The Firestone Dual 275s on Saturday night left a lot to be desired.
I remember when I first heard about the idea that I was stoked about it, because, as a fan, it plays right into my court. Two short “sprints” with the starting grid for the second determined by a lottery.
Well, after changing my opinion of this shortly thereafter, my new opinion was clearly correct after watching the duals last night.
For starters, race number one had very little wheel-to-wheel racing because the drivers were worried about crashing their cars and putting their status for race number two in question. It was mostly follow who was in front of you (or for many drivers…get out of the way when Dario Franchitti is coming up to lap you).
What we as fans need to realize to is that these two races are part of the championship chase! How can you determine a starting grid for a points race by lottery. This isn’t like the Sprint Cup Series All Star Race.
Franchitti was livid last night not because he passed 21 or so cars in race number two, but because he lost points to his championship rival Will Power (who started 25 positions ahead of him).
The IZOD IndyCar Series cannot start running itself like NASCAR by doing these gimmicks. The league has to keep promoting itself based on the wheel-to-wheel racing it offers.
But, if Texas Motor Speedway and INDYCAR want to do this again next year, at least invert the finishing order of the first race to determine where people start for the second race.
Now that that is out of the way, I do want to quickly summarize what actually happened when they were racing.
The first dual was dominated, and I mean dominated, by Dario. And the only passing that occurred on the track was by the Flying Scotsman as he was lapping cars. Yes, the finish was pretty good because of the late caution bunching them up, but no one was beating Dario.
The second dual was won by Will Power, which is great because he gets the oval “monkey” off his back. He now knows he can win on an oval, which is dangerous for his fellow championship counterparts.