Minnesota doesn’t always agree with me.  But I have realized something this week.  Now that I don’t live in Indiana, I can finally watch the Indy 500 on television.  That isn’t always something you get to do in Indiana.  Since the CART/Indy Racing League split in the mid 90’s, the Indianapolis 500 has taken a backseat to the NASCAR circuit.  While NASCAR has taken advantage of the decline of open-wheeled racing, its watershed moment was the day that Tony George decided to separate the 500 from CART.  Since that moment, stock car racing has been king and the people of Indiana often paid the price for George’s power trip. 

            In the years following the split, ratings for the 500 declined as the better known drivers followed CART and the production specs for IRL reduced the performance of the machines seen at Indy.  At that point, the Indy 500 stopped selling out, and ABC, its longtime television associate, started blacking out coverage of the race in Indiana.  This pretty much busted my balls. 

            This year heralds new things for me and the race, though.  For me, the race will be on network television.  I will sit at home and watch it.  Maybe liveblog it.  I don’t know.  I will think back to my younger days, at the 500 party around Bill Heaton’s pool, and Memorial Days filled with grilled burgers and the crappy names I would get in the race pool with my dad’s friends because I couldn’t afford to buy more draws at the pot.  Only my luck could draw Teo Fabi  two years in a row.

For the race, it is a year of unification.  CART, and its post-bankruptcy ChampCar, have dissolved and folded into the IndyCar scene.  It is perhaps too late, though, for the 500 to be what it once was.  Though unified, it is no real competitor to NASCAR, despite what the actual racing product may be.  I am not a big fan of NASCAR, I don’t really think that it is what racing ought to be, but I tip my cap to it for being the product that people will buy sold to the people who will buy it.

            Where did the 500 race go wrong?

A lot of people will point to the split between CART and Tony George, but let me take you a step further.  In 1955 nearly 100 people were killed in the 24 Hours at Le Mans race when a super-light Mercedes Benz, made super light because the frame was made of a magnesium alloy, was clipped on the frontstretch and sent flying into the crowd.  Breaking apart in mid-air, the car also caught fire when the fuel tank ignited.  Because the car was made of magnesium, which can burn in atmosphere at far lower temperatures than other metals, the burning fuel ignited the chassis which exploded into pieces of shrapnel.  Auto racing suffered a heavy public relations blow world-wide and the AAA, which had sanctioned the Indy 500, pulled out of the racing world.

(I have to admit, Danica doesn't normally wow me but the sorcerers at SI have her looking pretty nice in this shot.  I wish I had stuck it at the top, in retrospect.  I prefer women with a little more "natural" appearance.)

            Tony Hulman, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, formed his own sanctioning body with a few other individuals and it became known as USAC.  It sanctioned the race for the next 20 years or so but did little to please the team owners or drivers.  In the late 70s, Hulman died and several of the other USAC officials perished in a plane crash.  This is the beginning of CART.  CART had been festering for a bit.  Hulman had done little to improve the track over the course of the 70s, provide bigger purses, or market the race.  While Indy was still big, those habits had allowed other races sanctioned by USAC to slip into obscurity.  CART was formed by several influential team owners, including Roger Penske, in an attempt to force change in USAC’s behavior.  As it happened, when USAC floundered, CART took over the world of Indy racing. 

            In the mid-90s, CART was sponsoring more road racing than oval racing, and it created something of a crisis.  American born drivers were more successful on oval tracks.  Foreign born drivers, who cut their teeth in Formula 1, were far more experienced on road tracks.  It was really a crisis of culture.  Americans like the open road.  They want to drive faster in straight lines and pass everybody.  Europeans don’t have a lot of straight, wide highways, and road racing, with its hairpin turns and short gears, is by far a more preferred form of racing.  With more road races, more foreigners were driving at Indy because their teams were bringing them over from F1 to drive in CARTs road races.  As the names became harder to pronounce, interest among Americans waned.  The series also suffered because the road races made for poor television.  This is why you won't see many foreign drivers in NASCAR.  The heavier cars, oval tracks, drunk rednecks, and eyeball to asshole racing is not their cup of tea.

            The attention given to foreign drivers combined with the increase in road racing led to Tony George leaving the board of CART and forming the Indy Racing League.  George leaving was a blessing and a curse.  It was nice because the CART series had stagnated at the top.  The cars had become so technically advanced that only the wealthier teams with more money and experience could field competitive cars.  George instituted specifications for the chassis and motors that made them more like stock car specs, and the speeds at the track dropped.  He should have realized that any time you do something to take speed away at the track, Hoosiers lose interest.  George used and all oval circuit which attracted American drivers but ha also angered too many CART owners, who would not participate, and he was left without the bigger names in owners and drivers.  The slower speeds and the loss of the names and the dye was cast. 

Until the early 2000s, CART had its triumphs.  It dominated the sponsor pool and had the better drivers and owners.  Though CART and Penske Racing had set the speed record for a car race with Gil de Ferran’s 241mph at Fontana in 2000, that year Ganassi came back to Indy and Juan Pablo Montoya dominated.  It showed many that the better teams and drivers had gone to CART, further darkening the 500.  The sponsors wanted to be at Indy, though, and many CART teams were forced back .  It was a slow death for CART after that.  Now it is only Indy, and it is a slower, albeit safer, place.

In the time these parties were parted, NASCAR came into dominance.  It succeeded on several levels.  It maintained its sponsors.  I offered and American television audience personalities they could get behind, and it marketed the race to the proper crowd.  In short, they took American drivers driving in a circle with American brands on the hoods and American motors under them and packaged it up.  They sold it to a bunch of Americans that have nothing but cultural disdain for foreigners and it boomed. 

In my opinion, NASCAR is a far inferior form of racing to open wheeled racing.  It is slower.  That does not entertain me.  Restrictor plates force the cars into pack racing which, while exciting at the Indiana University Little 500 ( a bicycle race), is not exciting for me.  The stock car racing has been infused with bump and run tactics.  That isn’t racing, its bumper cars.  Every time I here someone say, “rubbin is racin” I want to blow Tom Cruise’s teeth out with a shotgun full of rock salt.  Watching drivers constantly spin out other drivers and bump them up into the walls doesn’t do anything for me.  In open wheeled racing, bumping like that gets people killed.  I want to see cars go faster than other cars.  That is the essence of racing, going faster.  Drafting is part of any racing, but in stock car racing, it is obnoxious.  Because of restrictor plates and other institutional factors, if a guy wants to pass you after slipstreaming you, you are screwed.  Even a slower car can do it because you just can’t drive away from people with restrictors on.  And, to make matters worse, you can’t keep that slower guy out of your draft by pulling away because the pack will bring him back to you. 

If you are the guy who likes NASCAR because of the “drama” that plays out in the pits when a bunch of prettied up playboys start acting hard and want to do the man dance, go eat some Spaghetti-Os or something.  None of these guys are one third as tough as A.J. Foyt, who wakes up every morning looking for cop to punch, and none of them are half the driver.  In his day, A.J. could kick the shit out of any two NASCAR drivers, and could take 9 of 10 today, at the age of 73.  So you NASCAR fans that like to watch your drivers fight better be glad A.J. isn’t around, because he would be marching around the pits like Conan.  Hell, back in 65 Foyt’s mangled body was pulled from a  wreck at Riverside.  The track doctor said he was dead.  When Foyt came to he got up and smacked the doctor’s mom to send him a message.  It is too bad men aren’t allowed to act like A.J Foyt anymore.  If I was as cool as A.J. Foyt they would put me in jail for fathering too many children.  The government would have considered it and invasion force.  It would make a Axe Body Spray commercial look like a an afternoon tea party for abstinence support group.  If A.J. Foyt and Bob Sanders got in a fight the world would be doomed.

    Anyway, I am glad I get to watch the race this year.  The racing is as great as ever.  In 2007 the rain made for a shortened affair, and something of a buzzkill.  But in 2006 it was amazing, with Wheldon dominating early but Michael Andretti and his son, Marco, leading with just a few laps to go.  Then here comes Sam Hornish charging up, and Michael Andretti either has to beat his son to win the race that always eluded him or block the Hornish who is charging up in the faster car.  With Hornish overtaking Michael, it was the son of legacy and the pride of Ohio dueling it out for the greatest prize in motorsports and the only final lap pass in history as Hornish took the win by 6 one hundredths of a second.  Now that is drama in racing.  2005 was no slouch with Danica leading with just 7 to go.  This year, the race has its most attractive cast ever as it includes Danica, Sarah Fisher, and Milka Duno (who has improved significantly since drawing the ire of Ashley Judd last year).  In the “HELLO” moment of my morning I learned that Duno, a former model, holds 4 (four) different Master’s Degrees (Organizational Development, Naval Architecture, Maritime Business, and Marine Biology).  If Duno is able to miraculously win I doubt she will strip nekkid and pour milk over herself (come on..DO IT), but she may build a boat.  No, seriously, I am interested in knowing what kind of effects Milka’s breast implants experience in the G-Force world of IndyCar.  I can't figure out if Milka looks more like Michael or LaToya.

I am going to stop this post before I start making bad jokes about cars and women, like asking how often Danica sits on the pole.  Okay, this is over.  Watch the race.    

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