http://www.motorsportretro.com/2011/05/indy500roadster/ Classic motorsport, cars, motorcycles and gear Thu, 23 May 2013 07:43:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.motorsportretro.com/2011/05/indy500roadster/comment-page-1/#comment-10436 Sandeep Banerjee Thu, 05 May 2011 11:14:30 +0000 http://www.motorsportretro.com/?p=17592#comment-10436 Not to mention, it ruined the excellent ladder system in place. You’d run midgets and sprint cars around dirt and pavement ovals to prepare yourself for driving the big roadsters on the national series. But once the rear-engine cars became the norm and then CART took over, you could either resort to Formula Atlantics or some other lower rung road course series or go to Europe and race in British Formula 3 or something like that as the skills from the traditional ladder system no longer transferred over, neither about the cars nor the tracks.

]]> http://www.motorsportretro.com/2011/05/indy500roadster/comment-page-1/#comment-10434 Sandeep Banerjee Thu, 05 May 2011 10:34:32 +0000 http://www.motorsportretro.com/?p=17592#comment-10434 I really feel American Open Wheel Racing lost its identity with the rear-engine craze. The roadsters took a lot of raw driving talent as there was no downforce and the car was more top-heavy. But the rear-engined cars with their low center of gravity and ease of piling on the downforce with wings and ground effects made it more and more about the car than the driver. Not to mention it opened the door for European technology (and soon drivers) to take over for the most part as, especially with the advent of CART, it was getting more and more like F1 Lite, what with the increasing number of road courses too.

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