And Jim Nabors is still alive.
Ol’ Gomer didn’t muck up Back Home Again like the National Anthem lady did. Singing in that huge open environment has got to be tricky.
He’s had a bit of practice. I turned on the set just in time to hear the tail end of the national anthem; didn’t know there was a muck up.
Hasn’t Nabors missed the 500 at least once in recent years? He seemed in good voice and health today, although I noticed the TV cameras didn’t go for any close ups.
Yes, last year he missed it, and I think he missed it once before.
The crowd noise covered for him a bit, as did his wide vibrato. On the radio it wasn’t very good, though to be fair he is almost old enough to have seen the first Indy 500 so it was still OK.
As far as the National Anthem went, was it another show-off attempt gone wrong?
I’ve hated the coverage for several years now. With the ticker at the top and the ESPN logo, a viewer might think that he’s watching the Butcher’s 200 in Omaha. I remember when Indy was a special event. ABC makes it seem like any other race.
Plus any race that ends under a yellow is bullshit. There should be a green, white, checkered restart to finish the race.
She tripped over the opening lines (perhaps distracted by the delay/echoes on the PA) and got out of sync with the marching band playing the tune. The band took most of the song to get back mostly in time with her, they mostly covered it by playing quieter through the middle portion.
My thoughts for what little they are worth:
I don’t follow auto sport too closely but my dad really liked the Indy 500 so it brings back good memories.
I too think the coverage was horrible. They kept talking about the same few topics and didn’t provide any insight into the subplots or other items of possible interest. For instance:
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They provided no insight into the cause of the wrecks. They replayed them and then just moved on. There was little or no mention of fines or errors by the drivers.
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There were four female drivers in the race which was a first. Other than mentioning it once there was no further mention or tracking of it. You’re trying to draw new fans to the event. Why ignore the women? The one interview they started with a female driver they cut away from.
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There were no replays from former races. Last two finishes were epic. How about pumping the viewers for what can happen.
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The analogy to the NBA. Stupid. Yea, just tell your viewers that they are wasting their time for 475 miles. Come back with 10 laps left. The rest of the time they are just driving fast.
I found it weird at how close it all was. 20 cars on the leading lap? 68 lead changes. I’m not used to that kind of racing. One chassis, two types of engines. Yea, it is super competitive but maybe there shouldn’t be too much parity. I dunno. It seems like an endurance race has turned into a marathon where almost everybody finishes.
Finishing under the yellow just seems wrong. Maybe it was because I wanted Marco to win (remembering Mario well) but still. It just doesn’t seem right.
I will say, “good job” on having a safe race. I don’t think anybody was hurt. The damage to the cars was minimal. Few yellow flags except when it really counted.
The problem used to be that a car in the lead would have an aerodynamic advantage. There was so much turbulence that another car behind it would lose downforce. I suspect the new car was designed to diminish that effect, and maybe even counteract it. It seems like the trailing car now has a drafting advantage. That promotes passing, and was part of NASCAR’s formula for success.
I don’t think Indy has been regarded as an endurance race for decades. Even Le Mans seems to be treated as a sprint these days.
I heard the announcers and Michael Andretti taking it as a given that a leader on a restart was certain to get passed. Why is that? While I understand the drafting aspect, once the trailing driver cuts to the inside to pass, doesn’t he lose that advantage?
The way I’ve always heard it is that you use the drafting advantage to build up speed, then make the pass. You lose that advantage once you’re out of the slipstream, but that doesn’t mean you instantly slow down to the same speed. It takes a while for that extra drag to do its work. By that time, you’re ahead.
That’s the new normal for IndyCar. Even though they brought engine competition back after years of a one-engine series, the manufacturers (Chevy/Honda) aren’t pushing the envelope, but instead working in a very well understood envelope because they don’t want to spend too much money, because Indy is still a far distant 2nd to NASCAR in the US market, no one is going to throw metric tons of money at building a engine (see the peak of the CART engine wars around 1999-2000 highlighted by Gil de Ferran setting a closed course speed record that will likely stand for many years to come). So engine failures are very rare. Absent a major multi-car pileup or tricky driving conditions you aren’t going to see much attrition at any IndyCar race nowadays. The overall driver talent ratio is also a lot higher now than it was in the CART/IRL split days.
At least until a couple of green-white-checkered attempts results in somebody running out of gas coming down the front straightaway on the 208th (and final) lap.
The only solution I can think of is, if the scheduled distance exceeds 500 miles, then the field is frozen after lap 199, and everyone gets a free pit stop without worrying about losing their position as long as they leave pit lane ahead of the pace car. Of course, that’s never going to happen, and neither is my preferred idea, “race back to the line”.
…or the race could just end under yellow, like it always has.
The green-white-checkered thing is stupid, and it always has been. Hey. let’s bunch them all up so they can sprint to the end, virtually guaranteeing that the guy who did the work to get in front won’t win, a few wrecks from people with nothing to lose, and an ending under the yellow flag anyway after the first failure.
Talk about taking the strategy right out of a race. Why bother running the first 495 miles? Just draw lots for who gets parked for simulated accidents, what position the rest start in, and have a 5 mile sprint for the win? It would save everybody a lot of time.
There’s nothing unfair about that so long as the teams know the rule in advance. It’s no different than taking the chance of passing on lap 197 in the hopes of a yellow.
I guess my question is - what does it add? Not every race is going to be a nail biter, with dramatic passes at the finish, and I’m glad, since that would just lead to tremendous accidents and less teams, since the costs of those crashes is very high.
Any thoughts about Belle Isle? It’s my understanding that this race is Penske’s baby, and he’s pushed hard to get it there. Hopefully, this year there won’t be embarrassing problems with the track peeling up.
I’m not sure about the doubleheader aspect - it’s awesome, since I getto see two races this weekend, but seems gimmicky. Also - what if a one car team eats the wall on day one? Just no entry for Sunday?
Anyone else kind of bummed that Indycar racing has devolved into a spec series essentially? The cars are so close now that nobody can drive away from anybody else. I miss the days when the race was more of a endurance race where you had to balance speed vs. keeping the car running, and engineering innovations could give you the edge. Yeah, it’s technically a more “exciting” race because they are constantly jostling in one long line of cars, but frankly the endless slingshots got a little old after awhile.
It’s not totally spec - check out a good street race. I hate the ovals, and find them truly boring. Long Beach and the new street track in Baltimore are fantastic.
Some people bitch so much about the road/street courses. Why don’t they just turn on NASCAR? Lots of lefts on those tracks, not so much good, talented driving on elevations and right turns and hairpins.
You are mostly right. NASCAR on oval is about drafting, cheating, bumping, and the more accidents the better. When the drivers start punching each other out and creating a lot of media attention with outrageous comments and feuds, that’s what what keeps the fans coming back. It’s the mechanized version of WWE. It sells. Last weekend Danica Patrick’s boyfriend took her out of the race. Was there any story like that at Indy? The fans will all be back for an encore and to find out who the next driver is who she takes up with. Soap opera.
Talent gets lost on a short-attentioned American public. F1, street tracks, meh. Same thing with bicycle racing in North America.
I say this all the time. You can almost set your watch to the caution flags when Scrubby McScrubberton looks like he’s going to run away a little bit with the race. If you watched the Coca-Cola 600 this weekend there were more than a few suspicious cautions, including a “debris” caution mere seconds before Jimmie Johnson was to go down a lap.
It may be on the up-and-up, but more and more of us are starting to believe that NASCAR interjects itself into the race to get a desirable (to them) outcome. Pretty much every week I participate in the race thread over at Fark, and during almost every race someone asks me if I’m a wizard because I can “uncannily” anticipate the cautions. All I do is take note of where the current big stars are running.
That’s not good for racing.
In a couple weeks, I’ll be going to the Indy race in Milwaukee. It’ll be my first car race of any kind, and I guess I’d rather go to Road America (if Indy still races there), but I’ll take the oval. What should I watch for? Who are the top racers right now? Will 200 miles of oval racing be a bit more exciting than 500?