The Indy Racing League will reduce horsepower next year in an effort to slow speeds and that's one of the things Kenny Brack was hoping to hear.

"The IRL has a challenge. They assessed it and now they're taking action and I think it's great news," said Brack, who is recovering from myriad serious injuries received in the IRL finale at Texas last October.

"I think the IRL has a potent group in reacting because they don't panic. They tend to think things through very carefully and this is one way to keep power and speeds under control."

After Brack's aerial acrobatics, which left him with a broken back, femur, right leg and two fractured ankles, and the death of Tony Renna at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during testing two weeks later, the IRL was forced to take a hard look at what happened in 2003.

Mario Andretti survived a wild flight at the Speedway last April after running over a small piece of debris from the SAFER wall and Helio Castroneves escaped injury in a flip similiar to Brack's. Renna's crash is still under investigation but it's known that he spun, got backwards and then airborne and cleared the SAFER wall before slamming into the catch fence.

Parts of Brack's car wound up in the spectator tunnel at Texas, but thankfully nobody was seated at that part of the track. Debris from Andretti's accident made it into, and over, the South Vista, while Renna's wreckage looked to have made some type of impact in the North Vista walkway.

"I came to Indianapolis a month ago and met with Brian Barnhart (IRL vice president of racing operations) and one of our main concerns was over the frequency and severity of accidents," said Robert Clarke, general manager of Honda Performance Development.

"Who knows whether this change will help but it's a step in the right direction. What the IRL has done is appropriate, I believe, and doing nothing would have been inappropriate."

Toyota's Lee White and General Motors' Joe Negri also gave a thumbs up to the IRL's decision.

While he was still at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Brack suggested reducing horsepower and aerodynamics, plus looking at making the tires less adhesive.

Obviously, the IRL agreed because it will reduce its engines from 3.5-liters to 3.0 liters by the Indianapolis 500.

"The engine manufacturers made some pretty good gains from where they started and my guess is that this will knock off 90 to 100 horsepower," said IRL senior technical director Phil Casey.

"We still have to do some chassis stuff but we'll wait until after our open test in January because we want to take a look at everything."

That could bring the speeds at Indy down from 230-plus to closer to 220 mph. Castroneves won the pole at Indy this year at 231.725 mph.

	“	Who knows whether this change will help but it's a step in the right direction. What the IRL has done is appropriate, I believe, and doing nothing would have been inappropriate. ”
		— Robert Clarke, GM of Honda Performance Development

Iain Watt, engineer for Mo Nunn's Indy-car operation who voiced his concern over the flying cars, applauded the IRL's first substantial engine rule change since it went from 4.0-liters to 3.5 in 2000.

"It's good because it will definitely make the cars slower and they went directly to the problem instead of beating around the bush," said Watt, who researched the lift over drag equation of the IRL cars and their propensity to take off. "The best thing they can do is horsepower, definitely, if it addresses the problem.

"They can only do so much at this late date."

Honda, Toyota and General Motors will be allowed to run their 3.5-liter engines in the first three races before having to change in May.

"It will be an expense because we'll have to change cranks and rods," said Clarke. "How far we go beyond that is up to each manufacturer but it will cost more in development and the parts production.

"In talking with Lee White (of Toyota), they were stockpiling for the season so they've got a lot of crankshafts that will end up in the trash and we're not quite in that situation.

"But this change had been hinted, it wasn't a surprise, and the IRL was very up front and proactive."

Brack, who played the guitar from his wheelchair Thursday night at the Team Rahal Christmas party, still wants to see more done to make the drivers' skill come into play.

"I don't see why you can't have less downforce and more slip angle in the tires," said the 38-year-old veteran from Sweden. "Technology is great but it's also bad because the speeds increase with all that grip and the cars aren't as hard to drive.

"Is the racing now more exciting than it was 30 years ago? I don't think so. Formula Fords are just as exciting today as they were 25 years ago because they don't have downforce and big tires. I'd like to see us slide around more. That's exciting too."

Al Speyer, executive motorsports director for Bridgestone/Firestone, says the IRL has asked his company to look at some things but hasn't discussed anything specific.

"You can reduce grip a number of ways," said Speyer. "Narrower tires, grooves on tires or harder compounds. We could also round out the shape of the tires, which puts less of the tread contacting the track.

"Narrow tires would pay a big price in the aero drag of the car. At Indy you'd be going a lot faster in a straight line but it would slow down the cornering speeds.

"Some of these tracks are a significant challenge to us and you have to be careful because if narrower tires start failing you haven't improved safety."

Speyer was happy with the IRL's engine decision.

"Absolutely," he replied. "We've been championing that since the new engine manufacturers came in. We told them (IRL) the speeds would be going up and I think they thought they had things under control and it just got away.

"But we're very supportive of reducing horsepower. Speed is best controlled by horsepower."

Alex Barron, who won one of the IRL's closest races ever this year at Michigan in beating Sam Hornish Jr. by 0.0121 of a second, understands it's a difficult compromise.

"If they think dropping a half liter will do it that's fine but you know those engine manufacturers will get that power back," said Barron. "I talked to Brian about it recently at Phoenix during a test and my concern is that they don't take too much out of the aero.

"If you take all the drag out, we'll just be going quicker. Obviously, it's a compromise between drag and downforce."

Barron believes the all-oval series has characteristics like no other.

"A lot of the tracks we run on promote side-by-side racing and our aero package amplifies that," said the 33-year-old Californian, who will drive for Red Bull/Cheever in 2004. "It's give and take no matter what we do so all we can do is try a few things and see which way it goes.

"But we're kind of running out of time because the season starts real quick."

Castroneves loves going fast but believes the IRL is doing the right thing.

"I totally support it. It's a very good idea, just like the SAFER walls," said the two-time Indy 500 winner. "They are studying the problems and trying to make everything as safe as possible."

Robin Miller covers open wheel racing for ESPN.com.