The IRL is trying to make me a NASCAR fan

After the snooze fest tonight, I'm actually looking forward to the Pocono "Why the hell is this terrible ass race 500 miles long?" 500. Who would have ever thought Texas Motor Speedway could produce such a terrible race? I said it several times on Twitter tonight: IndyCars on ovals are broken.

Tonight was not an aberration in 2009. Kansas was a boring race, Indy was a boring race, and Milwaukee was a slightly less boring race. What the hell happened to my beloved side-by-side racing? The kind of action that made me like IndyCars in the first place? The aerodynamics in these cars suck royally. And without any significant differences between the cars (like say, another engine), we get high-speed parades. When the series champion is calling you on your national television coverage (albeit to a very small mass of fans), that's a serious problem.

It's not just a problem for us bored hardcores. How is the series supposed to recruit new fans when there is nothing interesting to draw them in?

We don't see another high-speed oval until August. In the meantime, let's try and fix what's wrong with the races on them (or at least consider new things for 2010). First, rip the effin' fuel dials off the cars. Every race has the exact same pattern now: Green Flag, a few laps of dicing for position, then everybody sets the knob for fuel saving and files in for the parade. I get bored and flip around until I find Indonesian synchronized swimming championships or something. Repeat on every restart.

Also let everyone have varied wheelbases again. Clearly that experiment has been an EPIC FAIL. If teams can't afford extra parts, whatever. It's not like the current rules is seeing a Coyne car battling for the lead with the red guys.

And while we're at it, make the guy in the last pit box have to turn like everyone else. In the last two years there have been several races (the one coming right to my head is Edmonton) where somebody won because of that damn pit box. Even if you want to justify it as a "reward" for success, Helio wasn't deserving of it. And the less on-track passing we see, the more this will have an impact.

God I'm pissed. Can't wait for F1 tomorrow. At least there a leader's engine could blow and change everything, although if Button is leading it's not bloody likely. I'm rooting for Vettel though.