I remember watching David Land’s video about INDYCAR at Pocono and I feel like if they make the changes he proposed, everyone including myself would be less divided about Pocono.
While this sounds great, I feel the last number of years trying bigger ovals has proved that these tracks and these cars do not work. Not worth the safety risk.
@@nickward5130 the last number of years? Everything’s been abandoned outside of Indy, which very obviously still holds major risk. Just look at what happened to Stef Wilson this year. Ovals are dangerous there isn’t anyway around that, but Pocono and Michigan being part of the schedule would bring back a lot of the prestige that Indycar has lost in recent years. Indy is less risky than Pocono because of the 30 hours or so of practice drivers get. Give pocono 10 hours of running the week of the race and it would be far better.
@@Nickyy64 I guess I just feel that they don’t have a place on ovals anymore. Maybe with a ton of practice they would be fine but seemed like Pocono was plagued ever since it came back. Personally Indy is the only larger oval I see staying and don’t see any others returning because the wrecks they always had. Texas, Auto Club, and Pocono seemed to have big wrecks frequently and I’m amazed Texas is still on the schedule
I blame the drivers for causing chaos for the way they aggressively drive with the current oval Aero Package from 2018-2019 there. It’s not fair that IndyCar stopped reading there because we want more ovals, Pocono was built for IndyCar and raced there first before NASCAR, it’s a 500-mile race. It deserves to stay on the schedule. It’s good racing. I know it’s dangerous, but racing in general is dangerous. Indy is more dangerous and more drivers died there. Should we stop racing there? Personally IndyCar should’ve had more practice, more testing, and preparations to take on a 500-mile triangular race. Regardless, the sport belongs in Pocono. The cars are safer and the aeroscreens are on and it’s perfect for oval races. Even Pocono updated their catchfences. I will defend IndyCar racing at Pocono until the day I no longer live.
@@CountyLineFilms yeah with the 2015-2017 Kits, passing was not as difficult and therefore nobody was that aggressive. Due to the current oval kits being difficult to pass (at the time Mayhaps) thanks to lack of big ovals (which makes em not know what to do as much, which causes lack of passing), with the hard-to-pass kit, they’re way more aggressive. It’s not fair to blame the track. That is like blaming Indy and Texas for being hard to pass. But hey by the anti-IndyCar Pocono crowd, let’s get rid of Indy and Texas🤷🏻♂️🙄 It’s not the track’s fault that the drivers are aggressive and freak accidents to happen.
@_peters6221 the sport has a hard time marketing their races besides like Indy, Iowa, and Nashville. Even before we had less ovals, they lacked marketing for those races Also I never heard about NASCAR threatening Pocono to get dropped. Thanks, I learned something new. Pocono needs to keep up with the current times as a facility
I've been going to Pocono since 2007 and never once felt unsafe or like I was transported to the 80'. I'm glad Pocono is still FAMILY owned and hasn't let SMI/ISC buy them. NASCAR and Marcus would ruin the ma and pa charm of Pocono. If you disagree then phuck you.
@@IanTheMotorsportsMan_YTYeah about a year after IndyCar's last trip NASCAR pulled their 2nd Pocono date. That's going to be even less revenue to make track upgrades happen.
There are times that I say that they should race at Pocono again, and there are times that I say that they should never return to Pocono again or anytime soon
Glad to discover another racing channel and a good video to start with! As a fellow fan from across the water in Camden County NJ I agree with you that we need another IndyCar race over here in the northeast
IndyCar needs to come back to Cleveland, honestly. Most unique road course in the 80s and 90s, and Burke Lakefront is stagnating as an airport; throw a fresh coat of hardtop on it, make it a semi-permanent race course.
Mike Lannigan has said he'd promote the race if he could find a sponsor, and city can't decide if they want to close Burke Lakefront or keep it open. It's not easy to hold a race under those circumstances.
You summed up this race really well, and also I'm with you on the problems that Pocono has that I think permanently preclude a return there. Pocono was one of my favorite races as a little kid - my dad made VHS tapes of most of the big Indycar races in the late 80s/90s, and I always liked the tricky triangle. Rick Mears won there, Mario, Bobby Rahal. Their return in the early 2010s was part of what helped reignite my enthusiasm in the series! But unlike IMS which in the intervening years had had millions of dollars and thousands of hours invested in the track, the safety, the fan experience, etc - Pocono really hasn't. And unless something really changes, I doubt the track ownership will ever have the opportunity or the funding to really make it the same quality superspeedway as IMS. Yeah, Texas isn't nearly the same quality as IMS, and definitely has fan problems, but ISC pumps enough money into it that it seems to have modern infrastructure. Plus, with the ease of air travel today, the Poconos and the Catskills are no longer as enticing of a getaway for people in major East Coast cities who could instead just hop on a plane to fly to, say, Miami or Ft Myers in the same amount of time it takes to get to the Lehigh Valley. The gravy train just isn't ever going to come into the Pocono Raceway station. I do hope that Indycar finds a good venue in the northeast though.
There's a ton of northeast venues they could go to (and have in the past) that have been dropped for some reason or another. In no particular order, new Hampshire speedway, Watkins Glen, mosport, mont Tremblant, circuit Gilles Villeneuve...
What safety effort has IMS done that Pocono hasn't? IMS has concrete walls in areas of the track, Pocono has safer barriers on every wall around the entire 2.5 miles. There is a reason more drivers have been injured and killed at IMS than Pocono, the name just gives them a pass. The ticket prices for Pocono are significantly less than IMS charges and they have just one weekend to make a profit so it would be impossible to expect them to deliver the same experience. When comparing the two though it's hard to understand why IMS isn't better than it is for how much money they are bringing in. I went to the 100th Indy 500 and just went the the road course races last weekend, Penske has done an incredible job of polishing the track, but it's still nothing special. The rust and garbage that was everywhere last time is thankfully gone, but the facilities at IRP on Friday were actually a nicer fan experience than IMS.
While Brock Beard talked about the troubled history between the series and the track, you did a bit more detail explaining about only that faithful weekend, I did forgot that there were a serious lack of practice time for that Pocono 500. But yeah the event felt like it was the entire history of IndyCar-Pocono relationship summed up in one day. High-speed multi-car wreck in lap 1, drab racing caused by the UAK generating a lot of dirty air and the ol' classic weather. That being said, I don't think we should return to _that_ Baltimore track. If the tale of Nashville Street Circuit tells us something, it's that we should've maybe think thrice about making a street circuit layout in American cities nowadays, because the last thing we need is having a calendar where every IndyCar's street races turned into Formula E demolition derby. IndyCar needs to have more ovals (albeit not as short and tight as North Wilkesboro though), and with IndyCar hinting a return to Milwaukee Mile, it might be the best future for the series.
First and foremost, great video. Having grown up 20 minutes from the track and having become such a big Indycar fan back in 2012 I have so many conflicting feelings. Barring the freak accident that was Justin Wilson's unfortunate death, I felt until they went to the 2018 spec aero the racing was fantastic. The 2017 race sticks out as such an awesome race with Power and JoNew just giving their all for the win. I personally feel the aero changes for 2018 and also 2019 really forced drivers to make desperate moves on starts and restarts to get what they could before dirty air became an issue that in previous years didn't seem to be there at such a high level. But I was also there for Wickens wreck and also the mayhem on 2019. Seeing Felix climbing the fence in the last race my heart sank into my stomach like it did watching the fireball behind Wickens going into the fence. Something needs to change to bring indycar back, to Pocono, but I'm not totally sure what the catalyst would be. In the meantime, bring them back to Watkins Glen or Baltimore to get something going in the northeast. I was at both of those races and I had a blast at both.
One track that I didn't mention, which would be badass to see IndyCar at would be Lime Rock Park. A Saturday Shootout at Lime Rock would definitely be an interesting way to break into the Northeast
My condolences to the Wilson family, always and forever. And my thoughts and best wishes to Robert Wickens. It's absurd IndyCar doesn't race at Pocono. Start here: If we didn't run at tracks that had fatalities in the past (and you didn't mention Justin's crash, just Robert's, but still) then we wouldn't ever be running at Toronto (rip Jeff Krosnoff), Laguna Seca (rip Gonzalo Rodriguez), or Indianapolis itself (a list of fatalities a mile long). And we couldn't think about returning to Milwaukee either. Next, consider the track itself. The turn, Turn 2, where these bad crashes keep happening, it's literally designed to be identical to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Literally. The guy who made the track made that turn geometrically identical to Indy. Trenton for T1, Milwaukee for T3. So saying we can't run Pocono because of Turn 2, but we can run Indy? That's foolish. Finally, attendance was growing. The series should have put in some new rules and invested in some safety features, 100%. How about Single-File race starts? Put a line higher up the track going down the backstretch into T2? Increase the height of the walls. IndyCar wants to just throw up its hands and not fix the problems that need addressed. "why should we fix it, we don't own Pocono!?" Well, because Pocono doesn't need you as much as you need it, in the long run. Otherwise you're just Formula 2: Americas. I could not feel more down about IndyCar management, and I'm in my 30s and lived through the split.
I live near Nazareth. When that got shut down it really sucked. I did get to see a few races their. I believe it was cart back then. The Bosch Grand Prix. I’ve always been a fan of IMSA and have gone up to Watkins glen for the 6 hours of the Glen. Great race and track.
THANK YOU for mentioning the racism. I've never heard someone in America do so before and certain IndyCar commentators and pundits absolutely adore him, happily glossing over the clear issues.
I would personally love Pocono to be back on the IndyCar calendar. It's a unique oval in that it's a triangle and a second superspeedway race after Indianapolis would be great (Texas runs superspeedway aero but it is an intermeidate oval by definition), but there HAS to be changes to the track and possibly the weekend format as you said before a return can happen. More practice (the lack of which at places like Pocono was one reason why Max Chilton decided to no longer race at non-Indy 500 oval races), and improvements to safety at the track; catch fences, barriers etc. There are two ovals in particular I would love to see back in IndyCar: Pocono and the Milwaukee Mile (the latter of which admittedley mostly because of the fact that it's a historic race, I don't know how good the racing would be). New Hampshire wouldn't be a bad option either (again, historic race), but I don't know if it's been completly 'NASCARified' so to speak to the extent where Indycars wouldn't necessarily go well there, like at say Phoenix or at Texas from around 2018 until 2022.
They just don't get the crowds at Pocono or Watkins Glen Penske owns Michigan and they don''t even race there no crowds , i was at POcono when Justin Wilson had that freak accident, the good always die young
@@healthyone100Penske sold all of the tracks he owned (Michigan/Fontana/Nazareth) in 1999 to International Speedway Corp (NASCAR). The only track he owns now is Indy Motor Speedway. The big reason the series doesn't go to Michigan is Penske is the promotor of the Detroit Grand Prix and doesn't want to kill the crowd for that event by having 2 races in state.
I do not get the hand wringing over pocono but we go to Indianapolis with no questions every year, even though someone gets injured or loses their life every few year.
That was a wild, somber-feeling weekend heading in. Really solid video. Go Birds. I was making my first IndyCar Radio appearance during practice and qualifying and was supposed to be interviewing the field after qualifying attempts, but obviously, that didn’t happen. IndyCar actually did restructure Saturday after the rain dried out, forming a two-hour practice session. I was with Nick Yeoman shadowing at the broadcast location in turn one for the race. When that lap one crash happened, I think everyone thought, “Not again!” What a miserable finale for Pocono IndyCar. The closest scheduled race to the northeast for 2020 was Richmond, like you said… but then COVID happened, and Richmond was never rescheduled. I was supposed to be on IMS Radio at Richmond too 😂 Haven’t been on since. But I’ve got a pretty cool gig now… The northeast needs another IndyCar race.
I’m a fairly new nascar fan (3 years or so) but I’ve never watched Indy cars. Is there a reason they don’t do Dover is the banking too steep or something like that
IndyCars have actually run at Dover 3 times before, in 1969, 1998 and 1999. Thanks to the bumps between the segments of concrete, The cars were being shaken to death when they raced there in the 90s. They were also going ridiculously fast, with lap averages deep into the 180 MPH mark. As a result, when either the suspension failed, which happened a lot, or the drivers made a mistake, they had a one way ticket to a terrible impact into the concrete barrier. The attendance was also pretty abysmal, as the grandstands looked practically empty. I've made a video about the 1999 race, which really epitomizes the issues IndyCar and Dover had. th-cam.com/video/N43ZfJhGcaE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6QXnXCjwETFJeqtk
the problem is Indy car officiating it just terrible and the implementation of rules. The #1 rule needs to be eliminated is the pits closing on a yellow . The only time the pits should close is if there is an accident in the pits or in the pits entrance or exit
I mean, Pocono just seems like a double edge sword to me, because of like you mentioned, Robert Wickens, and has its obvious risks at high speed..... but at the same time, a lot of safety innovations have come a long way since 2019. But I would definitely put a big question mark at Pocono....
@@davidpeters2625 I think it was that controversial Castroneves victory, in which nobody really knew if he crossed the start line first under yellow. But I'm not sure.
I for years had never got to see a Nascar race at Pocono because of work. I only live 2 hours from the track. So a while back I got finally got tickets to the INDYCAR race. Growing up I had cereal bowls my mom got from target with the racing drivers names on them. Scott Dixon, Juan P Montoya, etc... its just so Happened to be the race that Justin Wilson died. I have yet to see another IndyCar race and probably never will, in person that is. Maybe on TV sometimes but it... left a feeling in me that I didn't like
i was there also and it was very sad but i'm a die hard open wheel guy and racing is in my blood i could never stop going to the racing nothing gives me a more natural then going to the races, i'm 73 been going to dirt car races in my hometown since i was 5!
I live in New Jersey and use to go to Trenton Speedway. When that track shut down I stopped going to IndyCar races. I always hoped they would build another track that could be used for IndyCar, Nascar, and other series. I myself hate road courses. I grew up watching IndyCar racing on Ovals. The races were all way's exciting. In fact I grew up 1 mile from Wally D's home and we use to stop over after the races and talk with him about the races. In fact he was the one who brought my father, grandfather, and my self to the garage at Trenton to meet all the drivers. The last race I actually saw in person was the first race held at the Meadowlands and it actually sucked.
They could race at Pittsburgh International Race Complex (used to be BeaveRun) although they'd have to invest some money in making it more spectator friendly. It's a shame Pocono won't allow Nazareth to reopen, because that was a great Indycar track.
I thought this video was heading somewhere in the beginning, then it got lost in constant conjecture. It ended with a guy missing his local track. Way too long with nothing to really say to us.
My son and I talked about this the other night. Indycar has cut a lot of track from their schedule. Living in Chicago, the Milwaukee race was one that we always attended. It’s a shame they don’t race that venue anymore it was always a great race
NASCAR races are still suffering from lack or tire fall off at Pocono. You can pit after 25 laps and have trouble passing cars who stayed out. I watch IndyCar and EVERY track has massive swells and bumps.
Pocono was made for Indycar, Every turn is indycar track turns! Like Vegas is safe or Texas! They never promoted the race in Phila or NYC. Its racing, its dangerous! And other than Indy the stands were fairly full.
Pocono, Michigan, and Burke Lakefront in Cleveland all need to come back. Indy car is missing something right now. I’d say mess with the cars by giving them more power, deafly loud, and wider tires but it’s cheaper to go back to good tracks….
I live in NJ close to NYC. My first home track was The Meadowlands, Then Nazareth and later Pocono. I always have to travel if I want to go to an Indycar race. Still hoping that Indycar will race somewhere near me sometimes in the near future.
Funny how I had just watched this race a day before this was released. What a shame Pocono isn't back in the Indycar calendar. Desperately need it back because the accidents that happened there could easily happen at any other track (for example Bräck's accident in Texas)
Exactly unfortunately we have to many snowflakes don't blame the track blame the drivers Wickens and Hunter Reay were racing way to hard early in the race when that crash happened same thing again in 2019 Sato driving like a dumbass on lap 1 of a 200 lap race
As someone who's only chance to see IndyCar in driving distance is Pocono (outside of Loudon), I just feel it's so risky to race there and like you just know that something terrible is gonna happen man
My question to all is why is there no New England or northeast indycar race ? Are we not a good market ? I know from going to lime rock all my life that the northeast is tough on paving ,is this an issue ? The one race I saw at poconowas 2017 and it was a lot of fun .hitch and Marco were in the camp area doing a podcast talking to the fans . But that front straightaway wow crazy fast ,helio c . Hit the wall in practice at turn one and everyone was scared til he got out . Heck the safety truck clocked 100 getting down to hi,🙀
Great video. I completely understand the massive area in the northeast that IndyCar is missing but Mid-Ohio is 7 hours from Philly not 10. I know it's still an entire day drive and doesn't take away from the point, but I've made the drive before and was very confused when I heard that. Just a little thing, thank you so much for the video.
In fairness, when I did that drive myself it was in a really crumby Jeep Liberty V6 with about 200 Horsepower towing a 1 ton trailer, so that mightve swayed the results from my end. Glad you enjoyed the video!
Listen, take this with a grain of salt cause I don’t really know what I am talking about. But my only complaint about this video is that the race this video is about doesn’t even start until 9.5 minutes in. I mean I love the video and appreciate the context. Honestly I can’t even say what I would cut from that first 9 minutes so this isn’t even constructive criticism it’s just criticism.
I wanted to give this video more of a special feel than the rest of the videos I've made, so that's why it's a bit more cinematic in nature than the rest
I was at this race. Seeing these cars at speed was great to see in person. Was my first indy race but God getting out of the track during that storm in my little manual hot hatch was brutal.
You'd have thought Pocono had learned after what happened in the summer of 2012, when one person was killed and another nine injured by lightning in the thunderstorm that ended a NASCAR Cup Series race that summer.
Correct me if I’m wrong. Baltimore was a great turn out, two years strong nice scenery. Inner harbor is a decent spot of Bmore. Rumor was, a lot of businesses in the area complained that it hurt their business in some capacity🤷♂️. Also I believe the idea of Pocono raceway was originally designed for Indycar.
It was the other way around at Baltimore. The local business loved it and made bank while the promoter either lost a lot or didn't pay his bills. I know Andretti tried to save it, but they couldn't make it happen.
Have you noticed since hunter reay is no longer up front things like this aren't happening. He is the only common denominator in both of those crashes and both crashes started with him
It is always ultimately up to the drivers to race at a speed that is safe for them. If your car is loose, slow down to below crashing speed. But that's not how it happens in real life.
I’ve always been pro-NASCAR and couldn’t understand how “Bumps” could make somebody complain or even wreck - that being said. I raced Karts and Skip Barber in VR on my racing simulator at home. Holy shit. Pocono and 2nd configuration Atlanta Motor Speedway is unbearable in Indycars
As someone who took himself out of racing entirely because of how badly he screwed up his back in a shifter kart earlier this year, I can confirm that the bumps are just too much for IndyCars to run safely there.
Watched this from the stands and wanted to hop the fence and go strangle whoever decided to go three wide at the same damn spot on the first damn lap. Never been that angry at a race before.
We really need to go back to Pocono Indy is in desperate need of ovals. Especially larger ovals. Indycar mishandled Pocono, set the stage for a major accident and then axed it in a knee jerk reaction when that accident came to pass. Imagine if the Indy 500 had to be run with no practice and no qualification and then ask yourself if Pocono is unsafe or if Indycar dropped the ball. Any of the accidents seen at Pocono could just as easily happen here at Indy (I live here lol). Hell this year we saw a tire fly out of the track and in 2015 Hinch got impaled in his own car. It's terrible to see these accidents happen but at the same time that's part of competing in a top tier open wheel racing league. It doesn't matter where you are or what you do, it will be dangerous We desperately need more ovals, we desperately need large ovals and we really should take a hard look at returning to Pocono as it's hands down one of the best
One thing that no one ever likes to comment on is the aggression of modern drivers when attempting a daring pass. The reason I'm bringing this up is that it seems that in every motorsports discipline, the cars have gotten drastically safer (Michael McDowell's Texas qualifying crash anyone?) and any crash has a very high rate of survival with no or minor injuries, and as such the drivers can take more chances knowing that they are much safer than their forbearers. There is no solution to this, but it makes me wonder if the Indy Roadster drivers in their cars would take anywhere near the chances that modern drivers do. No blame is being placed here, and safety continues to improve and save lives (as it should), but it is food for thought.
with the cars safety now, they all 10 foot tall and bullet proof and the quality of the driving has gone to sh*t. look at this years 500. it was a fkn stock car race with dive bombs, wheel banging, chop blocks and mirror driving in open wheel cars.
The drivers don’t respect the race track or each other for that matter. We see the same thing in nascar at every plate race. Ask Mario Andretti what he thinks about running 5 wide into turn 2 at Pocono. There’s being brave and there’s being stupid.
Here are my thoughts on Pocono. Narrow down the front stretch to prevent the 5 wide stuff. Make a pit lane that starts before "what turn 4" so ANY race cars wont hit a pit wall. Lastly, the final turn should be reworked...maybe a little bit narrower or a bit more banking.
I was at the 2018 and 2019 Pocono races - 2018 was the darkest day I ever had as a motorsport fan; the atmosphere there was as if we had just watched 9/11 all over again. I remember the collective gasp from everyone at the track, and you immediately knew that something *really bad* had just happened. I remember leaving that day, not knowing much about Wickens’ condition, thinking to myself if I had just watched a man die for my entertainment. It’s a terrible thing to see, and it’s a terrible thing to realize that the costs of this sport can be so high and so absolute. It has always been and will always be, but to see it happen right in front of you really changes how you see things. With the proper investment from IndyCar, Pocono could be reconfigured as a road course, I feel. I’ve driven Formula 2000 there on a few occasions, and, while very basic and clearly relics of a bygone era, the infield courses could be rehabbed and expanded, incorporating parts of the triangle as well, and we could then still have a race in the Northeast. Until then, though - if ever it may happen - Pocono, though missed on the calendar, does kinda live on in infamy.
Indycar did not return to Pocono due attendance, sponsorship, and other business related matter according to a Q&A with Igdalsky during one of the nascar weekends since then. The rest of this comment are my OPINIONS: I went to all the races since Indycar's return to Pocono in 2013. There was a short span of years (2015-2017) where indycar had some of the best races I've ever seen. It was reflected at other ovals too (indy,auto club,texas) but the racing was far too dangerous with that package at some of those tracks (Auto Club / Texas) due to pack racing. For Indianapolis and Pocono, it was the perfect package. Non pack racing, yet you were able to set up someone about a half a lap ahead to get them on the straightaways. Since they changed the package in 2018, it was very difficult to get anywhere close to drivers who were clearly slower than them, even on fresh tires. This forced them to be super aggressive on restarts to get all they can get until they reached full racing speeds. Once they got past the first lap or two in 2018 and 2019, it seemed like you could catch up to another car if yours was faster, but then stall out with the major aero push which led to relatively uneventful races. Again, my opinion, but i believe those crashes (2018/2019) were the result of super aggression on starts/restarts due to the package Indycar was running. Yes, there would be aggression on restarts 2015-2017 regardless, but many would backout before a corner because passing didnt seem impossible. I'm completely leaving out JW's accident since that was an open cockpit issue that open wheel series have been gambling with for as long as they've existed. I am very happy that has been addressed. Now with that said, i believe walls should be much higher, at least in corners, to prevent cars from ending up there at any track that uses catch fences on ovals. Or at the least for Indycar, have something that could be placed in front of the fence, supported by the fence, that would act more like a wall to prevent the "grabbing, shredding, and pinwheeling" of the cars if they were to get atop the safer barrier.
If indycar goes to Richmond I'll by my ticket in a heartbeat I live an hour away from the track and Ive never seen a indycar at the track nor been at a race in person
You touched on it, but yes Indycar needs a much farther reach to their east coast fans, having only 1 east coast race in the mid west coast of Florida is cool for the locals but it's not good for everyone else.
Ferrucci has never impressed me. He seems to have speed if the car is good, but he acts as if he's the only one on the track most times. Also, he seems to be worried more about his physical looks and getting noticed than he is about getting a good result for a race. If his car's not good, he can't seem to help it, so he seems to just go through the motions. I've heard his feedback to the mechanics isn't that good either, which is part of his car issues. He needs to go to a lesser series. I'd suggest dirt-track midget racing.
I was at all of the Indycar races at Pocono and leaving the grandstands that afternoon just felt like it was the end. I've seen races from 96 to 04 in Nazareth a couple of them in Richmond and these. Maybe Dover could possibly host Indycar again like back in the late 90s.
Money. Neither one did much and once ISC's sweetheart deal with IndyCar expired in 2009ish where to get tickets to NASCAR races at their tracks you had to buy IRL tickets as well, everything dried up within 2 years. And as long as Roger Penske is the promotor of the Detroit Grand Prix, Michigan isn't coming back unless someone like HyVee comes in as a promotor and pays IndyCar.
You aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer if you can’t comprehend why Indycar doesn’t race at those tracks (at least considering the cars now). Doesn’t feel good does it? Remember what bs you said to me in a WEC comment post about the quali format? Serves you right
That's a shame. I was at the very first Indycar (USAC at the time I believe) race at Pocono. It was the 1971 Schaefer 500 (which was interesting because Pocono failed to get its liqueur license and thus could not sell beer). It was won by the late Mark Donohue, who met his demise not at Pocono, but at Red Bull Ring in 1975 (present name) in an F1 race. Its configuration features three distinct corner types, the only big oval to do so. Barriers and pavement get upgraded all the time. I believe Pocono could as well. Please God, not another blankety blank street circuit!
i hate street races also but the,y draw the fans, its so easy to go downtown to watch a race, with all the ovals in the country yet Indy car don't race there, i liked Tony George's attempt to make Indy car a oval series but the 25-8 rule at the Indy 500 destroyed Indy car racing that was 1996 an it not recovered!
I Don’t Know but the old timers seemed to make it around the track in the 1970 80s. I Don’t think you can blame it on the speed of the cars of today either. The Drivers of the past were a different breed for sure.
I am going to get some stick for this but for me Pocono isn't really a natural oval. It is more like a very wide very boring road course which can be raced flat out. Now what they could do is set up some extra turns and chicanes because there is room especially on the front straight. There would still be plenty of overtaking oportunities. Great video btw
POV: you love logistics and are bored by auto racing. One day the owner of the company bestows a great honor on you. You'll be giving the command at the company's largest event of the year!
You have a few places around you. Watkins Glen. Cleveland airport. All deserving of an IndyCar revival. Unfortunately they aren’t going to go back to places where the fans didn’t show up
Pocono Raceway is only about 3 hours away from where I live, it’s a shame cause there’s nothing else even remotely close and I love IndyCar, although I get that it’s dangerous and driver safety is above all else. Next closest is 8 hours away.
Pocono has ALWAYS been a dangerous track for all racing series. It’s ruined the lives of so many contenders and the track owners never seemed to care. If they bulldozed the facility, I’d be satisfied.
@@indyxpbullion2422 LOL I knew it. wickens? blame rhr. wilson? blame karam. Don Pratt? that was during ROC on the small track. Bobby? Jocko. Davey? Darrell. Park? who sent him? and Kurt because that toy nascar is sh*t. You forgot Troy Ruttman Jr. which was a stuck throttle. Now Ill ask again, the track ruined who?
From what I've heard, the reason IndyCar doesn't return to Baltimore is because the businesses don't want the race back. But, yes, IndyCar needs a race in the Northeast or mid-Atlantic more than a race in the Northwest (and that's coming from a Seattleite).
It was Baltimore being Baltimore. It somehow didnt make money despite it being completely packed both years I went. This we had a we bit of corruption there. Plus I know the Baltimore Ravens were pretty outspoken about it cuz one year they were the defending Super Bowl champs and with that you get to have a national audience first home game of the year to unveil your banner...but cuz the stadium was inside the track they had to start the year on the road and the team and players were pretty outspoken about it...that was pretty much the death knell for that race...even tho they should have just moved it elsewhere on the schedule
I suspect this wouldn't even be a topic of conversation if it didnt rain on what seems like 75% of race weekends there. Its a shame because unique tracks should be in the big shows.
It almost seems counter intuitive but the sheer width of the track was its problem. Going 5 wide will end in tears if one car gets in trouble because multiple cars get pulled in to that accident. The only way a wide track can be safe is if the corners are tight enough to need more downforce. Its definitely unique but I think in the end leaving was prudent. Too many bad accidents. That said there is a road course configuration at the venue they could use.
I remember watching David Land’s video about INDYCAR at Pocono and I feel like if they make the changes he proposed, everyone including myself would be less divided about Pocono.
The fixes he had would be pretty damn affective I believe
@@CountyLineFilms yep
The Indycar triple crown needs to come back. Indy, Michigan, and Pocono all need to hold 500 milers.
While this sounds great, I feel the last number of years trying bigger ovals has proved that these tracks and these cars do not work. Not worth the safety risk.
@@nickward5130 the last number of years? Everything’s been abandoned outside of Indy, which very obviously still holds major risk. Just look at what happened to Stef Wilson this year.
Ovals are dangerous there isn’t anyway around that, but Pocono and Michigan being part of the schedule would bring back a lot of the prestige that Indycar has lost in recent years.
Indy is less risky than Pocono because of the 30 hours or so of practice drivers get.
Give pocono 10 hours of running the week of the race and it would be far better.
@@Nickyy64 I guess I just feel that they don’t have a place on ovals anymore. Maybe with a ton of practice they would be fine but seemed like Pocono was plagued ever since it came back. Personally Indy is the only larger oval I see staying and don’t see any others returning because the wrecks they always had. Texas, Auto Club, and Pocono seemed to have big wrecks frequently and I’m amazed Texas is still on the schedule
Texas and Indy haven’t had that big of wrecks in the past few years.
@@johnnyboy8603 Indy has not that’s true. Texas didn’t this year.
why is pocono layout so strange on the upper right corner at 0:55 ?
As much as I love Pocono, it needs major safety updates and a repave as you stated. Great vid, and keep up the great work.
Proud to say I was at the SunTrust Indy race at Richmond in 2003(!)
If IndyCar comes back to RIR it won't be too bad a drive for you! 😅
I blame the drivers for causing chaos for the way they aggressively drive with the current oval Aero Package from 2018-2019 there.
It’s not fair that IndyCar stopped reading there because we want more ovals, Pocono was built for IndyCar and raced there first before NASCAR, it’s a 500-mile race.
It deserves to stay on the schedule. It’s good racing. I know it’s dangerous, but racing in general is dangerous. Indy is more dangerous and more drivers died there. Should we stop racing there?
Personally IndyCar should’ve had more practice, more testing, and preparations to take on a 500-mile triangular race.
Regardless, the sport belongs in Pocono. The cars are safer and the aeroscreens are on and it’s perfect for oval races. Even Pocono updated their catchfences.
I will defend IndyCar racing at Pocono until the day I no longer live.
That Drivers Impatience thing is a very key point, and I think that explains a lot.
@@CountyLineFilms yeah with the 2015-2017 Kits, passing was not as difficult and therefore nobody was that aggressive.
Due to the current oval kits being difficult to pass (at the time Mayhaps) thanks to lack of big ovals (which makes em not know what to do as much, which causes lack of passing), with the hard-to-pass kit, they’re way more aggressive. It’s not fair to blame the track. That is like blaming Indy and Texas for being hard to pass. But hey by the anti-IndyCar Pocono crowd, let’s get rid of Indy and Texas🤷🏻♂️🙄
It’s not the track’s fault that the drivers are aggressive and freak accidents to happen.
@_peters6221 the sport has a hard time marketing their races besides like Indy, Iowa, and Nashville. Even before we had less ovals, they lacked marketing for those races
Also I never heard about NASCAR threatening Pocono to get dropped. Thanks, I learned something new.
Pocono needs to keep up with the current times as a facility
I've been going to Pocono since 2007 and never once felt unsafe or like I was transported to the 80'. I'm glad Pocono is still FAMILY owned and hasn't let SMI/ISC buy them. NASCAR and Marcus would ruin the ma and pa charm of Pocono. If you disagree then phuck you.
@@IanTheMotorsportsMan_YTYeah about a year after IndyCar's last trip NASCAR pulled their 2nd Pocono date. That's going to be even less revenue to make track upgrades happen.
There are times that I say that they should race at Pocono again, and there are times that I say that they should never return to Pocono again or anytime soon
I agree...... it definitely has a big asterisk next to it when it comes to IndyCar....
It's a pretty contentous topic in this community, and will be for a while
Glad to discover another racing channel and a good video to start with! As a fellow fan from across the water in Camden County NJ I agree with you that we need another IndyCar race over here in the northeast
IndyCar needs to come back to Cleveland, honestly. Most unique road course in the 80s and 90s, and Burke Lakefront is stagnating as an airport; throw a fresh coat of hardtop on it, make it a semi-permanent race course.
Mike Lannigan has said he'd promote the race if he could find a sponsor, and city can't decide if they want to close Burke Lakefront or keep it open. It's not easy to hold a race under those circumstances.
You summed up this race really well, and also I'm with you on the problems that Pocono has that I think permanently preclude a return there. Pocono was one of my favorite races as a little kid - my dad made VHS tapes of most of the big Indycar races in the late 80s/90s, and I always liked the tricky triangle. Rick Mears won there, Mario, Bobby Rahal. Their return in the early 2010s was part of what helped reignite my enthusiasm in the series! But unlike IMS which in the intervening years had had millions of dollars and thousands of hours invested in the track, the safety, the fan experience, etc - Pocono really hasn't. And unless something really changes, I doubt the track ownership will ever have the opportunity or the funding to really make it the same quality superspeedway as IMS. Yeah, Texas isn't nearly the same quality as IMS, and definitely has fan problems, but ISC pumps enough money into it that it seems to have modern infrastructure. Plus, with the ease of air travel today, the Poconos and the Catskills are no longer as enticing of a getaway for people in major East Coast cities who could instead just hop on a plane to fly to, say, Miami or Ft Myers in the same amount of time it takes to get to the Lehigh Valley. The gravy train just isn't ever going to come into the Pocono Raceway station. I do hope that Indycar finds a good venue in the northeast though.
I still wished there was a race there for the reasons I mentioned towards the end, but I can understand if they don't come back.
Loudon, NH
There's a ton of northeast venues they could go to (and have in the past) that have been dropped for some reason or another. In no particular order, new Hampshire speedway, Watkins Glen, mosport, mont Tremblant, circuit Gilles Villeneuve...
What safety effort has IMS done that Pocono hasn't? IMS has concrete walls in areas of the track, Pocono has safer barriers on every wall around the entire 2.5 miles. There is a reason more drivers have been injured and killed at IMS than Pocono, the name just gives them a pass. The ticket prices for Pocono are significantly less than IMS charges and they have just one weekend to make a profit so it would be impossible to expect them to deliver the same experience. When comparing the two though it's hard to understand why IMS isn't better than it is for how much money they are bringing in. I went to the 100th Indy 500 and just went the the road course races last weekend, Penske has done an incredible job of polishing the track, but it's still nothing special. The rust and garbage that was everywhere last time is thankfully gone, but the facilities at IRP on Friday were actually a nicer fan experience than IMS.
That crowd was the biggest in years there for indycar. We gotta get pocono back.
I really liked this video! I didn’t know about this race, as I began watching indycar in 2020.
While Brock Beard talked about the troubled history between the series and the track, you did a bit more detail explaining about only that faithful weekend, I did forgot that there were a serious lack of practice time for that Pocono 500. But yeah the event felt like it was the entire history of IndyCar-Pocono relationship summed up in one day. High-speed multi-car wreck in lap 1, drab racing caused by the UAK generating a lot of dirty air and the ol' classic weather.
That being said, I don't think we should return to _that_ Baltimore track. If the tale of Nashville Street Circuit tells us something, it's that we should've maybe think thrice about making a street circuit layout in American cities nowadays, because the last thing we need is having a calendar where every IndyCar's street races turned into Formula E demolition derby. IndyCar needs to have more ovals (albeit not as short and tight as North Wilkesboro though), and with IndyCar hinting a return to Milwaukee Mile, it might be the best future for the series.
The sound you here is the nail of the final coffin of the fans hopes of bringing back pocono
Complaining about how far to the nearest race? I live in Denver, so closest races are Laguna Seca, or Indy.
First and foremost, great video. Having grown up 20 minutes from the track and having become such a big Indycar fan back in 2012 I have so many conflicting feelings.
Barring the freak accident that was Justin Wilson's unfortunate death, I felt until they went to the 2018 spec aero the racing was fantastic. The 2017 race sticks out as such an awesome race with Power and JoNew just giving their all for the win. I personally feel the aero changes for 2018 and also 2019 really forced drivers to make desperate moves on starts and restarts to get what they could before dirty air became an issue that in previous years didn't seem to be there at such a high level. But I was also there for Wickens wreck and also the mayhem on 2019. Seeing Felix climbing the fence in the last race my heart sank into my stomach like it did watching the fireball behind Wickens going into the fence.
Something needs to change to bring indycar back, to Pocono, but I'm not totally sure what the catalyst would be. In the meantime, bring them back to Watkins Glen or Baltimore to get something going in the northeast. I was at both of those races and I had a blast at both.
One track that I didn't mention, which would be badass to see IndyCar at would be Lime Rock Park. A Saturday Shootout at Lime Rock would definitely be an interesting way to break into the Northeast
@CountyLineFilms The GTP cars dont even race at Lime Rock anymore cuz theyre too fast for circuit and theyre well slower than IndyCars .
My condolences to the Wilson family, always and forever. And my thoughts and best wishes to Robert Wickens.
It's absurd IndyCar doesn't race at Pocono.
Start here: If we didn't run at tracks that had fatalities in the past (and you didn't mention Justin's crash, just Robert's, but still) then we wouldn't ever be running at Toronto (rip Jeff Krosnoff), Laguna Seca (rip Gonzalo Rodriguez), or Indianapolis itself (a list of fatalities a mile long). And we couldn't think about returning to Milwaukee either.
Next, consider the track itself. The turn, Turn 2, where these bad crashes keep happening, it's literally designed to be identical to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Literally. The guy who made the track made that turn geometrically identical to Indy. Trenton for T1, Milwaukee for T3.
So saying we can't run Pocono because of Turn 2, but we can run Indy? That's foolish.
Finally, attendance was growing.
The series should have put in some new rules and invested in some safety features, 100%. How about Single-File race starts? Put a line higher up the track going down the backstretch into T2? Increase the height of the walls.
IndyCar wants to just throw up its hands and not fix the problems that need addressed. "why should we fix it, we don't own Pocono!?" Well, because Pocono doesn't need you as much as you need it, in the long run. Otherwise you're just Formula 2: Americas.
I could not feel more down about IndyCar management, and I'm in my 30s and lived through the split.
I live near Nazareth. When that got shut down it really sucked. I did get to see a few races their. I believe it was cart back then. The Bosch Grand Prix. I’ve always been a fan of IMSA and have gone up to Watkins glen for the 6 hours of the Glen. Great race and track.
I was at Nazareth the day they raced northeast modifieds on the pavement, just a great track!
THANK YOU for mentioning the racism. I've never heard someone in America do so before and certain IndyCar commentators and pundits absolutely adore him, happily glossing over the clear issues.
I would personally love Pocono to be back on the IndyCar calendar. It's a unique oval in that it's a triangle and a second superspeedway race after Indianapolis would be great (Texas runs superspeedway aero but it is an intermeidate oval by definition), but there HAS to be changes to the track and possibly the weekend format as you said before a return can happen. More practice (the lack of which at places like Pocono was one reason why Max Chilton decided to no longer race at non-Indy 500 oval races), and improvements to safety at the track; catch fences, barriers etc.
There are two ovals in particular I would love to see back in IndyCar: Pocono and the Milwaukee Mile (the latter of which admittedley mostly because of the fact that it's a historic race, I don't know how good the racing would be). New Hampshire wouldn't be a bad option either (again, historic race), but I don't know if it's been completly 'NASCARified' so to speak to the extent where Indycars wouldn't necessarily go well there, like at say Phoenix or at Texas from around 2018 until 2022.
I think a race at Watkins Glen would be a charming place to race at in the Northeast!
They just don't get the crowds at Pocono or Watkins Glen Penske owns Michigan and they don''t even race there no crowds , i was at POcono when Justin Wilson had that freak accident, the good always die young
NJMP is easier to get to for most people in the Northeast. Watkins Glen is kinda in the middle of nowhere
@@healthyone100Penske sold all of the tracks he owned (Michigan/Fontana/Nazareth) in 1999 to International Speedway Corp (NASCAR). The only track he owns now is Indy Motor Speedway. The big reason the series doesn't go to Michigan is Penske is the promotor of the Detroit Grand Prix and doesn't want to kill the crowd for that event by having 2 races in state.
I do not get the hand wringing over pocono but we go to Indianapolis with no questions every year, even though someone gets injured or loses their life every few year.
Cuz "history" it's like Monaco in F1, there's no way that course passes as a Grade 1 track, but it's exempt cuz history.
That was a wild, somber-feeling weekend heading in. Really solid video. Go Birds.
I was making my first IndyCar Radio appearance during practice and qualifying and was supposed to be interviewing the field after qualifying attempts, but obviously, that didn’t happen. IndyCar actually did restructure Saturday after the rain dried out, forming a two-hour practice session.
I was with Nick Yeoman shadowing at the broadcast location in turn one for the race. When that lap one crash happened, I think everyone thought, “Not again!”
What a miserable finale for Pocono IndyCar. The closest scheduled race to the northeast for 2020 was Richmond, like you said… but then COVID happened, and Richmond was never rescheduled.
I was supposed to be on IMS Radio at Richmond too 😂 Haven’t been on since. But I’ve got a pretty cool gig now…
The northeast needs another IndyCar race.
I’m a fairly new nascar fan (3 years or so) but I’ve never watched Indy cars. Is there a reason they don’t do Dover is the banking too steep or something like that
IndyCars have actually run at Dover 3 times before, in 1969, 1998 and 1999. Thanks to the bumps between the segments of concrete, The cars were being shaken to death when they raced there in the 90s. They were also going ridiculously fast, with lap averages deep into the 180 MPH mark. As a result, when either the suspension failed, which happened a lot, or the drivers made a mistake, they had a one way ticket to a terrible impact into the concrete barrier. The attendance was also pretty abysmal, as the grandstands looked practically empty. I've made a video about the 1999 race, which really epitomizes the issues IndyCar and Dover had.
th-cam.com/video/N43ZfJhGcaE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6QXnXCjwETFJeqtk
the way townsend’s voice faltered when rosenqvist went into the fence has always stuck with me
the problem is Indy car officiating it just terrible and the implementation of rules. The #1 rule needs to be eliminated is the pits closing on a yellow . The only time the pits should close is if there is an accident in the pits or in the pits entrance or exit
I mean, Pocono just seems like a double edge sword to me, because of like you mentioned, Robert Wickens, and has its obvious risks at high speed..... but at the same time, a lot of safety innovations have come a long way since 2019. But I would definitely put a big question mark at Pocono....
And btw, just to add this: as a native Virginian I would TOTALLY be down for an IndyCar race at Richmond.....
I think that double edged sword analogy is pretty accurate, it's current IndyCar's version of Indy 2002 in terms of dividing people
@@CountyLineFilms what happened at Indy in 02? (Just to refresh my memory)....
@@davidpeters2625
I think it was that controversial Castroneves victory, in which nobody really knew if he crossed the start line first under yellow. But I'm not sure.
@@spd7693 gotcha..... I think I (vaguely) remember something about that, actually
I for years had never got to see a Nascar race at Pocono because of work. I only live 2 hours from the track. So a while back I got finally got tickets to the INDYCAR race. Growing up I had cereal bowls my mom got from target with the racing drivers names on them. Scott Dixon, Juan P Montoya, etc... its just so Happened to be the race that Justin Wilson died. I have yet to see another IndyCar race and probably never will, in person that is. Maybe on TV sometimes but it... left a feeling in me that I didn't like
i was there also and it was very sad but i'm a die hard open wheel guy and racing is in my blood i could never stop going to the racing nothing gives me a more natural then going to the races, i'm 73 been going to dirt car races in my hometown since i was 5!
Bro this was very nicely done, as a Pennsylvanian I wish they would come back but I don't think they ever will
I live in New Jersey and use to go to Trenton Speedway. When that track shut down I stopped going to IndyCar races. I always hoped they would build another track that could be used for IndyCar, Nascar, and other series. I myself hate road courses. I grew up watching IndyCar racing on Ovals. The races were all way's exciting. In fact I grew up 1 mile from Wally D's home and we use to stop over after the races and talk with him about the races. In fact he was the one who brought my father, grandfather, and my self to the garage at Trenton to meet all the drivers. The last race I actually saw in person was the first race held at the Meadowlands and it actually sucked.
I went To Trenton to watch the Modifieds race ROC
They could race at Pittsburgh International Race Complex (used to be BeaveRun) although they'd have to invest some money in making it more spectator friendly.
It's a shame Pocono won't allow Nazareth to reopen, because that was a great Indycar track.
I thought this video was heading somewhere in the beginning, then it got lost in constant conjecture. It ended with a guy missing his local track. Way too long with nothing to really say to us.
I like how this comment is written like a movie review
💯
My son and I talked about this the other night. Indycar has cut a lot of track from their schedule. Living in Chicago, the Milwaukee race was one that we always attended. It’s a shame they don’t race that venue anymore it was always a great race
The Milwaukee Mile keeps shutting down. It has a new owner that's made upgrades and might get a IndyCar race next year.
IndyCar will be back in Milwaukee next year, in August in a doble race, one in Saturday the other in Sunday.
2:34: Fast forward to 2023 and Conor Daly is still hop skip and jumping among multiple teams.
As a NASCAR fan- I’d love to see Indy go to Pocono but DONT TOUCH THA SURFACE
NASCAR races are still suffering from lack or tire fall off at Pocono. You can pit after 25 laps and have trouble passing cars who stayed out. I watch IndyCar and EVERY track has massive swells and bumps.
I enjoyed your video. Very nice work. I'm subscribed 👍
Pocono was made for Indycar, Every turn is indycar track turns! Like Vegas is safe or Texas! They never promoted the race in Phila or NYC. Its racing, its dangerous! And other than Indy the stands were fairly full.
your right with those 2 big markets yet no promoting, you gotta spend money to make money i know i owned a business!
Pocono, Michigan, and Burke Lakefront in Cleveland all need to come back. Indy car is missing something right now. I’d say mess with the cars by giving them more power, deafly loud, and wider tires but it’s cheaper to go back to good tracks….
Indycar at North Wilkesboro would be insane
I live in NJ close to NYC. My first home track was The Meadowlands, Then Nazareth and later Pocono. I always have to travel if I want to go to an Indycar race. Still hoping that Indycar will race somewhere near me sometimes in the near future.
I was at that race
Funny how I had just watched this race a day before this was released. What a shame Pocono isn't back in the Indycar calendar. Desperately need it back because the accidents that happened there could easily happen at any other track (for example Bräck's accident in Texas)
Exactly unfortunately we have to many snowflakes don't blame the track blame the drivers Wickens and Hunter Reay were racing way to hard early in the race when that crash happened same thing again in 2019 Sato driving like a dumbass on lap 1 of a 200 lap race
As someone who's only chance to see IndyCar in driving distance is Pocono (outside of Loudon), I just feel it's so risky to race there and like you just know that something terrible is gonna happen man
My question to all is why is there no New England or northeast indycar race ? Are we not a good market ? I know from going to lime rock all my life that the northeast is tough on paving ,is this an issue ? The one race I saw at poconowas 2017 and it was a lot of fun .hitch and Marco were in the camp area doing a podcast talking to the fans . But that front straightaway wow crazy fast ,helio c . Hit the wall in practice at turn one and everyone was scared til he got out . Heck the safety truck clocked 100 getting down to hi,🙀
Great video. I completely understand the massive area in the northeast that IndyCar is missing but Mid-Ohio is 7 hours from Philly not 10. I know it's still an entire day drive and doesn't take away from the point, but I've made the drive before and was very confused when I heard that. Just a little thing, thank you so much for the video.
In fairness, when I did that drive myself it was in a really crumby Jeep Liberty V6 with about 200 Horsepower towing a 1 ton trailer, so that mightve swayed the results from my end. Glad you enjoyed the video!
bring to NJMP i'll go they just beed a big grandstand there
Listen, take this with a grain of salt cause I don’t really know what I am talking about. But my only complaint about this video is that the race this video is about doesn’t even start until 9.5 minutes in. I mean I love the video and appreciate the context. Honestly I can’t even say what I would cut from that first 9 minutes so this isn’t even constructive criticism it’s just criticism.
I wanted to give this video more of a special feel than the rest of the videos I've made, so that's why it's a bit more cinematic in nature than the rest
I was at this race. Seeing these cars at speed was great to see in person. Was my first indy race but God getting out of the track during that storm in my little manual hot hatch was brutal.
Hot hatch in more ways than one eh?
You'd have thought Pocono had learned after what happened in the summer of 2012, when one person was killed and another nine injured by lightning in the thunderstorm that ended a NASCAR Cup Series race that summer.
Didn’t pick up that Philly area way of pronouncing certain works till you mentioned where you’re from then I couldn’t unhear it lol
What about martinsville
Correct me if I’m wrong. Baltimore was a great turn out, two years strong nice scenery. Inner harbor is a decent spot of Bmore. Rumor was, a lot of businesses in the area complained that it hurt their business in some capacity🤷♂️. Also I believe the idea of Pocono raceway was originally designed for Indycar.
It was the other way around at Baltimore. The local business loved it and made bank while the promoter either lost a lot or didn't pay his bills. I know Andretti tried to save it, but they couldn't make it happen.
Have you noticed since hunter reay is no longer up front things like this aren't happening. He is the only common denominator in both of those crashes and both crashes started with him
I was remembering that when he caused the Turn 2/3 pileup this year in Toronto. Up until that point I missed Captain America...
It is always ultimately up to the drivers to race at a speed that is safe for them. If your car is loose, slow down to below crashing speed. But that's not how it happens in real life.
I’ve always been pro-NASCAR and couldn’t understand how “Bumps” could make somebody complain or even wreck - that being said. I raced Karts and Skip Barber in VR on my racing simulator at home. Holy shit. Pocono and 2nd configuration Atlanta Motor Speedway is unbearable in Indycars
As someone who took himself out of racing entirely because of how badly he screwed up his back in a shifter kart earlier this year, I can confirm that the bumps are just too much for IndyCars to run safely there.
Watched this from the stands and wanted to hop the fence and go strangle whoever decided to go three wide at the same damn spot on the first damn lap. Never been that angry at a race before.
We really need to go back to Pocono
Indy is in desperate need of ovals. Especially larger ovals. Indycar mishandled Pocono, set the stage for a major accident and then axed it in a knee jerk reaction when that accident came to pass. Imagine if the Indy 500 had to be run with no practice and no qualification and then ask yourself if Pocono is unsafe or if Indycar dropped the ball. Any of the accidents seen at Pocono could just as easily happen here at Indy (I live here lol). Hell this year we saw a tire fly out of the track and in 2015 Hinch got impaled in his own car. It's terrible to see these accidents happen but at the same time that's part of competing in a top tier open wheel racing league. It doesn't matter where you are or what you do, it will be dangerous
We desperately need more ovals, we desperately need large ovals and we really should take a hard look at returning to Pocono as it's hands down one of the best
One thing that no one ever likes to comment on is the aggression of modern drivers when attempting a daring pass. The reason I'm bringing this up is that it seems that in every motorsports discipline, the cars have gotten drastically safer (Michael McDowell's Texas qualifying crash anyone?) and any crash has a very high rate of survival with no or minor injuries, and as such the drivers can take more chances knowing that they are much safer than their forbearers. There is no solution to this, but it makes me wonder if the Indy Roadster drivers in their cars would take anywhere near the chances that modern drivers do. No blame is being placed here, and safety continues to improve and save lives (as it should), but it is food for thought.
with the cars safety now, they all 10 foot tall and bullet proof and the quality of the driving has gone to sh*t. look at this years 500. it was a fkn stock car race with dive bombs, wheel banging, chop blocks and mirror driving in open wheel cars.
As a Marylander and someone who regularly goes to Baltimore for Orioles games, yes bring back Indy to the streets for the love of god
Salem, NJ is my hometown, and NJMP in Millville is a 30-35 minute drive... Hey Indycar, gimme the Grand Prix of New Jersey!
The drivers don’t respect the race track or each other for that matter. We see the same thing in nascar at every plate race. Ask Mario Andretti what he thinks about running 5 wide into turn 2 at Pocono. There’s being brave and there’s being stupid.
Good video! if they bring back the Baltimore street race I will 1000% go
I went to the Indy 500 last, most boring day I ever spent at a race track….ever. Indy car racing sux.
Here are my thoughts on Pocono. Narrow down the front stretch to prevent the 5 wide stuff. Make a pit lane that starts before "what turn 4" so ANY race cars wont hit a pit wall. Lastly, the final turn should be reworked...maybe a little bit narrower or a bit more banking.
I was at the 2018 and 2019 Pocono races - 2018 was the darkest day I ever had as a motorsport fan; the atmosphere there was as if we had just watched 9/11 all over again. I remember the collective gasp from everyone at the track, and you immediately knew that something *really bad* had just happened. I remember leaving that day, not knowing much about Wickens’ condition, thinking to myself if I had just watched a man die for my entertainment. It’s a terrible thing to see, and it’s a terrible thing to realize that the costs of this sport can be so high and so absolute. It has always been and will always be, but to see it happen right in front of you really changes how you see things.
With the proper investment from IndyCar, Pocono could be reconfigured as a road course, I feel. I’ve driven Formula 2000 there on a few occasions, and, while very basic and clearly relics of a bygone era, the infield courses could be rehabbed and expanded, incorporating parts of the triangle as well, and we could then still have a race in the Northeast. Until then, though - if ever it may happen - Pocono, though missed on the calendar, does kinda live on in infamy.
Indycar did not return to Pocono due attendance, sponsorship, and other business related matter according to a Q&A with Igdalsky during one of the nascar weekends since then.
The rest of this comment are my OPINIONS:
I went to all the races since Indycar's return to Pocono in 2013. There was a short span of years (2015-2017) where indycar had some of the best races I've ever seen. It was reflected at other ovals too (indy,auto club,texas) but the racing was far too dangerous with that package at some of those tracks (Auto Club / Texas) due to pack racing. For Indianapolis and Pocono, it was the perfect package. Non pack racing, yet you were able to set up someone about a half a lap ahead to get them on the straightaways. Since they changed the package in 2018, it was very difficult to get anywhere close to drivers who were clearly slower than them, even on fresh tires. This forced them to be super aggressive on restarts to get all they can get until they reached full racing speeds. Once they got past the first lap or two in 2018 and 2019, it seemed like you could catch up to another car if yours was faster, but then stall out with the major aero push which led to relatively uneventful races. Again, my opinion, but i believe those crashes (2018/2019) were the result of super aggression on starts/restarts due to the package Indycar was running. Yes, there would be aggression on restarts 2015-2017 regardless, but many would backout before a corner because passing didnt seem impossible. I'm completely leaving out JW's accident since that was an open cockpit issue that open wheel series have been gambling with for as long as they've existed. I am very happy that has been addressed. Now with that said, i believe walls should be much higher, at least in corners, to prevent cars from ending up there at any track that uses catch fences on ovals. Or at the least for Indycar, have something that could be placed in front of the fence, supported by the fence, that would act more like a wall to prevent the "grabbing, shredding, and pinwheeling" of the cars if they were to get atop the safer barrier.
If indycar goes to Richmond I'll by my ticket in a heartbeat I live an hour away from the track and Ive never seen a indycar at the track nor been at a race in person
The sad part is before COVID it was looking like it might happen. Not sure if they've tried again since.
Because of this track Indycar will not add any more ovals faster than Iowa. Its fucked the sport forever.
Is It oficial?
Dan Wheldon's death is what pretty much destroyed oval racing's reputation in Indycar.
@@crystaljon I say it costed randy bernard his future in a job he had no business doing in the first place.
They just raced at Gateway and that's a 1 1/4 and its much faster than Iowa!
I do miss this race I only live 20 miles away
You touched on it, but yes Indycar needs a much farther reach to their east coast fans, having only 1 east coast race in the mid west coast of Florida is cool for the locals but it's not good for everyone else.
Ferrucci has never impressed me. He seems to have speed if the car is good, but he acts as if he's the only one on the track most times. Also, he seems to be worried more about his physical looks and getting noticed than he is about getting a good result for a race. If his car's not good, he can't seem to help it, so he seems to just go through the motions. I've heard his feedback to the mechanics isn't that good either, which is part of his car issues. He needs to go to a lesser series. I'd suggest dirt-track midget racing.
The other part was that this was the third major wreck. There was the death just a couple of years before.
I was at all of the Indycar races at Pocono and leaving the grandstands that afternoon just felt like it was the end. I've seen races from 96 to 04 in Nazareth a couple of them in Richmond and these. Maybe Dover could possibly host Indycar again like back in the late 90s.
Indycar’s schedule feels soul-less without the big speedways. We run Indy, we run Texas, so what’s the problem with Pocono and Michigan???
Money. Neither one did much and once ISC's sweetheart deal with IndyCar expired in 2009ish where to get tickets to NASCAR races at their tracks you had to buy IRL tickets as well, everything dried up within 2 years. And as long as Roger Penske is the promotor of the Detroit Grand Prix, Michigan isn't coming back unless someone like HyVee comes in as a promotor and pays IndyCar.
You aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer if you can’t comprehend why Indycar doesn’t race at those tracks (at least considering the cars now). Doesn’t feel good does it? Remember what bs you said to me in a WEC comment post about the quali format? Serves you right
@@ic3man 😴😴
That's a shame. I was at the very first Indycar (USAC at the time I believe) race at Pocono. It was the 1971 Schaefer 500 (which was interesting because Pocono failed to get its liqueur license and thus could not sell beer). It was won by the late Mark Donohue, who met his demise not at Pocono, but at Red Bull Ring in 1975 (present name) in an F1 race. Its configuration features three distinct corner types, the only big oval to do so. Barriers and pavement get upgraded all the time. I believe Pocono could as well. Please God, not another blankety blank street circuit!
i hate street races also but the,y draw the fans, its so easy to go downtown to watch a race, with all the ovals in the country yet Indy car don't race there, i liked Tony George's attempt to make Indy car a oval series but the 25-8 rule at the Indy 500 destroyed Indy car racing that was 1996 an it not recovered!
Maybe it's worth a shot to go to PittRace? Granted it's a terrible spectator track, but the layout is dramatic. The biggest question is safety.
why not use the Road Course inside... might be fun?
I Don’t Know but the old timers seemed to make it around the track in the 1970 80s. I Don’t think you can blame it on the speed of the cars of today either. The Drivers of the past were a different breed for sure.
Cars were less equal back then.
I am going to get some stick for this but for me Pocono isn't really a natural oval. It is more like a very wide very boring road course which can be raced flat out. Now what they could do is set up some extra turns and chicanes because there is room especially on the front straight. There would still be plenty of overtaking oportunities.
Great video btw
POV: you love logistics and are bored by auto racing. One day the owner of the company bestows a great honor on you. You'll be giving the command at the company's largest event of the year!
You have a few places around you. Watkins Glen. Cleveland airport. All deserving of an IndyCar revival. Unfortunately they aren’t going to go back to places where the fans didn’t show up
i agree i live in upstate n.y. they tried Indy car at the Glen nobody showed up!
No wonder why it's called "The Tricky Triangle"
Dude I would have never guessed that you are 1 year out of highschool.
I’ll add this at 15:50
We should wait for the new cars in 2027, because the IR-18 isn’t safe at Pocono
I was there I remember the first lap crash and the thunder
Pocono Raceway is only about 3 hours away from where I live, it’s a shame cause there’s nothing else even remotely close and I love IndyCar, although I get that it’s dangerous and driver safety is above all else. Next closest is 8 hours away.
How did u know it is the afternoon?! 😝
This was a great documentary of what killed Indy racing at Pocono. Too bad.
Pocono definitely isn't the place for indycar anymore, with that being said we still need to return to a few more speedways
Pocono has ALWAYS been a dangerous track for all racing series. It’s ruined the lives of so many contenders and the track owners never seemed to care. If they bulldozed the facility, I’d be satisfied.
ruined the lives of who?
Robert Wickens, Justin Wilson, Don Pratt, Bobby Allison, Davey Allison, Steve Park, Kurt Busch…just to start off the list.
@@indyxpbullion2422 LOL I knew it. wickens? blame rhr. wilson? blame karam. Don Pratt? that was during ROC on the small track. Bobby? Jocko. Davey? Darrell. Park? who sent him? and Kurt because that toy nascar is sh*t. You forgot Troy Ruttman Jr. which was a stuck throttle. Now Ill ask again, the track ruined who?
@@CrewGuyPJ wow, you seem to have about as much sympathy as the track promoters.
@@indyxpbullion2422 no I lay blame where it should be instead of blaming a surface. its how its driven.
Plan a trip to what ever race .
Well, Indycar leaving Pocono is a bad omen. But I would go to Indianapolis for an indycar race.
I think I heard some frank zappa at the beginning of chapter 3 lol
Great video ...
as an outsider to this channel may i suggest more descriptive titles? if it werent for the race name in the title i wouldnt have clicked this video
From what I've heard, the reason IndyCar doesn't return to Baltimore is because the businesses don't want the race back. But, yes, IndyCar needs a race in the Northeast or mid-Atlantic more than a race in the Northwest (and that's coming from a Seattleite).
It was Baltimore being Baltimore. It somehow didnt make money despite it being completely packed both years I went. This we had a we bit of corruption there.
Plus I know the Baltimore Ravens were pretty outspoken about it cuz one year they were the defending Super Bowl champs and with that you get to have a national audience first home game of the year to unveil your banner...but cuz the stadium was inside the track they had to start the year on the road and the team and players were pretty outspoken about it...that was pretty much the death knell for that race...even tho they should have just moved it elsewhere on the schedule
I suspect this wouldn't even be a topic of conversation if it didnt rain on what seems like 75% of race weekends there. Its a shame because unique tracks should be in the big shows.
Now I haven’t watched many commands, but that’s the worst I have ever seen
No official reason was ever given for why Pocono was dropped from the IndyCar calendar.
It almost seems counter intuitive but the sheer width of the track was its problem. Going 5 wide will end in tears if one car gets in trouble because multiple cars get pulled in to that accident.
The only way a wide track can be safe is if the corners are tight enough to need more downforce.
Its definitely unique but I think in the end leaving was prudent. Too many bad accidents.
That said there is a road course configuration at the venue they could use.
If they stop racing at pocono then they might as well stop racing at indy as well because pocono is indy with one less turn