enough at the right time.



So now, the F1 race is just finished (approx 9:30 AM ET), Felipe Massa wins from pole for Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton second, Kimi Raikkonen 3rd. Weather in Indy is...wet. Time to check the radar and see if it's going to be worth getting over to the track this morning or not.