Michael Knight

Special for azcentral sports

IndyCar almost certainly will be back at Phoenix International Raceway for the third consecutive year in 2018, likely in early April.

Saturday night’s crowd was roughly comparable to last year’s 18,500, as estimated by azcentral sports. That was not profitable and the absence of noticeable improvement is a disappointment. The race was shifted to late April to avoid conflicting with the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four in Glendale.

“I fully expect IndyCar to return next year,” PIR President Bryan Sperber said.

“We would like to see growth,” IndyCar CEO Mark Miles said. “We don't put a number on it. We hope to see steady progress. We didn't do this with a 1, 2 or 3 year outlook.

“We want Bryan to be happy. As long as Bryan wants to do it, over the next several years, we expect to be here.”

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Perhaps the biggest drag on meaningful attendance increase is the dearth of well-known “name” drivers – the kind who sell tickets. Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan, the series’ two most popular, are in their 40s and nearing retirement. Younger, talented drivers like Graham Rahal and James Hinchcliffe are aware they need to pro-actively promote themselves and the series, but results are mixed.

Miles’ job as CEO came with two mandates that aren’t necessarily compatable. He was hired as CEO in December 2012 to maximize profits at the Hulman-George-family-owned Indianapolis Motor Speedway and stop the series from losing money. His departmental reorganizations, cost-cutting, and creating new revenue streams has shown a single-minded focus on the bottom line, sometimes at the expense of some long-established Speedway traditions and customs.

Meanwhile, team owners – who have seen their sponsorships shrink or disappear along with IndyCar’s popularity – told Miles the highest priority was to increase the races’ TV audience. While there has been some uptick on cable, from an admittedly low base, it was a near head-on crash that ABC’s network viewership for last year’s much-hyped 100th Indianapolis 500 actually declined vs. 2015.

Miles says he has “invested” to help make his athletes more mainstream. But there have been few obvious meaningful results to increase national media coverage. Last year’s golden opportunity to re-establish more consistent season-long race coverage because of the historic 100th Indy 500 seems to have been mostly wasted, for, among other reasons, less-media friendly IMS practices.

Miles hasn’t been able to bring stalwart supporters like Honda, Firestone and Chevrolet together to create more-unified advertising and marketing campaigns on behalf of the series.

Miles, the former ATP men’s tennis chief executive and chairman of Indianapolis’ 2012 Super Bowl, says “the better known our athletes are, the better it is for the sport. You can't do enough to have drivers better known. People want to root for somebody, to have that connection, to a driver.

“But we don't have $100 million to advertise.”

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Current TV contracts with ABC and NBCSN end after 2018. Miles’ stated goal is to have all the races on one network. Also expiring is the series’ entitlement sponsorship with Verizon, which is coming off a week of highly negative business media stories, based on hundreds-of-thousands of lost customers in the most recent quarter.

What IndyCar will have to offer next year is new bodywork common to all teams, eliminating the debacle of the Honda and Chevy-specific aero kits used this year and last. Rahal describes renderings he’s seen as “sexy” and “more like the IndyCars we grew up with.”

Safety first

There was lots of head-shaking in the IndyCar paddock earlier this year when NASCAR announced its “industry-leading medical standards” would now include adding a traveling doctor and paramedic.

IndyCar, first with USAC and then CART, has had such a capability since the late 1970s. The series’ current Holmatro Safety Team is considered the best in motorsports, with a minimum 18 team members at each event, including a trauma and orthopedic physician, two paramedics, 12 firefighters/EMTs and two registered nurses. Holmatro has four specifically designed and equipped rescue vehicles.

Hinchcliffe, whose life was saved after he crashed at Indianapolis in 2015, said: “Knowing that group is there, it helps you sleep at night. You see that large orange truck pull up, something kind of tells you it’s going to be OK. It’s massively comforting.”

USAC success

Bobby Santos’ exciting win in the Silver Crown race, passing leader David Byrne with eight laps to go in the Copper Cup 100, made USAC’s return to PIR for the first time since 2009 a good addition to the IndyCar weekend.

“The last 40 laps I was not liking the yellows (caution) flags,” said Santos, who started on the pole. “I needed a few laps to get into a rhythm and get to him (Byrne). I really believe it’s all about timing to pass here. I didn’t think it was too difficult to pass, it was about me getting to his bumper.”

Kody Swanson passed Byrne for second place.

Early crash

Concerns of a slick Phoenix International Raceway track surface, perhaps due to incompatible tire rubber from the earlier USAC Silver Crown race, came true with a five-car Lap 1 Turn 1 indyCar crash at the start of Saturday evening's Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix.

Mikhail Aleshin, the No. 7 qualifier, lost control entering the corner and spun up toward the outer wall. Caught up in the hard wreck, and eliminated, were Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti, Sebastien Bourdais and Max Chilton. All were examined and released from PIR's infield medical center.

Aleshin, from Russia, said he wasn't sure if the rubber difference was the cause.

"When I started to turn-in the rear of the car went around," Aleshin said. "I couldn't do anything."

IndyCars race on Firestone tires. The rubber compound of the Hoosier tires used in Silver Crown is different.