How Indy's road course gamble paid off

Last Friday afternoon in Indianapolis, it began to rain - and Twitter went briefly mad.

Qualifying for IndyCar's inaugural race on the IMS road course had just started, but if the burst of fan-generated images that appeared on the track's official Twitter feed was any guide then the sporting spectacle had taken a back seat to a more tangible one: the huge rooster tails pluming out behind the cars as they hammered down a soaked main straight.

The long history of the Indianapolis 500 is a source of immense pride in its home city, but that passion doesn't necessarily spill over to the rest of the IndyCar schedule.

For many, that single-mindedness has also created some pretty firm notions of what you can expect to see when you spend a day at the Brickyard, and the sight of cars racing in the rain is not on that list. At least, it wasn't until last week.

IndyCar and IMS came up with the idea of a race on the road course as a way to inject extra energy into the start of the Month of May, but a secondary objective was to remind the fans living in IndyCar's heartland - the series' corporate offices are directly across the road from the speedway - that IndyCars do a lot more than spend a couple of weeks turning left every year.

So while the rain was only a small part of the story of the weekend, and something that would barely have registered at all with regular fans of IndyCar, or Formula 1, or the British Touring Car Championship, or pretty much any other series that uses road courses, it was a neat symbol of just how groundbreaking an IndyCar race on the Indy road course was for many of those in the stands.

"I got a lot of feedback about the rain on Friday," IMS president Doug Boles told AUTOSPORT. "People were very surprised at how fast the cars ran in the rain, and how cool the rooster tails were.

"From my standpoint it would be great to have a full weekend where the weather was tremendous, but having that bit of rain on Friday, especially with this market where they're not used to cars doing anything in the rain, it helped to remind them that IndyCars can race in the wet."

Hunter-Reay demonstrated how tricky qualifying conditions were © LAT

That the crowd was excited by the prospect of standing on a hill for an hour getting soaked (Boles: "I was surprised at how many of them stood there in the rain so that they didn't miss anything") encapsulates a weekend overwhelmingly pervaded with a sense of excitement and goodwill.

Boles said final crowd figures are still being tallied, but he claims that pre-weekend predictions of 40,000 over the three days were comfortably exceeded.

Most of the main grandstand was closed, encouraging fans to make the most of the road course layout by sitting in stands at the first and last corners, and the spectator mounds and temporary stands within the infield.

The mounds in particular were visibly bustling on the first two days and jam-packed for the race. Indeed, the mound at Turn 2/3 proved so popular that it's now being considered for use for the 500.

"That mound was designed specifically for the road course, and an unexpected consequence is that it could become a really strong spectator point for the 500 as well," Boles said.

"But the thing that I heard the most from our fans was just how entertaining the race was, and how much fun it was to see so many corners on the track. For a lot of people that came, it was their first road race. Some had been here for F1, but very few had seen IndyCars race on a road course."

The feel-good vibes carried over into the paddock too, which marked a significant departure from the scepticism that surrounded the event when it was first announced. A small degree of the criticism was the standard resistance that accompanies any sort of change, but Boles believes the success of the event answered its more strident doubters.

"The criticism from the hardcore race fan was whether we could make a proper road course, and I think we did a pretty good job of that," he said.

"Then there is the traditionalist group - which in some way I count myself as a member of - that struggles with the idea that we're running a race on the road course, and furthermore, that we're doing it in May.

"But every time I had the opportunity I'd explain to them the business reasons behind it, and that the purpose is to elevate the month of May, which is ultimately going to make the Indy 500 stronger.

Drivers praised the revised infield layout © LAT

"Even those folks that struggled with it and came out against it... I ran into a couple of them and they said, 'You know what? The number of people here, and the energy level here... we get it now'.

"I'm sure we still have some folks that aren't on board yet, but I think for the most part we've let people know that we're going to protect the brand of the Indianapolis 500, and we think this is a great way to start the month of May."

There were few complaints from the teams. Andretti Autosport's Michael Andretti believes the fans will be the final judge of the event's success, but said that it was an easy fit for teams like his.

"As a race track, they've done a great job," he said. "For me as an owner it's a good race to have - it is very cost-effective for us to be here; it's our hometown race and it's quite easy. It's not a big deal to get the cars turned around for Indy 500 practice the next day. Logistics-wise, we like it."

And the layout, which was completely rebuilt from its previous F1 iteration, proved to be popular with the drivers.

"For us it's been a real pleasure to be back at this place, starting the month a little bit earlier," said Scott Dixon. "They did a fantastic job on the track: one, with the grip level, and two, with the long straights and big braking zones."

Rookie Mikhail Aleshin was equally enthusiastic. "I really like this track, it's amazing," he said. "Very smooth, very nice. Nice curving, nice configuration... it's interesting. There are definitely good places to overtake."

And for a neutral observer? In the case of this writer, any claim to neutrality is not being entirely honest. I had doubts about the series' motives for racing on the IMS road course, doubts about how good the track would be; even doubts about the wisdom of calling it the 'Grand Prix of Indianapolis', considering the memories that combination of words could evoke for anyone who was there in 2005.

And I was swiftly proven wrong. The extent to which the event achieves its aim of boosting the Indy 500 will only become apparent with time, but even without taking that into account, last weekend proved that the IMS road course is a worthy addition to the IndyCar calendar in its own right.

The atmosphere was excellent, the racing spectacular, and the organisation flawless. IndyCar's not above the occasional misstep, but along with IMS, it absolutely nailed this.