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It’s hard not to have close racing when the cars, engines, and tires are identical…but is it really that interesting ? Isn't it lacking a bit of soul? (Photo: Getty Images) » More Photos
The competitive sport of auto racing was born from a desire by manufacturers to demonstrate their engineering and design superiority. Fast forward one hundred years, and we find the slow adoption of spec racing series in the 1990's has now grown to an alarming proliferation of spec series that dominate almost every category of professional racing on the national and international level. This near-universal adoption of spec cars and spec thinkers draws precious little inspiration from auto racing's origins.
Think you can build a better rear wing? Not allowed. Concerned the rear anti-roll bar doesn't offer a wide enough range of adjustment? Deal with it. Want to tighten the waistline of your car's sidepods to eek out an aero advantage? Prepare for a lifetime ban.
Almost without exception, the modern racing series, auto manufacturer, and fan have allowed a 'dumbing down' and disallowance of innovation from racing teams and constructors with the rampant explosion of spec series. For the racing purist, traditionalist, or those that knew what racing was like before everything started looking the same, I can only hope a growing sense of disgust is forming.
The collective loss of hard earned, hand worn engineering design skills have been sacrificed on countless shop floors for the assembly kit cars. The list of major racing series that have sold their souls is ever increasing: ChampCar, ChampCar Atlantic, Daytona Prototype, IRL, Indy Pro Series, GP2, A1GP, Formula BMW, Formula Renault, World Series by Renault, Star Formula Mazda...
The only new things we hear about from these series are the drivers that come and go on an annual basis. Even NASCAR, long the bastion for bent rules and dozens of weekly chassis inventions, has called and end to team's freedom with the advent of their uniformly built 'Car of Tomorrow.' Even NASCAR is teetering on the fence of becoming a spec-series. Oh, wait, I think that happened a while ago.
The argument for spec series is a familiar one: "It promotes close racing while keeping costs under control." Yes�good point�never thought of that�mandating a field of identical cars has indeed shown a high likelihood of delivering close racing�
An alarming number of racing fans only care only for close racing action. Somewhere, the spirit of auto racing innovation and creativity got lost in the mix… (Photo: Getty Images) » More Photos
As for cost control, the physical bits are indeed controlled and many series have gone so far as to limit open test days, but the overall budgets haven't diminished � those funds have simply moved from developing new parts on the shop floor to developing new setups with simulation software or on 7-posters.
Taking a quick look across the various major racing series that use spec cars, have their budgets really gone down that much? Isn't the degree of cost savings measured by how many new entrants join a series, or how many teams can afford to add additional cars? Car counts aren't exactly overflowing in most of the major spec series.
It forces us to ask ourselves what we consider to be important in auto racing. Is it the looks of the cars? The technologies they're made of? The quality of racing? The innovations and advancements? The sounds?
At its core, auto racing is an intrinsically human sport � the more influence and personal touch a fan or crew member can have with a machine, the more rewarding the involvement. The ability to express and implement ideas is the main draw form most people to any profession; motorsports is no different. What happens when that human touch becomes so diminished that racing team personnel become little more than nut and bolt herders?
The age of revered designers is gone, for the most part. Racing fans used to know the names of the men that built their favorite Indycars, Sportscars, and everything in between. Who designed the latest ChampCar? The current IRL cars? GrandAm Daytona Prototypes? Me neither. No clue. While their work took thousands
I grew up in feeder series like Super Vee, Formula Atlantic, and IMSA GTP � all places where the competition on the shop floor to out think and out build our competitors proved as fierce as the actual races on track.
Depending on what series I was working in, I'd travel hours and hours on an off weekend to pay to see a GTP race, or an Atlantic race, or anything else that was diverse, real, and unpredictable. I've made very few of these trips in the past decade.
It saddens me to think of the young driver that's never been asked to test a new rear wing, wide track front suspension, diffuser, or exhaust header. The same sorrow is felt for the young mechanics and technicians that are barred by rules to even create such new bits for their drivers to try. The art of refining the work of others is all we're left with. It's painting by the numbers. It's remixing, at best.
What we're now seeing the effect of is a culture of young crew members, engineers, and fabricators that are locked into such a narrow window of adventure, the spirit to explore, to out-build and out-design, has atrophied and withered from the DNA of the sport.
But what's to be done? Clearly, the spirit of 'status quo' has overcome the spirit of unbridled competition, and it has gone on for so long now, we've almost forgotten what it's like to go see a series filled with cars that take our collective breaths away. Voting with one's wallet or Nielsen ratings is the best measure I can think of. Until the spec series decide to open up their formula for chassis, engine, and tire competition, I'll probably click over to watch Soapbox Derby racing.
It's sad that a father and son can build a racer out of wood in their garage, but grown men with millions of dollars choose to regulate themselves into a corner where all they can do is buy a kit car to fight with other millionaires. Knowing that these millionaires likely did everything but follow the rules in order to make their millions and then choose to spend it in an arena where they have nothing but rules to follow is rather amusing, isn't it?
But all isn't lost. Formula One and the American Le Mans Series are the last strongholds of creative freedom, but even F1 has decided engines, ECU's, Tires, wind tunnels, and a number of other aspects of its show must be regulated or assimilated. For many of us, what's being raced is as important as the racing spectacle itself. There's a reason the non-spec series fill the grandstands, and why the major spec series appear to race amongst themselves without concerns of people coming to watch them.
It's the difference between a musician writing and performing his own music or being forced to perform with lyrics and music written by others. It's McLaren MP4-4 vs. Dallara-Honda. It's Audi R10 TDI vs. Doran-Ford. It's acoustic vs. techno. It's Jimi Hendrix vs. Britney Spears.
What's your choice?
Marshall Pruett is Automotive Editor for SPEEDTV.com. Pruett also covers Sportscar racing and provides other features and commentary. Marshall grew up at "Pruett's Olde English Garage," his father's shelter for abused foreign cars, and spent his childhood being dragged across the West Coast to help with his dad's amateur racing exploits. A rather predictable fascination with cars and working for racing teams soon followed.
He's since retired from that career in motorsports, but continues to build street cars and race cars for a variety of auto manufacturers. He can be reached at marshall.pruett@speedtv.com
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SpeedTV.com, FOX, NewsCorp, Haymarket Worldwide, or Speed Channel
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