Are you ready for the biggest race day of the year?

The Game Room
1

Tomorrow we have three marquee events in the world of racing, one after the other:

Starting off, we have the Grand Prix of Monaco, broadcast live at 0730. This is the major race of the F1 schedule, everybody wants to win Monaco. Anything can happen, but if it’s not Hamilton or Rosberg I’ll be shocked, the Mercedes cars are easily the class of the field and in truth are making the season somewhat boring, much like Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, and McLaren before them. Still, Monaco.

Then we have the Indianapolis 500, starting around noon. IndyCar has quietly become the premier American race series once again, the races are competitive and fun to watch, the drivers have character, and the tracks are varied. It’s too bad we had to go through the nonsense with The Split, in the end it ended up the same way, just with much less interest. I’d like to see Kanaan win two in a row. Barring that, anybody but Penske or Ganassi. I like to see some new blood. What would really get everybody fired up is if Marco Andretti pulls it off, but he doesn’t seem to be the caliber of his father or grandfather. As J.R. Hildebrand showed a few years back, though, anything can happen at Indy.

Last, we have the Coca-Cola 600, one of the three crown jewels of NASCAR (the others being the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400, damn you Francis Ferko for killing the Southern 500). That starts around 6:15 and is a day/night race. Jimmie Johnson has not yet won a race, and as such is not an automatic qualifier for the Chase. Let’s hope it stays that way. Kurt Busch is going to try to do The Double this weekend, something that hasn’t happened since Tony Stewart did it in 2001, so that adds some drama to it as well. And no DogeCar nonsense, even though Josh Wise is running. Thank God for small favors. Much suck, so stupid, wow.

In all, a full day’s racing. Wake up at 7 a.m., go to bed after midnight (the Coca-Cola 600 typically runs very long thanks to cautions, rain, track issues, or NASCAR’s recent phantom debris flags), and in between see three top-notch races. Is anybody else going to do The Triple tomorrow, or am I all alone?

2

I guess I’m all alone. More’s the pity. Hamilton and Rosberg really don’t like each other, and it may all come to a head today. Reminds me of Senna and Prost when they were teammates.

3

No, you just post at weird hours. :stuck_out_tongue: Give the rest of us a chance to wake up, eh.

Go Kurt! You can do eeeeet!

4

I had forgotten about the GPM being today as well. Just not really an F1 fan. The technology is amazing and the drivers are top-notch, but it just seems a little too…pre-determined (not in a conspiracy-theory sense, just that it doesn’t seem like a very level playing field).

I will probably tune into Indy although I would seriously disagree with it being the “premier American race series”. Check news/sports tv coverage. IndyCar rates a passing mention compared to NASCAR. Of course, it helps that all of the major sports tv/on-line networks have major NASCAR contracts. Splitting the season up and giving all three majors (ESPN/ABC, NBC, FOX) races to show was a brilliant move.
Still it’s the Indy500 and the history is hard to argue with.

The 600 will get some fairly serious tv time. It’s a great race as it’s the only “endurance” race left on the schedule. It’s like a long horse race, there’s action out of the gate, mid-race maneuvering for position/fuel mileage/pit&tire strategies, and then the wild dash to the end. All taking place as day transitions to night and the track changes constantly. Fun stuff. I do wish that they’d kept the World 600 in the name though.

5

No, you’re not alone.

6

BUT YOU’RE MISSING MONACO!

This is turning into quite the race. Sutil was moving through the field, then he wrecked. The leaders all pitted under caution and it went totes crazeballs. Alonso cut off Ricciardo twice and Hamilton was pissed because he couldn’t use the pits to get past Rosberg. Vettel is out with gearbox issues, his season has been disastrous.

7

It still kinda is, Mercedes is pretty unbelievable this year, but the drivers are about to be at each other’s throats and the racing in the back is exciting.

The racing is much better than NASCAR right now. No phantom cautions, drivers running with passion, some brilliant performances… it has the character that NASCAR worked so hard to get rid of.

All of this. I look forward to the 600 every year.

8

I’ve been a NASCAR fan since I was very young, but I have almost zero interest in open wheel racing. I usually check out the Indy 500 at least for a few minutes every year but I’ll definitely be watching the Coca-Cola 600.

9

Oh. Okay, now I see where you’re coming from. Don’t watch enough ICar to agree or disagree with you. I wouldn’t have used “premiere” to describe that though. To me, when the driver traffic is all one-way from Series A to Series B, it’s hard to argue that Series A is the premiere series of the two.

Either way enjoy all the racing!

10

Nico Rosberg takes the win! Hamilton must be seething, he got something in his eye and Ricciardo almost gobbled him up.

11

Airman,

What’s that mean that the stewards will be looking at that last incident? Was somebody not playing fair?

12

There are rules regarding how drivers conduct themselves. If you’re defending you can only make one move. If you’re attacking you cannot do anything deemed overtly dangerous. Every racing incident is examined, and penalties are meted out, sometimes in the race itself, other times after the race. Rubbing is definitely not racing in F1.

13

So far Indy’s been a clean race.

And I think we’ll all miss Jim Nabors. Back Home Again In Indiana won’t ever sound the same.

14

I live in Indianapolis, about a mile from Speedway. I hate 500 weekend. I went out this am, and the traffic was in the other direction, so I didn’t have any trouble, other than waiting for a long time at the intersections that have blinking lights and cops. Tomorrow afternoon is going to suck. Race fans think they own the area, and don’t seem to have a clue that there are people who live here, and have things to do. I sure hope no one on the Southwest side, especially on 38th, Moller, Crawfordsville or Lynhurst, has to call an ambulance this weekend.

We went shopping on Friday to make sure we wouldn’t have to go out to any of the stores in the area, but if we do need something, we’ll drive up to the Walmart on 86th St., or something. Taking the boychik up to a bouncy-house place in Castleton (waaay Northeast) to stay out of Speedway today. Have been dodging ticket scalpers in the streets since Friday afternoon, and the smell of people barbecuing out of the backs of their trucks is ever-present.

This weekend sucks.

15

Still no cautions. It’s been a great race so far. And Marco’s in the lead.

16

Jinxed it. Charlie Kimball brings out the first caution.

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So what’s wrong with a DogeCar?

18

And Dixon is done, too.

19

This red flag is bullshit.

20

I think it’s a great call. Let 'em race.