Informal research: A kid’s opinion on Delta Wing

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. At one point or another in a little boy’s life (and, increasingly, a little girl’s life), there comes the time where they dream of going faster than anybody else in a race car. It could be in an open-wheel machine at Indianapolis, a stock car at Daytona, a sports car at Le Mans. Could be any car, any track, anywhere. It doesn’t matter.

For most young children, they learn to let go of that dream and go down other paths in life as they grow up. For the rest, they give in to that calling of going faster and grow into race car drivers. But in the formative stages of existence, the thrill of crossing the finish line first is almost universal.

As a twitter follower of mine said today, auto racing must excite kids’ imaginations. For the sport as a whole, it is paramount that kids become hooked at an early age so they will grow into the next generation of race fans. As grownup followers, we sometimes forget that as we try to decide what is good and what is bad about the sport — whether it’s for ourselves or for the little ones.

Enter the Delta Wing concept, which has been divisive from the moment it was unleashed upon the world last week in Chicago. Its intriguing innovations have almost been completely overshadowed by its wild, fighter jet-like look. For every supporter of the radical car, it seems like there’s been ten dissenters tearing it down on blogs and social media outposts.

It is indeed a very brash piece of work. It is not anything that we believe can be considered as “open-wheel.” And it can either be what brings the sport into a bright future or what sends it to hell, never to return. 

And yet, my seven-year-old cousin loves it.

While watching the Daytona 500 at home (before it turned into a pothole-marred fiasco), I brought my laptop into the TV room to tweet a little bit. Next to me was Brendan, the aforementioned cousin of mine and oldest of my aunt and uncle’s three children. Brendan is not the car nut of the trio. That honor is shared by his younger siblings, five-year-old Aidan and three-year-old Tristan. But he’s still young enough to be entranced by fast machines.

For fun, I decided to show him all the 2012 IndyCar concepts that have come out recently under the guise of showing him what I was writing about lately. The first one I showed him was the Delta Wing.

I asked him what he thought about this much-maligned silver jet on wheels. His one-word response: “Awesome.”

When asked to elaborate what he liked about it, he pointed to the big middle wing at the back of the car’s wide rear end as well as that area’s beefy wheel barges — I’ll call them the “muscles” of the Delta Wing. I then asked him if he would like to drive that car and he answered in the very affirmative.

I then showed him the Swift concepts, which were still daring but not on the scale of Delta Wing. He was also impressed with their work. The Dallaras didn’t go over as well with him overall, but he did indicate his interest in the third Ferrari red-colored concept with the stretched-out sidepods.

However, it was clear to me that out of all of the concepts, Brendan dug the Delta Wing the most. He didn’t see it like we have seen it — a Batmobile, or a “Delta W^ng,” or something stolen from the Ambiguously Gay Duo‘s garage. He just saw an “awesome” car.

Feel free to disregard his findings as proof that the Delta Wing is indeed like something a kid would make while hopped up on Mountain Dew. If that’s your opinion, it’s your right to have it.

But I thought it was very interesting to see that even though he knew what a current IndyCar was, he still liked the concept that looked nothing like a current IndyCar at all. Considering that the IRL desperately needs to ensure that younger people will follow the sport in the next couple of decades, perhaps the Delta Wing and its relatively crazy design stands a better chance than we’re giving it.

Because before we all know it, Brendan, his siblings and millions upon millions of children will be adults. It’s up to the IRL to make sure that the beauty of speed — IndyCar speed — still matters to them at that point.