Frankly you don’t NEED anything other then a trailer and you one car, but as you do this for a living you will want more things to increase the likelihood you will be able to compete and cars engines and such all break down so you will want spares. So yes you do need semi trucks full of stuff to ensure you are in the race otherwise you are out of business
Want, yes. Need, not really. (Depending on if you mean Champ car or Top Fuel.) It's not exactly SOP any more, but IMO, if you break, you shouldn't be able to rebuild in the pits; you should have to trailer it. If you burn a piston or something, okay, rebuild it; if you've thrown a rod, go home. (Unless you've done it in quals, & you've got until Sunday to get it done.) I do wonder if a one engine
per weekend rule for Pro &/or (especially) Fuel wouldn't be a really good idea.
As for leveling the playing field. Who would you want to be associated with Milka Duno (sp?) or Mario Andretti in his prime? Which team would you rather be associated with HausF1 or Mercedes? So now we have established that not all cars drivers and teams are equal so we know that sponsors are going to prefer one over the other
That's exactly the problem. Making it contingent on performance means Mario or Big or Force, or whoever, still gets
paid more at the end, because
they do better.
“I have to pay 10 million and I get some unknown Russian who has yet to finish in a Haus that has yet to qualify off the back row and you spend 10 million and get Hamilton in Merc? I don’t think so…"
I don't recall ever suggesting anything remotely like that...
So to even things out you have to pitch sponsorship all together.
I never said there should be no sponsor money at all. Just more-even access. Again, a contingency fund...
So now we need another source of money. And even F1 can’t pay for itself from only the TV contracts. Heck Football has other sources of revenue such as tickets, and selling things with the Logo on them and such to help pay the costs and even then the NFL teams are not all completely even in spending and growing up in Michigan I can promise you the NFL teams are not all on an even playing field.
NASCAR does it, too. AFAIK, so does NHRA. I have no problem with that. My question is, does that go into the points fund, or the purses, or just to the executives? It
should go back to the racers, IMO.
As noted, so long as you don't have
name sponsors, everybody gets access to the same pool of money, & whoever does best gets it. Nobody gets to
buy their way to a final-round win, & nobody good gets shut out by cheap sponsors. (As noted, it might actually
expand the number of sponsors, which would be good for drag racing, & NASCAR, too; it was a pretty big deal when Tide signed with Waltrip.)
So I don’t see a single professional sport in the world that A) pays for itself out of TV money only nor B) has a completely even money distribution and even if they did you still won’t get completely even teams
No, not completely even, ever. Just
closer to even. That makes the racing better, which will draw more fans, & generate more money. It will also (probably) encourage more entrants, because more people will feel like they've got a chance to win, & more of them
will have.
Now dont get me wrong you can do some things but they will have limited effect. Personly I want to change engine distribution. All engines from a manufacturer are (in my plan) sent into a FIA warehouse then when a Mercedes team needs a new engine one is chosen at random that way we know they will all run the same.
I'd be fine with that...except, in drag racing, how the engine's tuned governs traction, & traction is variable by lane, & pass to pass, so it's effectively impossible to run a spec engine. Unless you mean to
start with a spec engine (be it a KB or Donovan or whatever), & let the crew chief work his magic as the weekend goes on; I'd be fine with that.
As for IndyCar I think they should figure out how many laps a car can run full out and how long it takes to fill a car full of fuel. Then require pit stops 2 laps short of the distance and stops 2 secon longer then the fuel time. Thus no incentive to go slow. Dixon has won championships because he could drive a bit slower but save a TON of fuel… that is NOT good racing. And if course DP won her only race that way and probably half the 500s in the past 20 years were won that way.
So there are things you can do to even the playing field a bit but only a very little bit.
I don't see an advantage in carrying more fuel, nor (frankly) in pushing when it's not necessary. That's going to drive costs
up.