INDY LIGHTS: 2014 Car, Engine Delayed

It's time to put the 11-year-old cars to bed, make performance upgrades to the Pro Mazda series and streamline the path to IndyCar.

Marshall Pruett | Posted February 14, 2013

New Lights chassis like the one submitted by Gil de Ferran's group will not appear in 2014. (Photo: Gil de Ferran)

The anticipated new Firestone Indy Lights chassis and engine for 2014 has been parked until at least 2015, and there has been no confirmation it will happen in 2015 or beyond.

The new-car initiative, led by Tony George Jr., was announced last year during the month of May and bids were solicited from chassis suppliers and engine manufacturers to replace the ancient 2002 Dallara-Infiniti package currently in use.

Bids were received by a host of interested parties, with numerous designs created and significant expenses incurred to earn a contract, but according to many of those suppliers, the Lights series routinely failed to meet decision-making deadlines, or to keep its constituents informed as to the reasons behind the delays.

The frustration level among some of the entrants and potential suppliers has been increasing over the past few months, and as one put it, "We've known as much about the direction the series is taking, or whose chassis or engine will be used as anybody on the street. The lack of professionalism has been alarming."

Current Indy Lights champion Tristan Vautier won the Pro Mazda championship before moving up to the final step on the open-wheel ladder, but was Lights necessary? (Photo: LAT)

It's believed that with the recent change in IndyCar management, the 2014 Lights car and engine initiative--something that was given the green light under former CEO Randy Bernard's watch--has been tabled as improvements to the IndyCar Series have been moved to the forefront.

The Lights series, which serves as the top step on the Mazda Road To Indy, has produced a number of current and future IndyCar stars in recent years, but its recent health has been frightening.

At present, I'd say six cars are rock solid for 2013, and hopefully more will join that list with complete funding for the season, but single-digit entries could once again be the norm.

A poor economy has been blamed for the continual decline in the series' car count, but it's also worth mentioning that other feeder series continue to thrive in the same financial climate.

The firing of longtime Lights director Roger Bailey has also surely had an impact in the size and quality of entries in the series, and his dismissal can be directly linked with the downhill slide the series is currently facing. Decades of relationships and connections that brought new drivers and entrants were lost with the Englishman's departure.

As someone who worked on every model of Indy Lights car, starting with the original 1986 March-Buick, it pains me to admit that Lights has become redundant and wholly unnecessary.

The new chassis and engine delay will hopefully force IndyCar's new management to ask whether having three steps to reach IndyCar--USF2000, Pro Mazda and Lights--is the right path forward, or comes with an economic burden that can be met.

Asking young drivers, their families and sponsors to pay for the open-wheel equivalent of a high school diploma in karts, an associate degree in USF2000, a bachelor's degree in Pro Mazda and then top it off with a master's degree in Lights before graduating to IndyCar is a mightily expensive proposition.

Compared to the demands made on athletes in almost any other sport, and especially one that comes with such a heavy financial burden, expecting young drivers to take so many steps to the top is too much.

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