Last week Evan wrote about Memorial Day weekend being the first of convertible season in Southern California. Now that the weekend is over, I can talk about another Memorial Day event. That's the "greatest spectacle in racing" of course -- the Indianapolis 500. For most of Los Angeles' drivers, and even enthusiasts, it was a big yawn. As I said a few weeks ago, open-wheel racing, IndyCar, CART, and Formula 1, just don't attract any attention here.
It's too bad, too, because this race was really a good one. It did attract a lot of media attention this year for one reason. That was a very attractive woman, Danica Patrick, who was racing at Indianapolis for the first time. That made her a rookie. Her rookie test was a big deal in the press who normally carries about one paragraph on car racing in print, or nothing on TV or radio. She even made the cover of Sports Illustrated.
How did she do? Quite well actually. She was the first woman to place as high as fourth at the finish, and actually lead the race for some time. She made the mistake of killing the engine in the pits once, and the misfortune of being hit during the race -- twice.
Dan Wheldon won the race. Who is he? He is a British racer who really drove an excellent race. British? Didn't the guy who started IndyCar, and owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, say that his series was for Americans driving American cars powered by American engines? Well, yes he did. And I should note that Wheldon's car was made in England, and his engine was a Honda. So much for IndyCar being all "American".
It really was an exciting race. There were lots of lead changes. There were quite a few incidents of cars hitting each other, though. This seems like NASCAR where it happens all the time and is supposed to be part of the excitement of the race. It is much more serious when open-wheel cars touch each other than when a big heavy sedan racer hits another one. To me, that detracted from the race a lot.
Unfortunately the television coverage wasn't so good, at least in my opinion. ABC has never done car racing very well. There are lots of commercials, of course, plus they seem to think that the viewers don't really want to see racing cars all the time, instead they want to see all sorts of background items and interviews. I am very tired of hearing the line "the lead changed to..." when the telecast goes back to racing from an interview. I want to see that key part of racing. But all the press coverage of Danica Patrick raised overnight ratings over 40 percent over last year for a 6.6 percent of the households during that period. That is the highest number since 1997. Pundits claim that this was interest in the race. I claim that it was Danica and only Danica.
One interesting item is that Michael Andretti never could win the Indianapolis 500 himself in 14 starts. His dad did a couple of times, but he couldn’t quite do it. I'd say that it was because he was a "good" race driver who had an "excellent" race driver's name. He always had the best of equipment, but never quite delivered the first places when it counted. Even his brief excursion into Formula 1 was pretty much of a disaster, unlike his father who won the Formula 1 championship. But he seems to have found his place as team owner/manager. Actually he is a partner, but his name is on the team trucks: Andretti/Green Racing. Green doesn't have anything to do it anymore, but he was the owner before the Andretti partnership bought the team. This year the team's cars finished first, third, sixth, and eighth.
Do you think that this isn't really a commercial venture, not a sporting event? There is a lot of truth to that view. The real name for Dan Wheldon's car is the staggering "No.26 Klein Tools/Jim Beam Dallara/Honda/Firestone" car. Ugh.
The second place car was from Rahal Letterman Racing. Yes, that Letterman. Dave owns part of the team and is an active participant at the races. He is a real enthusiast. Victor Meira was the driver and his car was the "No.17 Johns Manville Dallara/Honda/Firestone". This is the team who entered Danica Patrick. Her car was the "No. 16 Argent Pioneer Panoz/Honda/Firestone".
Yes, all the cars end with Firestone because that is the supplier of tires to all the cars. Remember that Firestone is part of the Japanese company, Bridgestone. A small American part of this is the Panoz in Danica's car's name. That constructor is an American enterprise, unlike the British Dallara.
Okay, I've bored all of you who couldn't care less about IndyCar racing. But remember Dan Wheldon did win $1.5 million for his win.
