Sato well deserved - best car the last 50 laps

japan namba wan!

takuma had several good years in f1 but was never given a winning car

race was good fun, seems to combine bits of f1 with bits of velodrome cycling which i hadn't anticipated. a shame that they didnt get to go to the end when there was 30 odd laps to go and fernando was still in with a shout

will def watch again if there's a rooting interest. would like to see pastor maldonado have a go

that's how you do the milk

Sato a cool cat. great for him. solid race day.

This might get lengthy, I'm a Hoosier, an Indianapolis guy, and went to my first race there at age 7 and didn't miss a year until I was outside the country. I find it super interesting though.

What killed the 500 was money, plain and simple. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway and all marketing/branding/everything Indy 500 are owned by a local family, the Hulman-George family, who have run the track since its inception over 100 years ago. How it really became to be such a phenomenon was that it grew with the cars and encouraged teams to buy in and try their luck. Very often there would be all sorts of cars/engines/chassis systems on the cars each year and it was a legit chance to see all the best stuff go at it.

However, the family, run by Tony George at the time, were really starting to feel the pressure of the best money buying the best gear and limiting the excitement of the race. He also felt that the money would come from mostly foreigners and that the future race fans wouldn't have a guy like Foyt or Unser as an American to get behind. Geroge was a supporter/ally/basically benefactor to USAC, the regulating body of open wheel racing under which the 500 ran. In 1994 they basically announced that they were going to put a sort of a salary cap on the gear with an idea to standardize the engine/chassis systems both to encourage competitiveness and discourage foreign-based teams from "buying" Indianapolis. It was basically a FU to Mercedes who had crushed the 500 in the early 90s.

The opposition was fierce, funded and led by (Paul) Newman/Haas racing and they split off to form CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) and set up their own schedule of races including a direct competitor to the Indy 500 in Michigan which had Ganassi/Penske teams in it along with the most famous drivers: Andretti, Fitiipaldi, Unser Jr, Rahal and it was faster and more competitive... until right before the green flag when idiot Adrian Fernandez wouldn't stay away from Jimmy Vasser and damn near half the field dropped out in a ridiculous crash:



So Indy had lost the talent, the money, and the teams, but they still had Indy, which had become such an institution in the local community that it STILL drew 200,000 fans even in the darkest of dark years. It still had the public TV contract, it now ran on George's terms, and it actually succeeded in creating its own stars (Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick being the two most recognized grown in Indy) and Indianapolis and the surrounding community never gave up on the race for... reasons. It was our stake to the national stage in sporting forever. Families made pilgrimage annually like Mecca to the track to see one another.

Eventually the money ran out of CART. They were poorly run and had no flagship race to draw sponsorship. Ganassi and Penske eventually went back to Indy. All the guys who bolted are still institutions around the track and everyone, for the most part, is back. Unfortunately the racing sponsorship money all went to NASCAR. F1 didn't kill Indy. NASCAR did when they took all the money. Advertising restrictions also hurt a ton (Budweiser, Miller, Marlboro, and Copenhagen were consistent big money sponsors)

Indy is worth going to once for any racing fan, any Hoosier, and any sports fan within a day drive. Go there the night before, camp out, and enjoy day drinking and seeing a fun atmosphere and fast cars. Take the front page of the paper, cut it up into 33 strips, everyone throw in 100 bucks, and take turns drawing names out of the hat. It's one of the best gambling days if you have 3 drivers and are tracking all three of them. You'll learn a lot about the track/sport as well. It's still fun, still steeped in tradition, and still worth going. It's also not going anywhere because Hoosiers won't let it die.

tl;dr: the indy 500 is great

For someone in their 20s/30s, it's hard to picture Indy without thinking of those tobacco cars:

That was one hell of a wreck Dixon survived going airborne. I'm not sure what kind of safety advances they've been doing in Indy with the open cockpit and all, but man it's dangerous out there. If Penske called me up to drive Indy for him, I'd have to legit think about it before accepting.

Some of these other ovals they go on are even more just flat out insane too like Texas. I just really hope they find or have found some safety advances that can put a lid on driver deaths, if that's even possible, since it's impossible to be 100% safe racing a motor vehicle at 220+mph.

Also just to add-on ^^^ open wheel has had a handful of driver's that have crossed over to NASCAR for the sponsorship dollars. If it wasn't for money, driver's like Allmendinger and Danica would have left NASCAR by now, for a ground where they're much more competitive and their talents are much better suited. Now, that said, if IRL was the more popular lucrative series in the US it shifts everything to the point where you're looking at a Logano or a Keselowski thinking about switching over to IRL...now that's weird to think about, but something I would love to see go down in fantasyland.

I think it's easy to say Stewart and JPM were the two most talented driver's to cross over like that (even though Montoya was sort of a let down in the Cup series). Ambrose and Allmendinger I'd put in the same boat... both extremely talented and road course ringers, and both never had equipment to significantly win (although Allmendinger was in the 22 Penske machine before getting a coke suspension, hard to say what he could have made of that).

But anyhow, always love to tune into the Indy 500 exciting race this year, and usually most years imo. It's one of the few times a year I check in on the IRL and see what's going on. Hardly ever disappoints.

Man, that dixon crash. Cockpit/head never hit anything fortunately.

Wish I had known you were there, would have bought you a beer. I was at turn 3

How come F1 rejects tear up the greatest spectacle of US racing, are American drivers really that bad?

Taku has won two races in eight years in Indycar. Rossi (Also American fwiw) won the 2016 500 on a fuel mileage gamble and that's about it for tearing up Indy other than JPM who is an oval racer more than anything if you ask me. Dude even had success in NASCAR which only really Tony Stewart has been able to do jumping open wheel to stock car.

Do you consider Franchitti, Wheldon, Castroneves, Hornish Jr. F1 rejects? I mean, the most money is in F1, and there are how many competitive rides in that series? I'm sure any of those guys would go work for a top F1 team if given the chance but to argue that one of the Penske/Ganassi guys would jump to be a third/fourth driver at a lower F1 team in hopes of grabbing a slot is kind of odd.

I guess my point is that every open wheel driver is, in essence, an F1 reject. But fast is fast. It's stupid to argue but I don't have any trouble believing any of those listed guys couldn't have been a 2nd/3rd driver in F1 at some point if they had dedicated themselves to it. Each driver is different, though. Sato still can't keep his car out of the wall with any consistency. When he wrecks it in Indy it's just not nearly as expensive as when he did it in F1. It's a different series, heavier cars, more power... but standardized equipment to an extent and cheaper to run. Can't argue apples to oranges.

Indy used to field F1 guys, good and bad, a lot more often. I really think it's going to happen more and more in the future. Alonso was able to jump into a competitive (4th) ride for a team because of the ability of the Andretti organization/Honda. Penske/Ganassi/Andretti could all open an extra slot to field the right driver if needed. 15-20 cars can win the race pretty much any year as long as the driver is good. The ingredients are there for this to happen more often.

Thanks for all your help. I have fond memories of Dr. Jack Miller the racing dentist. There's a 30 for 30 about Indycar in the period that never got made. If I was a filmmaker I would be on it.

Shuffle,

Yeah, you still bring your own coolers in, just can't have glass.

I've camped in the Coke lot prior to race day for the last 5 years and it's a colossal **** show each year.

This happened 150 ft. From us...NSFL

Like what was that guy trying to do? Did he over rotate a 1.0 or way under rotate a 2.0?

Damn can't unsee that

lol I don't think there was a lot of planning that went into it

Zero planning, that's a 100%, been drinking since 8 am, probably trying to impress a girl, hold my beer, kind of moment.

It's a 36 hour, 30,000 person outdoor party in the Midwest, its simultaneously charming and horrifying.

i was in turn 3 this year, and it was the usual **** show i remembered. I haven't been to the race since 2011, and had been for ~10 years straight prior to that. The snake pit was just a giant EDM concert, which i hadn't experienced before. Crazy how loud it was in front of it, and how you could hardly hear it in the actual turn.

Today's Indycar race is a street circuit in Detroit - on abc live now

That 1995 intro is awesome.

95' Indy 500 was the first race I ever watched as a kid. I distinctly remember randomly picking Villeneuve to win as they were showing the grid (probably because his name was different and blue car). 2 laps down "come on!" 1 lap down "only need 1 more lap!" back on the lead lap "he's passing cars!" little while later "he's in the lead!".

I was excited to say the least by the end. And, shocked.

7 of them just went into the wall, few more caught up in it.

That Texas race was a bit of a disaster that I couldn't look away from. Race finished with like 7 cars running

Watched last 80/100 laps, was great.

Green is coming soon. This should be a really exciting race, maybe 15 cars can win. If you’re within driving distance from Indy you really should attend this race once before you die. It’s super fun.

Kelly Clarkson is a ****ing awesome singer apparently.