Fun times at the ol’ Speedway today. I’ll leave it to my F1 afficianado friends to discuss the “shameful day in the history of Formula One racing”, as one commentator repeatedly put it, as 14 of 20 drivers bailed at the starting line, boycotting the US Grand Prix for safety reasons. Personally, I think two things:
A) It was a really crappy way to reintroduce “the premier open wheel racing circuit in the world” to the American public. Sure, this is the sixth year they’ve held the USGP in Indianapolis, and a hundred or so thousand people traditionally head out to watch it, but when something is so new and (pardon the pun) foreign, you should always be putting your best foot forward to put on a show and educate potential new fans. As a new resident of Indy, and a moderate fan of open wheel racing (especially on road courses), I was kind of interested to see what it was about. All I found out is that the drivers talk funny, and the president of the federation is a flying bag of crap.
First he equates women with toaster ovens, then today, while he might not have been the one to pull the plug on the USGP, he certainly had his hand on the cord, he royally f’s up a marquis event for his circuit, and ducks off into his private helicopter with 14 laps to go. If ever there was a case to revive public stonings, this guy might be it, at least in the eyes of the F1 community.
B) I realized how much better it would be if ALL races at Indy only had a third of the field. While we would have had to look for a different champion this past May (milk drinker Dan Wheldon started 16th), having only 11 drivers on the track would virtually eliminate any brand of Foyt offspring from competition. Right there, the race wins many times over.
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Back on the Julio Franco kick that was quickly shot down early this morning…
While its true that the two HR’s did come off of Reds’ pitching, and Franco did reportedly later go 0-4 with two strikeouts against a batting tee, dude’s still 46 and change and yanking the ball all over the park. And its a good thing Andy Allanson didn’t take growth hormones, we might still be subject to a mediocre .225-hitting catcher.
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Back to the F1, I’m still disappointed in the relative lack of violence exhibited — the “rioting” was limited to boos and a couple beers tossed on the track — certainly fans could have found a way to flood the track with debris or at least blown up a few cases of old Donna Summer LP’s in the infield, right?
(World Record alert: That is officially the longest, most disjointed route anyone has ever taken to make a bad “Disco Demolition Night” joke. Now if Jeff Burroughs was only driving F1 cars nowadays…..)
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I made a couple changes to my links list over yonder ( < --- ). Some people haven't written for months, others have recently called a press conference to announce that they need their privacy, after years of soaking in web-related adolation like a sponge in the Pacific.
Others remain, and will always remain, mostly because I still can't believe this crap. Give the man credit, he’s one funny mofo.
Wow, am I glad I didn’t leave Ohio at 4am Sunday to make it in time to enjoy the race. We went the first couple of years since the track is close and I loves me some racin’. However, watching Schumacher dominate F1 all year and then go to the race in September knowing that there is absolutely nothing riding on the race made it an easy decision to skip. So they move it to Father’s day weekend, 3 weeks after I spend a small fortune throwing a three day party. Watching the other F1 races this year and seeing how Ferrari wasn’t dominating as had been the case the last 5 years at least, I thought maybe I’ll actually go. I would have dropped money for parking and a viewing mound ticket had I made the race. I would have been lighting people on fire by lap three. Imagine having taken a week or more of vacation/holiday time, shelled out thousands of dollars, and generally prepared for a long time for what should have been a great race…only to have that happen.
I won’t go to any F1 race ever again knowing that something like that or similarly political could easily happen again. That includes my thoughts of flying to Germany or driving to Montreal. I’m not really sure if I can watch on TV again other than maybe the next race to see if they continue to talk about it or pretend it never happened.
I won’t buy Michelin tires. If they can’t handle 200 miles at high speeds over a racing surface, who knows how well they would hold up to 30-40k miles on regular roads like those around here or Detroit. I’ve sworn by Bridestone tires for years and now I remember why. BTW, wouldn’t it be classic to see Bridestone come out with commercials dogging Michelin for failure to do their homework?
Finally, since they spent the money to build the road course, there’s no sense it letting it grow over with grass. Hold out the olive branch and let Champ cars run on the track next year working towards that common chasis and engine thing to bring it back together with the IRL. Or hold another IRL race. The key is to do it over Labor Day weekend. Make it as much of an event as the Indy 500 is. Do that and people will come.
PS – The idea to trim Indy 500 entries is great and we’ve discussed that many times. 20 is about right…after that you’d be better off putting construction barrels on the track so the drivers have a fighting chance to get around them before being forced into the wall.