Indy Racing League plans on rolling out a new gridification system during the upcoming St. Petersberg race and it will look a lot like the street racing version of things done over at Formula 1. Instead of being a one man one track run against the clock, cars will be slotted on the grid by way of elimination rounds. The cars will be split into even fields and race for twenty minutes, the leaders go on and the trailers fill up position thirteen and back. The top twelve will run in another heat lasting fifteen minutes from which the bottom six will be slotted in spot twelve through seven.
The top six, that's the "Firestone Fast Six" by the way, since everything from the trash cans to the retaining walls are sponsored in racing, will duke it out in a ten minute race for pole position. Naturally we expect next year to have a car carrier race off to determine pit road position and a pit bike race to settle who gets power to the trailers hooked up first. Seriously, how many races before the race must there be? [TSN]