MILLER: Terrible trio of decisions show at Texas

James Hinchliffe was mad at Tony Kanaan. T.K. wasn't real pleased with race control or some of his critics. Chip Ganassi was critical of Hinchcliffe, while Dale Coyne confronted Kanaan during the red flag. Alexander Rossi wasn't too happy with Scott Dixon and Dixon was furious with Takuma Sato. Josef Newgarden was mad at himself and the fans at Texas Motor Speedway were a bit miffed the Texas race finished under caution.

Since everyone is pissed off about someone or something, allow me to vent about three things: pack racing for peanuts, having grass on an oval and a stupid schedule that more and more mechanics are finding intolerable.

PACK RACING FOR PEANUTS

Whether you watched Texas on the edge of your seat or with one hand over an eye (or both), it was a return to those old IRL days of everyone being jammed together side by side and row after row.

The drivers predicted it would be a pack race after the Texas test and Firestone did its best to try and come up with a tire that wouldn't blister on the new pavement but might also degrade like the 2016 show.

That didn't happen and the tires kept blistering, which is an anomaly because Firestone most always gets it right.

Winner Will Power was asked if it was fun, or did he prefer something similar to 2016?

"I like tire degradation so at least you can work on the car and the driver is more involved and I think there needs to be a bit of that to create some separation because it gets pretty intense," said Power, whose 31st victory tied him with Paul Tracy and Dario Franchitti for ninth on the all-time list.

"If we were doing this every week, people get good at it and understand it, but when you just do it once ... I know it was wild behind me. But when you're leading and driving around wide open in a pack race it's the easiest day of your life."

IndyCar looked pretty amateurish with less than 10 cars still on four wheels at the end, and a lot of people were curious why there wasn't a red flag so the race could finish at speed, but I figured race control didn't want to chance having nobody left running for the first time in its history.

One prominent owner was advocating not returning to Texas after Saturday night, while another said it's not the track – it's the downforce package that needs to be fixed. But what really needs to be examined is why risk decimating your field and fragile budgets for the pittance you run for at these speeds?

And don't start all this "any racer would trade places with those IndyCar drivers" because that's a load of crap. This is the top echelon of open wheel racing in this country and they raced their asses off for peanuts, or nothing. IndyCar should be ashamed.

THE GRASS IS NOT GREENER

When Greg Moore lost his life at Fontana in 1999 after sliding through the grass, being tripped by a service road and then thrown into a wall, a concerted effort was made to remove all grass from ovals and replace it with pavement – at least at many tracks on the backstretch.

But grass is still prevalent on the front straightaway at Daytona, Fontana and Texas, while Indianapolis has it between the pit lane and groove in Turn 1 and all through the north end of the Speedway.

In 2015 at Fontana, Ryan Briscoe flipped wildly because he dug into the grass but, fortunately, was able to walk away unscathed.

After Friday qualifying at Texas, Ryan Hunter-Reay and I discussed how insane it is to have all that grass bordering the dogleg on the front stretch. That night, during NASCAR’s truck race, a truck got knocked into the grass and flipped violently before landing upside down. Again, the driver was OK.

Then, nearing the end of Saturday night’s Crashfest 600, Takuma Sato dropped his left-side wheels in the grass, lost control, collected Dixon and they both smashed into the wall.

REPLAY:@TakumaSatoRacerand@scottdixon9make contact#Rainguard600#INDYCARpic.twitter.com/dDP1tl9Iry— IndyCar Series (@IndyCar)June 11, 2017

Now nobody has tried to make the walls safer than Eddie Gossage at Texas, and I get that tracks like his want the nice manicured look grass affords them along with displaying the race’s sponsor. But for common sense’s sake, just pave all that and use a big decal. Get IndyCar and NASCAR to chip in if that’s what it takes.

And there is no excuse for IMS having grass anywhere there’s a racecar. Just that little strip in the south chute upset Helio Castroneves’ car last month and if somebody ever gets knocked into the grass that borders Turns 1-3-4 it could be catastrophic.

THE SCHEDULE MUST CHANGE

Like my annual rants about the Indy 500 purse and the puny purses in the Verizon IndyCar Series, the schedule and how it treats the mechanics is another sore spot that must get some relief.

Follow along. IndyCar races at Barber in ‘Bama on April 23 and goes cross-country to Phoenix four days later for an April 29 show. Two days later there is an open test at Gateway. May begins with a road race on the 13th, followed by a week of practice, two days of “qualifying,” and another practice on Monday. Carb Day is Friday and race day is May 28th. The cars must be turned around for Detroit, which is a three-day show June 2-3-4 that features a doubleheader (including qualifying at 10 a.m. on Sunday for a 3:40 p.m. race).

Most of the teams drove back to Indianapolis and arrived around 2 a.m. and were back in the shop by 9 a.m. because the trucks left for Texas on Tuesday. As documented, the Texas race was pure carnage, which just doubled the workload for the mechanics that got home at 5 a.m. Sunday. They did get Sunday off. All but Ganassi (Watkins Glen) were supposed to be at Elkhart Lake for a test on Wednesday, but now only six or seven cars will show up.

Then, if nothing else gets torn up, they might get their first weekend off since March. But, following Road America on June 25, they all have to drive to Iowa for an open test.

It’s ludicrous to work people this hard, so if IndyCar insists on making Detroit the race after Indianapolis, then move it back a week and give the teams a chance to rest up a little bit. In-season testing also needs to go away.

And don’t tell me it’s no big deal because they only work seven months a year, because some of them get laid off during the winter and none of them get the percentages and bonuses that were offered when the purses and point funds used to be big league.

A lot of good mechanics have left IndyCar during the past few years and a lot more in the current paddock have just about had it. They’ve been grossly overworked and it’s only June, so that’s a dangerous precedent with an Indy car.

I just want IndyCar’s schedule-makers to spend a weekend tailing these guys so they can appreciate that things need to change. If not, it’s long past time the mechanics formed a union because, trust me, they would have some leverage.

NOTE: This piece has been modified since it was originally published.