Q: I have been an open-wheel racing fan all my life. I have followed CART, Champ Car, IRL, ICS for the past 20 years and lived through the highs and lows that have been so well documented and discussed in your columns. Living in the UK, it seems that access to the series on TV has probably been easier than in the US. All the races go out on one channel with a high quality studio team that do great analysis and generally have some top notch studio guests. In the past both CART and IndyCar had international feeds where the commentary was aimed at the international audience. In Champ Car we had Jeremy Shaw who was buddied up with various others over the years, most notably Leigh Diffey one year and then a certain up and coming Atlantics driver by the name of James Hinchcliffe. In IRL/IndyCar we had Larry Rice and Gary Lee. The advantage of this was that in the UK we have far fewer ad breaks than in the US and the commentary continued throughout the race whereas now we have the studio presenters who cut in when the US goes to a break. This makes the coverage very disjointed. Do you know if there is still an international feed that SKY TV choose not to take or is this an example of cost cutting in the series? I have nothing against the US feed in general - just interested really. Another question - why are the teams websites so poorly maintained. Many are out of date, do not list current drivers or sponsors and are generally pretty poor. I have just been through all the sites of the current teams. Top Marks go to AJ Foyt, Penske, Ganassi and Andretti for being up to date. KVRT is OK but the team history section stops at the end of 2011. Rahal has no mention of James Jakes or Mike Conway on its driver’s page. The Sarah Fisher biography on the SFH is two years out of date. Dale Coyne's site still lists James Jakes as a driver and has not been updated for ages. Dragon Racing does not even have a site! The series keeps moaning about lack of exposure and press coverage but these teams are doing nothing to help themselves. I want to be interested in the series but it is hard work and this should not be the case. The top brass at IndyCar need to have some kind of minimum standard for websites if it wants to be world class. Just my 2 cents worth...

Nigel Gear, Folkestone, Kent, UK

RM: Don’t know about TV in the UK but I will ask. As for websites, hopefully some of the PR folks will read this and do some updating.

Q: I wish they would tear out the IMS infield road course, so we could stop the stupid suggestions of IndyCar racing on it, once and for all. Put up a band shell or a couple more golf holes and be done with it – or better yet, some nice bathrooms!

Mark Suska, Mansfield, Ohio

RM: You are preaching to the choir my brother. Indy is famous for its oval and its speeds and we don’t want no stinkin’ road course race.

Q: Went to the Sonoma Test a week and a half ago. I was surprised by the number of race fans that showed up. A few things I learned. Sebastian Bourdais said he was still hurting from his crash here last year. And all the drivers that I talked with were not happy with the track and thought the changes made last year didn't really help make for more competitive racing. What if anything could Infineon do to improve IndyCar racing?

Gerry Courtney

RM: All the legendary road courses in the USA are too narrow (Mid-Ohio and Sonoma) or don’t have enough of a straightaway (Laguna Seca) and that’s because they were built 50-60-70 years ago. Elkhart Lake and Watkins Glen are the raciest but, unfortunately, no longer on the schedule. I give Sonoma props for trying to make things better. But there’s only so much you can do out there short of spending millions on a re-design.

Q: What's your take on NASCAR's crackdown on Denny Hamlin for raising what were some really very mild complaints about the COTT (car of tomorrow's tomorrow)? You're not even allowed to say that a new rules package needs further development after two races? Seriously? That sounds like an even more ridiculous version of what happened to you back at the Indy Star for not spouting enough IRL happy talk. I haven't had much use for NASCAR in 10 years or more, but these are the times I'm most baffled that anybody still gives these clowns the time of day.

Mike J, Jersey City, NJ

RM: The backlash from the fans would indicate they feel like you and I agree with Kyle Petty in that the punishment didn’t fit the crime. But, clearly, I was wrong back in the ‘90s because TG had a better vision and it’s worked out quite well. Hasn’t it?

Q: I'd like to make just one comment on the flack the report has been taking in the Mailbag. It's pretty clear to me that BCG isn't addressing IndyCar fans (the ones who watch Wind Tunnel and read the Mailbag) but rather those millions of sports fans who don't know squat about IndyCar. You don't need to sell to the hard-core racing fans. They're there anyway. What you have to do is raise the awareness of the hordes who might go to a race if they knew what the heck it was and where they could find one. And to do that you need to make a media splash, which is what most the recommendations were intended to do.

Chad Larson

RM: Good point, IndyCar got a lot of attention in a week it wasn’t racing so the leak really didn’t hurt.

Q: On the mailbag I see all sorts of suggestions from fellow readers but one thing in their naivety they fail to get it seems, is that it all comes down to M-O-N-E-Y. It's what makes motor racing tick and in case they haven't noticed, there ain't a great deal of it around anywhere nowadays. Times have changed and young people don't seem interested in cars or racing like we were in the '60s through the '80s. ... I can't remember the last time I saw someone in their 20s or 30s working on a car in the driveway or garage. As someone who first bellied up to the spectator fence at Brands Hatch in 1955 and has been hooked ever since, sadly I feel I am watching the death of IndyCar racing before my eyes and there's nothing we can do about it as it's now in the hands of people consumed purely by ego and greed. Thank goodness some of us were there for the glory days, though we didn't realize it at the time, and we have a rich history of the sport to enjoy. Not much in the way of a rich future I fear, that train has already pulled out of the station.

David M-K, Ottawa

RM: It’s tough to disagree with your theory. While I do think innovation would bring back some old fans and maybe put a couple more thousand in the grandstands on Pole Day but kids aren’t interested like we were. And when you don’t race for six months and don’t promote your American champion and don’t have all the sponsors to promote your product like NASCAR, it’s very difficult to get anybody’s attention.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED.

Robin Miller brings 40 years of experience to his role as SPEED.com's senior open-wheel reporter, and serves as a frequent contributor to SPEED Center and Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain.