Indy 500: Real Emotion

Indulge me for a moment here before I get to the Indy comments.

My first task Sunday morning was to find out who won the F1 race in Monaco, since I wasn’t able to see it. I missed the results on an auto racing update on a radio show, but thankfully ABC/ESPN posted the winner on their bottom line ticker. Congratulations Jenson Button! That’s five out of the first six races. For a team that was put up for sale last year by Honda and didn’t even have an owner a month before the season started, they are on an incredible run. F1 has been turned upside down this year. With next year’s rule changes, Ferrari and others may not even be running in the series, an almost inconceivable thought.

Jense is my favorite F1 driver, and I was really pulling for him to win this race. It is the Indy 500/Daytona 500 equivalent glamour event on the schedule, thus all the racers want this trophy on their mantle. In past years, I’ve seen him stick it on the pole and battle hard for a second place there. This season must be really sweet for Button. I hope he finishes it out with a championship.

On to the race I did actually watch.

I’ll put in my pre-race predictions as I wrote them, in spite of how much I’d like to edit them to make myself look better.

I picked Graham Rahal to win. This was an impulsive choice, done in complete disregard for his lack of oval experience and success.

The other drivers I picked to watch were: Ryan Hunter Reay, Will Power, and Paul Tracy. RHR is a good driver on road courses. Even though he started in the rear, I assumed he’d move up to the front quickly. Will Power was driving for his next job, as he’s the odd man out at Penske with Helio back. I put Tracy in, because I assumed he’d cause some huge wreck from being too aggressive with the “chrome horn.”

Of course the smart choices would have been any of the Ganassi or Penske cars. I was hoping for either of Target cars to win. Seeing Emma Dixon or Ashley Judd in the post-race would have been delightful. As it was, I did get Brienne Pedigo and Jamie Little. Not bad, though they both tone down their looks severely for work. I’ll be equal opportunity here for a change. Dario Franchitti looked good with his hair grown out. My dad made the comment that he looked like he had the hair of an Italian. That’s right. He is Scottish of Italian descent.

The pre-race set the stage pretty well. The Helio Castroneves profile was memorable. The tears flowed like a Barbara Walters’ Special. What can you say? He’s Brazilian. Thank goodness the trial turned out well for him. Otherwise, the man’s name would probably been verboten for the entire race.

Of other pre-race note, my parents had some incredible consternation over whether Jim Nabors would be singing or not. Of course he was. He still has a great voice and it’s tremendous to hear the crowd singing along. That was all mom wanted to see of the race. Speaking of the crowd, there were still plenty of good seats still available, especially behind pit lane. Even the announces noticed.

Let the heartbreaks begin. I’ll just hit a few of the highlights as they came.

Marco Andretti was wrecked early. This sucks, but there was a reason I didn’t bother picking him to win. At least you could still see him, shirtless even, in those razor commercials.

Early exit for RHR, but at least you could still see him in all those the Izod commercials.

So much for Rahal. He’s not in any commercials, so see ya next week, Graham. Thanks for making me look like a boob.

Poor Tony Kanaan. TK’s such a great driver. The year he won the championship, he completed every lap of competition, an almost unimaginable feat. From the in-car view, wow was that a hit! If you watch the replay closely, you can clearly see the track itself reaching up to take out his car. This is somehow a personal grudge with Indy.

Then there’s the Heartbreaker herself, Danica Patrick. There was continuous Danica coverage throughout the race, including the commercials. She’s like the IRL’s version of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Of course with all that Danica coverage, they had scrimp on covering a few other drivers, like about half the field. I saw that Scott Sharp was running. I don’t know what happened to him. Fan favorite Sarah Fisher? She got some airtime. Don’t know where she finished either.

Milka Duno must get some special props here. She only got called out by one wrecked driver. Milka may or may not have really had anything to do with the wreck, but if she’s in the vicinity, she’s going to get blamed. As far as I could tell, she finished last of the cars still running, one lap down. You know, she’s a very likable person (though Danica’s biggest mistake last year was trying to pick a fight with her), but she’s probably still in over her head in the league. And then there’s Milka’s sponsor, Hugo Chavez’s oil company. It’s a little hard to root for her.

Gutsy performance of the race? Whew, this is going to be tough. I gotta give it to Samantha Lloyd. First, her husband, Alex, is wearing a pink jumpsuit and driving a pink car, thus gaining the nickname, “Pink Lloyd.” Second, the surreal interview with the pregnant Ms. Lloyd, calmly announcing that her contractions were about 10 minutes apart. She planned on staying until the end of the race. “If the contractions get to about five minutes apart, I’ll go ahead and leave. Can’t have the pit crew trying to deliver a baby and change tires at the same time.” That’s dedication.

So who did she beat out for my prestigious award? Poor Vitor Meira. Figures, the guy’s never won, but has come in second like nine times. What happened to him? His car caught on fire in the pits. He even took some burn damage himself, but still managed to get back out on track and stay on the lead lap. For an encore, Vitor’s day ended with his car running sideways along the wall and backward. They had to take him out on a stretcher. He did get some respect. Before the end of the coverage, they announced he’d been taken to the hospital. They never said what happened to Sam. You kinda fell down on that storyline ESPN.

There was some false drama near the end with Weldon and Danica chasing down Helio. For the last 10 laps there was no coverage of anybody except Helio and his family. I think there were other people on track racing, but I can’t confirm that. There were no shots of the other finishers. I guess they were irrelevant. (Helio was pretty far out ahead. They would have had to have waited quite a while for the others to get there.) Paul Tracy turned out to not to be a factor, but he kept it cool and did okay. Will Power was in contention and finished well. Thanks Will, for not making me look completely ignorant about the league.

I’d comment on what a great and moving drama it was in Victory Lane, but you could see it all there with Helio burying his head in his hands and sobbing. This has to have been the most emotional win for a driver at Indy ever. The crowd gave him a good cheer on the final lap. And yes, he got a kiss from the trophy girl. As God intended for every race winner.

There were some surprises in the other post-race interviews I saw. I’d heard about a “mellower” Danica this season and there she was. I like this version better. Hopefully with this third place at Indy, she’ll be inspired to keep it up and maybe more good results will follow.

Then there was this “mature” Dan Wheldon? What’s going on here? This is the guy who was luridly asking to be interviewed by Jamie Little a couple of years ago, got his teeth fixed last year as part of his off-season training, and collects exotic shoes. Like Austin Powers in a race car. Maybe it was the marriage and new kid thing and being booted off the Ganassi team that’s changed him. Great to see the one-car team of Panther Racing do so well.

He was probably okay with second place, but probably more happy to have beaten Danica. Just a little backstory. Her rookie year, Dan had to wear a tee-shirt saying, “I was the one who actually won the Indy 500.” A couple of years later, she tried to start a fight with him in the pits over a racing incident. Wheldon, Briscoe, Duno, some of her teammates at AGR, and every other driver who’s not named Helio, who’s jealous of her fame. Yeah, she’s made some enemies, so her charm offensive is a good thing.

ESPN had a ticker of the finish, but I didn’t get to see it well to take notes on it. I did miss the last five minutes of the coverage getting home to watch the NASCAR race, which was starting in five minutes. So, if I’m short-shrifting their post-race, my apologies, but I kinda doubt I am.

Overall? The coverage was very pre-determined, storyline driven, so no points there. The pre-race did go well. There was Side-by-Side coverage, which was swell. I think the post-race would have been better, but the length of the race ended up cutting it short.

The race itself featured red and white domination. The only serious question was would it be Ganassi or Penske? Thanks to the fact that it’s a long race (especially as most other Indycar races are much shorter), there was still plenty of drama, with sudden reversals of fortune and displays of steady perseverance. Since it’s Indy and there are rookies and racers who shouldn’t be in the field, you’re going to get crashes. The restarts were interesting, but unfortunately just like NASCAR, the leader tended to fly away from the pack.

The car package needs to be open to more modification by the teams and more engine competition (Honda is actually very open to that). Unfortunately, that would add a lot more cost to the development, so who knows? I am heartened by Weldon and Panther’s performance. Hopefully, more teams will be able to get into the winning mix. Regardless, as long they’re putting on this show at Indy, I’ll be watching.

J.