Any IndyCar fans out there? It’s my favorite, and I’m sad that you never hear about it here.
We’re hitting Pole Day at Indy this weekend. I’ve been watching the practice laps this week, and it’s surprising - Penske and Ganassi aren’t the leaders right now. Continuing their great season is Andretti Autosport, with Hinchcliffe and Marco in the top spots.
It looks like season two with the new car is showing that it has leveled the playing field to a great extent. Now that smaller teams can make the investments, they’re competing quite well. I love that Sato is looking so good, and Simona finally getting a good engine is great, because she can finally get back to displaying her talent.
The only wrinkle I can see is that Will Power is doing so badly. His cars are slow, and his luck continues to be just awful!
This is the only race that will generate any interest, unfortunately. IndyCar long ago became a second-tier racing series because of ego. It’s not like the old days when it was CART, famous American drivers going hell-bent-for-leather in bespoke cars, now it’s a spec series dominated by foreigners. That’s too bad, because the racing has been pretty good this year.
Anyway, who’s the expected front-runner at Indy this year? Dario’s been having an absolutely atrocious season, and when the points leader is Takuma Sato all bets are off. Think Marco can bust the Andretti Curse? Are we still all holding our breath from Wheldon’s death?
It’s seriously time to let the bad feelings from the Split go. This season has been phenomenal so far on the road/street circuits. Indy starts the ovals, which I find unbelievably dull, but oh well.
I don’t get why being a League of Foreigners matters so much to so many people. There was such cheer when Hunter-Raey won last year - 'cause he’s a 'Merican! I HATE that. I don’t see why anyone cares, really. If you want good ole ‘Merican bumper rubbin’, them watch NASCAR.
Anyway, Marco has been looking really good this year, and barring some crash, he may just win it. He and Hinchliffe traded cars yesterday at practice, and both did well - AA has the setup down. Whatever studying Marco did this winter paid off, for sure. Sato, hilariously with Foyt, has been excellent - I don’t think he’s crashed yet this season!
I’ve been watching some past races this week, and no matter who wins, there’s two things to look forward to - no Ashley Judd, and no Danica! Having Danica gone has done nothing but help IndyCar. She was a mediocre driver at best, and completely hogged the spotlight from better and more interesting drivers. Now, we can watch Hinchcliffe and Newgarden and several other very cool and fun drivers get press. That’s nothing but good.
I, for one, am delighted that the Penske and Ganassi teams are not doing so well this year. I thought for a while that all you had to do to be successful at IndyCars is just have a metric fuckton of money. Not that the Andrettis are broke or anything. I’ve been a longtime Andretti team fan, so I’m all for it. I dislike seeing the same teams win and win and win and win, so it’s nice to be surprised at the end of a race instead of “Oh it’s Franchitti/Power/Briscoe/Dixon. Again.” Ho hum.
I also love that Danica’s gone because now the other women – who are far better drivers from what I can tell – get a bit of spotlight. Simona is having a great season and Ana Beatriz does well when she has a ride. I’m glad I haven’t seen Milka Duno – I heard she went off to some other circuit. I just don’t think she had the skill or the car to be anywhere except the back of the pack.
I’m also very proud of Sato. He’s really coming along, having a great season. I just love it when you see people develop from back-of-the-pack drivers to consistently-top-5 drivers. Really great for their teams as well.
My last comment is about the idea that IndyCars is predominantly foreigners. Out of 34 drivers on the roster this season, 11 are Americans. That’s still not a majority by any stretch (it’s only about 30%), but there are more American drivers than any other single country represented. And I have no idea why this matters anyway. Isn’t MLB also full of foreigners?
In fact, here’s my breakdown based on thecurrent roster.
US = 11 drivers
Japan = 1
Australia = 2
Brazil = 3
Canada = 2
Columbia = 2
Great Britain = 4
France = 3
New Zealand = 1
Scotland = 1
Switzerland = 1
Mexico = 1
Spain = 1
Venezuela - 1
By those numbers, I think one could make the argument that IndyCars is actually dominated by Americans. Especially if you count Canada, Mexico and South America as also “American.”
What you can say about IndyCar drivers is there are no black people. There are no people from very poor countries. Racing is an extremely expensive sport, so you’re probably not going to ever see a Jamaican bobsled/Indy team (although that would be fun).
The bad feelings from the Split are gone. As are any feelings. The fans went away and never came back.
That’s what they’ve been doing, going to NASCAR. The problem is that IndyCar now resembles nothing so much as F1, and people who want to watch F1 have no interest in a largely oval racing series while Americans have little interest in a foreign-dominated road-racing series. Add to that the fact that it’s on spec and it’s nothing to get excited about anymore on the face of it.
That said, people are really missing out. Hopefully it will start gaining people back soon. However, the dominance it used to have as the US’s preeminent racing series will probably never return. NASCAR markets so much better and it’s the kind of racing that people want to see, lots of passing in cars that look like cars they might one day buy by people with lots of personality.
Danica was what brought people back. Now it’s up to the other drivers to show that they are media savvy. It remains to be seen whether or not they are. There’s not an A.J. Foyt or Mario in the bunch, guys who just unload in front of the cameras.
I like IndyCar well enough, I just like Formula One better. My boyfriend and I like to try to predict at what point in a given race Takuma Sato will crash.
I look forward to the Indy 500 every year, I’ll even watch the qualifying. Sometimes Pole Day is more exciting than the race itself.
Danica may have brought eyes to the races, but she never lived up to the hype, and because no other personality could get more than 40 seconds of coverage away from the Danica worship, once she petered out, so did the fans. It’s a shame - I was watching the 500 from 2011, and it was ridiculous - she was in no way a factor in the race (only leading due to pit timing) but they kept giving us breathless reports on her battle from 23rd to 17th!
I’m hopeful that the Turbo movie will move some eyes to IndyCar, and cool people like Hinchcliffe will keep them there. There’s a lot of interesting people, like Sato and Simona and even someone like Servia.
We’ve tried getting into F1, and it’s just not there for us. I think it is because they talk about the engine manufacturers as the primary participants, and not the drivers as personalities. I don’t really care if Audi and Ferrari are having a grudge match, but if Will Power and Dario have been battling all season - that’s something with a human face I can enjoy and root for. I know it bothers racing purists in the same way as it bothers NFL fans, but for most people, it what makes them care.
I’m just glad Marco is getting it together - now I can say I admire his racing instead of his rugged good looks
I don’t know what was up with Michel Jourdain, Jr., but he never even got close to making the field. Either the car was really, really bad or he got a big dose of the fear.
Aside from his sad attempt, today was a very boring Bump Day. I’m used to famous drivers right on the edge getting bumped out and then trying to fight their way back in with purchased backup cars, drama like that. It was very undramatic today.
Jourdain was lifting a little, but Rahal said that the car had no business being out there. Then again, having a car that had no business being in the race doesn’t seem to be a problem - look at those two Lotuses last year.
…that NBC Sports Network wouldn’t even air - while it was happening, they showed Dario Franchitti receiving a present for his 40th birthday.
I like the rules change they made a few years ago, where if a car got bumped, it could still be used (up to 3 attempts per day). You shouldn’t have to qualify with backup cars.
Robin Miller wrote a piece recently calling for trimming the Indy practices and qualifications down to a week. I agree with most of it, except his call for moving the top qualifying to a week night in prime time. He was thinking Tv ratings, but they would lose serious attendance if they moved it from a weekend.
We went yesterday, and it was very cool. The rain delay meant we got there right as they started, so we saw all of the first round of qualifications. I loved the Shootout format, and am glad they’re following the rest of the IndyCar races that way. I can’t believe some of the people who got in the Top 9, and as for Carpenter getting the pole…that’s just crazy. He’s okay I guess, but has never really been top tier. Andretti’s cars were so fast, and it’s a shame Hinchcliffe ate it in the Shootout, because he’s been so good this year.
And how about the all Chevy top 9? I wonder if Honda got complacent over the past years of being the sole engine manufacturer. I think the top Honda was Tagliani (!) with 11th.
Everything at the track was cool as usual. Pretty crowded, but not stupidly so. The only thing that bugged me was that there was NO promotion for the Turbo movie, except for Bell’s car, and that only a small decal on the side. I would think that it would be all over the place, with mascots and singing snails and the whole nine yards. I can’t only imagine that Dreamworks for some reason wouldn’t bankroll it, and the crowd at 16th and Georgetown are being stupid as usual.
I had heard yesterday evening that both RLL cars were getting new engines last night. It’s pretty surprising that Graham Rahal didn’t make the top 24 - the RLL tech team must have screwed the setup. I read the team used Sato’s setup from last year, but it clearly wasn’t right for this year.
I dion’t know a whole lot about Jourdain, but I’ve never heard of him being a bad driver. But he looked awful yesterday - everyone was putting up 225 to 229s, and then he came by at 219. It was sad and uncomfortable.
I think the last buy in for a qualifying car was by Andretti, when he basically had to buy Hunter-Raey’s ride. Since it was basically just him, it was shameful. I know it used to be that way for everyone, but it just looked terrible when it’s only one guy.
Second-tier drivers getting good rides qualified high at Indy is a well-established tradition. For the better part of 25 years they were Penske seconds like Cogan and Sullivan, but there were always guys who came out of nowhere to set lap records. That’s what made it fun. The Shootout really took away from that, if you ask me. This isn’t Daytona.
Okay, this is it - who are you taking for the win? I have a feeling it’s Marco’s year, unless he freaks out at the start and tried to take the lead right away.
Hubby is thinking it’s Will Power, and while he put up the fastest time, he’s got that black cloud around all the time…
Marco did freak out and try to take the lead right away, yet here he is with less than 15 to go looking to win. The Andrettis are snakebitten at Indy, though, so something’s bound to happen here in the end.
I couldn’t be happier. I HATE Hunter-Raey and Graham Rahal, so when Rahal hit the wall and brought the caution with Hunter-Raey in the lead, I was super pissed. But! He was off track enough that it went green again, and then the same thing happened, but with Good Guys, it was awesome!
Mostly a boring race, but a great ending. I think this puts Marco in points lead, so that’s good for me too.
And guys - the coverage by NBC Sports is way, way better than the idiots at ABC, so if want to catch a good race with excellent coverage, at least tune into the next one on NBC Sports. Their team is totally worth it, and rarely is a race boring.
I thought the coverage was dreadful. After Franchitti hit the wall, I was wondering if he was okay, what caused him to crash, etc. All they could talk about on TV was how happy Kanaan must be, and how he got a lucky charm to carry with him, and show his wife in the pits. They should cover it as a sporting event first and work the feel-good, human-interest stuff in as time allows, not the other way around.
There were at least three un-reported stories today - why Newgarden was 7 laps down, the Dario crash, and whoever it was that threw that chop into Saavedra. Nothing about that at all. Turns out, Mann and someone else got $10k penalties assessed during the race for the chop, and I still haven’t heard about Newgarden.
ABC is just awful. Human interest is part of developing a good sport, but they said almost nothing about any tech, and not nearly enough about speeds and times. And, they never tallied points for the series - which would have been a great way to remind everyone that there is a whole series of races, with champions and feeder leagues and everything else.
Seriously, all we really saw was five guys trading the lead all day, with breathless graphics showing the “battle for the lead” - when clearly the guys up front were just trading it, probably for draft advantage. There were a slew of stories going on in the rest of the field.
Also, congrats to the apparent winner of an ABC reality show I missed, “Who Wants to Host the Indy 500 Prerace Show.” I miss Paul Page and his “Delta Force” intros. Brent Musburger didn’t bring much to the table either the past couple of years regardless, but this new direction was worse. And surely Scott Goodyear has naked pictures of someone at ESPN to keep his job as the color guy year after year.
That said, happy with TK’s win! Was great to see the old young guns of CART celebrating with him at the end, Dario, Zanardi, Papis. That race was going to end under yellow regardless I think, just unfortunate the last restart didn’t get past Turn 1.
Hope they’ve fixed the pavement at Belle Isle for next week’s races.
