Yesterday IndyCar introduced the 2028 new race car in a tepid rollout introduction. I thought the renderings should have had a bigger deal made of it. A brief video featuring Matt Damon with a lot of clips of the current car racing wasn’t much of a debut.

As for the new car itself, I was hoping for something a bit more exotic, but I guess there is only so much that can be done to make the car both fast and safe. I do think the new car looks good. A lot of the bulkiness of the current machine is gone. The aeroscreen is the most notable improvement, as it has been integrated into the design. On the current car, where the screen was a retrofit add-on the head on view looked like a giant wastebasket sitting on the car.

The speedway version

The road course setup.

I see some elements of the Swift car that was one of the proposed cars for the 2012 cars. I thought the Swift was the best looking of all the candidates. It was sleek and looked fast.

The road course version has many Formula 1-like components with a lot of downforce.

The car is 100 pounds lighter than the current car thanks to the reduced weight of the aeroscreen, hybrid unit, and gearbox which means it should be faster. The series is talking about breaking the track record at IMS for the 500. That would be cool, but i am more interested in how it races. Will passing be less difficult- not easy, just less difficult? Will there be a smaller wake and less dirty air for the trailing car?

I am glad to see the LED panels back. I hope they have found a way to have them work consistently this time around. They aren’t much help during the race, especially on ovals, but I found them useful during caution periods when you could read them to reset the field.

The window on the rear cover which allows a view of the engine is nice while the car is standing still for exposure. Perhaps it will provide for some interesting camera shots to give each OEM a little more screen time.

A roomier cockpit will accommodate different body types and may prevent some injuries which taller drivers have been subject to, like Stefan Wilson’s back injury last year.

My biggest complaint is that as nice as the new car looks, it is more spec than the DW12 and its iterations. The IR-238 comes with spec dampers, taking away a team’s development of their own dampers. It was virtually the last area remaining for a team to make their car different from its competitors. I hope IndyCar opens up an area of the car to provide e3ach team an opportunity for some uniqueness.

Overall, I like the look of the car. It is sleeker and seems narrower than the current racer. My concern is not setting track records, but how well does it race. Will we see close competition? We have a long way to go to find out the answers to this and many other quesstions.

Testing for the IR-28 begins Saturday and Sunday, August 1 and 2, at the IMS road course. It is basically a systems check to make sure all the components work and work together as they were intended. The test is closed to the public. Turn 2 mounds are not open for spectators. A museum visit might be in order, however.