Brian Barnhart
Brian Barnhart
Brian Barnhart is the President of Race Operations of IndyCar. Having previously served as director of race operations for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IRL, he is charged with primarily the safety and competition of the racing. Brian's most well-known on-camera role has been giving final instructions to every Indianapolis 500 qualifying attemptee before their run. He was also the president of the league from 2005 to early 2007...
certainly date issues lose markets phoenix return whether
You lose some date flexibility in this compression. Not everything was able to get accomplished and end up where we wanted to be. Whether it's Fontana, Phoenix or Pikes Peak, if those issues could be addressed, those are markets we would certainly look to make a return to.
date lose
You lose some date flexibility in this compression,
anybody anymore cared event since
I didn't think anybody really cared anymore since this event wasn't as big as it used to be,
confident dialogue hurdles market mind open
I'm confident that we will be back in this market in 2007. We want to keep an open mind and an open dialogue and do what we can to get back in this market in 2007. -- there are hurdles to overcome.
benefits competition short term
If there is no competition in 2007, there are some short term benefits to that as well,
continue process review
The review process is an on-going process, and we continue our review.
listed
It's really unfortunate that Fontana was not listed on the 2006 calendar,
cars difficult product race reliable safe struggle teams works
As difficult as we struggle to put a lot of cars on the race track, the ones that we do have are first-rate, high-quality teams and our product works well for a very entertaining race as well as a reliable and safe race.
dictate plays second week
That is why they need to look at the big picture. To see how this first week plays out will dictate the combinations for the second week.
area difference engine saying
That's kind of what we've been saying all summer. I'd be hard-pressed to say there will be a significant difference in any area of the engine for 2007.
becomes change condense difficult dramatic frame great market run time
It's an important market to us; it's a great racetrack. When you make a change as dramatic as we made to condense the time frame in which we're going to run our events, it becomes a difficult thing from a flexibility standpoint.
decision including looking move tough
It was a tough day in a lot of respects, including the decision to move forward. Looking back on it, I think it was the right decision.
buddy due happened people popular race respect sunday sure team understand
I understand that Buddy and Danica are two of our most popular drivers. I'm sure people want to see them, but they need to have respect for the race team due to the circumstances that happened Sunday morning.
definitely difficult easier events looking promoters shows time track work
It's something we're going to take a look at, even for some of the events the remainder of this year, looking at the calendar, working with the promoters and the teams. It's a lot easier to do at the three-day shows. Two-day shows, it's more difficult to give them enough track time to work on it. But the three-day shows we'll definitely put an eyeball on them and see what we can do.