At Texas Motor Speedway, IndyCar CEO and the members of the Indy Racing League's ICONIC Advisory Committee held a press conference to discuss the dramatic new direction for the league's 2012 engine strategy. Here is a transcript:RANDY BERNARD: The past two months have been pretty exciting and pretty telling. About two and a half months ago we decided one of the biggest decisions that IndyCar would make in this decade would be their next car. One of the first things we felt would be very important would bring some of the top minds in our industry together to allow them to help in this process.
I can tell you we looked at over a hundred people for this committee and I'm very proud of the folks that we picked for it. I can tell you they've worked very hard. Their opinions have not always been the same but they've come to some great conclusions so far we believe.
I'd like to first start out by introducing our folks here:
Gil de Ferran is the representative that the team owners have chosen. We felt it very important to let the team owners have some say in this matter, so they selected Gil.
Brian Barnhart is the president of operations and competition for IndyCar, as well as Tony Cotman, who wrote the rules for Champ Car.
Eddie Gossage is known as the best promoter in IndyCar.
Also we brought in General Bill Looney, I felt it was very important to this process as a moderator. I think that one thing that we wanted to make sure is we were -- I wanted somebody with high integrity, someone that had tremendous credibility. As a four-star general in the United States Air Force, one of his last jobs was to modernize the United States Air Force aircraft and he had to deal with a lot of the same issues we had to deal with: speed, technology, innovation. I felt that General Looney would be a great person to have moderate this.
I also want to say that this process has been a very diligent one. Our time process has been very short because there isn't a lot of time. There's been debate, but there's been decisions.
We feel it's very important to maintain our position as the fastest and most versatile racing car in the world. We want to pose relevant challenges to which the automotive industry faces today.
We will leave here this evening after the race and fly to Indianapolis where the next three days we will sit down with all the chassis manufacturers and listen to their presentations and deliberate through the first part of this week.
At this time I'd like to turn it over to Gil de Ferran.
GIL de FERRAN: Thank you, Randy.
Well, first of all, it's very nice to be here in Texas. This was the scene of my last IndyCar race. Brian probably remembers. So it's great to be back here in Texas. I'd also say for me it's certainly been a great honor to serve our sport in the capacity I've been asked to do by my fellow team owners. Certainly very interesting and enriching process for me, no question, throughout.
I think throughout this whole thing, there were certainly some key themes that we tried to keep as main values for this engine strategy. As Randy already said, you know, the matter of speed was certainly a very important one, and to have a powerful engine platform I think in keeping with the tradition of IndyCar values was very important.
Bringing innovation and diversity back into IndyCars we also felt was very important, as well as also being cost-effective. So I think with this new strategy, we were able to accomplish all of these goals. On that, I'll pass it on to Brian.
BRIAN BARNHART: Good afternoon, everybody. The basic idea was to announce the principles and strategy for the future engine specifications and declare IndyCar's commitment to diversification. Several details remain to be determined. We didn't want to establish criteria that prematurely eliminated any manufacturers who we felt the IndyCar Series would be a great platform to showcase their automotive technology.
We feel developing the rules in conjunction with the automotive manufacturers is a more rational approach. We feel it's more inclusive and welcoming rather than creating a rules package that is an obstacle to participation.
We listened to fans, we listened to the participants, and particularly to the owners and the drivers and the manufacturers. While there was no clear consensus on the direction to reinvent the IndyCar Series itself, there was one overriding clear mandate, and that's to make the series attractive for manufacturers to enter and bring back the variety to the engine and the chassis for manufacturers participating in the series.
As we announced this earlier this week, the engine rules will accommodate engines with a maximum of six cylinders, with an engine capacity of maximum at 2.4-liter displacement. The engines will range in power from 550 horsepower to 700 horsepower to suit the diverse set of tracks that the IZOD IndyCar Series races on. And the engines will be turbocharged to allow for the flexibility in this power range.
In keeping in the IZOD IndyCar Series brand value of green, they will continue to run on ethanol. That's the direction we announced on it.
I'll turn it over to Tony Cotman.
TONY COTMAN: Just have a couple of key points that I want to add to what Gil and Brian have already said.
We feel the engine strategy we've chosen is open, inclusive, powerful, high performance in keeping with all of the historical values of IndyCar racing, allow for development of relative, innovative platform for the future.
Looking at efficiency, performance, durability, quality, environmental friendliness, those are all key things we really need to consider and wanted to consider in the future. Obviously one of the most difficult things is trying to determine the right formula for the wide variety of tracks that the IndyCar Series runs on.
EDDIE GOSSAGE: My role in this committee, as you look, you see these gentlemen are all very technical in nature. My expertise is in the marketing, promotion, whatnot, of the sport. I think that's put me in touch with the fans. That's what Randy and I have talked about from the beginning. Last week at Indianapolis and just an hour or so ago here in Texas we held fan forums and gave the fans a chance to tell us what they wanted to see here from an IndyCar.
A transcript of last week's fan forum was sent to all the committee members. A transcript of today's forum will be sent to each of the committee members so they can see what the fans have said.
The thing we hear from them is the tracks, they want great performance, they expect high-quality performance out of the Indy Racing League, and certainly our experience here at the Texas Motor Speedway, the Indy Racing League has set the bar very high.
In looking at the engine combination, formula, we realized we wanted to maintain the speeds on the ovals and increase the speeds on the road courses. That's how we wound up in part and how we wound up with the formula that we've got. But I think this group has done a great job discussing and debating and finding common areas to get along on this engine formula. That's where we're at.
I'll turn it over to the general.
GENERAL LOONEY: I'm the odd man out because I'm not really a subject matter expert in the sport of auto racing. However, I do have experience in acquisition, and I do have experience in the area of speed and danger since having been part of the Air Force flying community for 36 years.
Randy asked me if I'd help facilitate this group. It has been a real pleasure. I will tell you the conversations have been interesting; they've been free-wheeling. The opinions have been diverse. From what I saw, every avenue and issue was explored fully, and every idea, starting with concerns for the fans, to the speed on the track, to the safety for the drivers, etc. From my perspective, it's created quite a reasonable approach to an engine strategy that the manufacturers can work with, and now it's on to the chassis that we'll work with next week. Look forward to that.
Q. Gil, how did this go over with some of the other team owners? Some of them wanted a completely different type of engine regulation. GIL de FERRAN: Well, I will tell you across the board on the team owners, I made a point of speaking to a lot of them personally and trying to understand their opinions. The team owner group is a very diverse one itself.
It's interesting that one of the two, I would say two key things that came across, that were common across the board, were that they all I think desired to some extent a level of participation for different engine manufacturers. I think that was a key point. And the other key point was the issue of being more cost-effective. So those were the two thoughts that I certainly carried with me into the committee.
Q. Randy? RANDY BERNARD: Well, I think when Gil was placed as the representative from the team owners, one of the first things he did, which I was very impressed with, was his extensive questionnaire that he gave to all the team owners. Some of them answered it impeccably well, and there were probably 10 or 15 pages worth of answers to those questions.
But I think that Gil has reached out to the team owners. I think the team owners will be very happy when they see the end result.
Q. Brian and Tony, how closely are you planning to monitor the engines? Provided we have multiple manufacturers, how close do you expect them to say before you start instituting rules? Is 10 horsepower close enough, or do you expect the engines to be exactly equal to keep somebody from getting ahead? BRIAN BARNHART: I think some of that depends on the racetrack you're on, too. We run places like here at Texas that are more a drag-limited type of racetrack and the horsepower differential is very important around here. It's less so at some of the road and street courses that we run at.
I don't know that we have a specific number in mind or a target other than we feel an obligation and a priority to make sure that we maintain a level playing field and the performance parameters are met and maintained.
Q. Brian, you said there were some things about the rules you've not decided yet. What about like cost, lease to own? Where are you with a couple of those things? Independent builders? BRIAN BARNHART: We're going to probably stay in the same area that we are now and the engines will continue to be leased. The biggest reason for that, certainly anticipating manufacturer competition, is the protection of intellectual property.
The priority has been mentioned sitting up here, there is a focus from the owners to reduce the cost of participation. I think it's going to be a mandate by us when manufacturers sign on that there will be a significant reduction in those costs to participate. The leasing will continue on it.
Q. The other part I wanted to say, Honda's Erik Berkman didn't think any other manufacturer could be onboard before 2012. Is that what you say? BRIAN BARNHART: The principles and strategies are written that someone could be. They've got three or four remaining months they could still notify for participation by 2012. It's our intention certainly, now that the strategies and principles have been announced, to continue. The burden is on us to attract manufacturers to the series. Now that we've got the general principles and strategies out there, we're going to continue to make contact with multiple manufacturers out there. We've had some ongoing dialogue. Certainly there's been some interest generated by what has been put out publicly right now. It will be a matter of hammering out those details and attracting somebody. Whether or not that can be done by '12 or not, I don't know.