The Price is Right: Ted's Indy 500 Preview
My brother-in-law Ted is back with, as promised, a look into the Greatest Spectacle in Sports (is that what they call it), the Indy 500. As usual, I will be heading out there tomorrow for the events, highlighted by the auction/boozefest at my brother-in-law Larry's house tomorrow night. So without further ado, here's Ted....
_______________________________________________
In May 2000, my girlfriend (now wife) brought me to her hometown of Indianapolis to meet her family. Among the many items on the agenda that weekend was attending my first Indy 500. Now, admittedly, I had zero interest in car racing. Never followed it. Never watched it.
I thought it quite inane - what with all the left turns and everything. But hey, when in Indianapolis.... Everything about the Indy Motor Speedway is big. There are 250-300,000 people in the stands and if you look at the grandstands opposite you on the track, they are a mile away! Even the kitch-factor is high: Jim Nabors AND Florence Henderson sing! C'mon - it doesn't get any better than that! (Editor's note: That's me, Dils, second from left in both pictures in the blue hat!)
Just before the green flag dropped, my soon-to-be-brother-in-law Bob leaned over to me and said. "I wish I could be you right now. You are about to experience something you've never experienced before." Then, I heard it - the high-pitched whine of 33 engines revving to full throtle. Then, I saw it - 33 high powered machines screaming around turn one racing to turn two. Then, I felt it - 33 Indy cars zipping by at 220 miles per hour. It has been a hard sensation to describe until last year when I brought my mom to the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing," and as soon as all 33 cars passed us for the first time, she turned to me and said, "I can't catch my breath!"
Since then, I have been hooked. Not just on the 500, but on the Indy Racing League in general. My favorite driver: Sam Hornish, Jr. Mostly because when I first started watching IRL races his bright yellow car was easy to pick out, and he won a lot - so that didn't hurt. He has since signed with Penske Racing which is kinda like routing for the Yankees, but still, Sam's my guy. There is nothing else like it. The speeds are incredible and the strategy intense.
And they have changed my views on the whole "are race car drivers athletes?" debate. When you are going 3-wide around a corner at 200+ mph knowing that if you touch, you are out (unlike that bumper car league), that takes a lot of skill and a lot of strength.
This year's 500 mile race is intriguing mostly because every team and every driver is using the exact same Honda engine. This creates what the NFL likes to call parity (others call it mediocrity), but in theory, now more than ever, it's about the driver and the team behind him or her. For most of the month, the attention has been on Team Penske - this year's pole sitter Hornish and two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, and Target Chip Ganassi Racing - last year's winner Dan Wheldon (that's right, Danica did NOT win the 500) and former IRL champion Scott Dixon. And for good reason. Those four drivers have been the fastest all month and occupy the top four positions on the starting grid. But the great thing about Indy is that not everything goes according to script. Last year, Wheldon started 16th and worked his way up to win. in 2002, Scott Sharp started on the pole then proceeded to wreck on the first lap of the race.
With that in mind, here are a few other drivers who have a chance to ruin the Penske/Ganassi Coronation:
Vitor Meira - he came in second last year - in fact, he came in second A LOT last year and is way past due. Panther Racing isn't as big or flush with cash as they used to be, but they still have the talent in the garage to pull off the victory.
Tomas Scheckter - I don't think anyone has led more laps at Indy without ever finishing a race. He has a reputation of being a little reckless on the track especially in traffic, but over 500 miles, you need to have that delicate balance between patience and taking chances.
Tony Kanaan - last year's pole sitter is the one driver in the field that you can never count out. He could start 33rd and you would still have to put money on him winning the race. He seems to find his way through traffic, and he has the best re-starts in the league.
Also, don't be surprised if teammates Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsuura make some noise. They've been running well all month and have quietly qualified in the top 10.
If you are looking for a Rookie of the Year - all the attention is on Michael's son and Mario's grandson Marco Andretti - he did qualify 9th. But he has only finished one race all year. I would look at Townsend Bell. He's been a winner in the Indy minor leagues and I have a little more faith in Vision Racing at this point than I do with Andretti Green Racing (never would have said that a year ago).
And, if you are like us and enjoy betting on who will be the first out of the race, you can't go wrong with Foyt or Luyendyk (that's Larry and Arie, Jr. by the way).
A word about Danica - we saw Dils comments earlier in the week about her, and I would respectfully disagree with some of his points. Yes, she is with a strong team, but I also think she has the talent to be in the field. I don't think she is some gimmick the Rahal Letterman team cooked up to help them out sponsor-wise. I do agree she needs to win something - anything - to justify all the attention, and she acknowledges that. I am more interested in her teammate Buddy Rice this year. He did not get a chance to defend his title last year because of a crash during a practice session - so he will be out to prove something.
The Indy 500 is on every sports fan's list of things to experience before they die list. And it is unlike anything else you will ever see - race fan or not. At the very least, catch a little on TV. You will see more highs and lows, more out of it then back in it again more compelling storylines than in just about any other sporting event out there. You may not become a fanatic, but you will want to watch again next year.
posted by Dils @ 5/25/2006 09:34:00 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Stephen A. Smith | Duke free-falling from grace
By Stephen A. Smith
Inquirer Columnist
I never believed the day would come when we'd see an educational institution so flagrantly stupid, so selfish, so conspicuously aloof. Evidently it's Duke, supposedly one of America's more honorable institutions of higher learning.
A few days before losing in the NCAA Division I women's lacrosse semifinals on Friday, members of the Blue Devils team told the world they would wear wristbands with the word innocent emblazoned on them during the game, in support of three Duke men's lacrosse players indicted on rape charges stemming from a March 13 team party.
These 18-, 19- and 20-year-old women evidently were either ignorant or insensitive to the fact that there were 94,635 rapes in the country in 2004, according to the FBI. Or they weren't aware that rape is one of the most underreported crimes, which one would think should heighten any female's sensitivity radar.
Let us, instead, focus on Duke University, a renowned institution of learning, the same institution presently giving Jim Carrey's depiction of Dumb & Dumber a serious run for its money.
The word innocent was going to be sprayed on wristbands, and Duke said it planned to do nothing about it. It planned to do nothing even though that declaration was going to be made public, in an NCAA-sanctioned venue, by representatives of the institution, and Duke practically condoned it with no regard as to how this may look.
To think, once upon a time, academic institutions were held in high regard, a transitional haven for those moving from their teenage years to adulthood. What are we to think now when it's clear that even at places such as Duke there's an absence of common sense?
It's worth repeating that the three men who have been accused - Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans - are innocent until proven guilty.
The rape accusation by a 27-year-old, African American female student at North Carolina Central University, moonlighting as a stripper, hardly proves their guilt, which will be decided by the courts. But it also doesn't let anyone off the hook, regardless of the "No Excuse-No Regrets" motto or the "45, 13, 6" jersey numbers of the accused men that the Duke women's lacrosse players decided to wear.
After learning about the wristbands, John Burness, Duke's vice president of public affairs, said: "They don't clear those things with us ever. We're not sitting here looking over people's shoulders quite that much."
That is not only negligent, it's hypocritical.
The same university that begged the nation to avoid rushing to judgment, that during the Final Four had employees intercept questions directed at the Duke women's basketball players - seven of whom are black, by the way - turns a blind eye and deaf ear away from 31 female lacrosse players - 30 of whom are white - clearly trying to swing the national pendulum in favor of the accused.
Perhaps, at some point, it would be wise to inform these ladies about the FBI's rape statistics. If they sat down and talked with law enforcement officials, two things would be learned:
The numbers are much worse than what's actually reported.
Females ignorant to that fact can't possibly assist in alleviating this problem.
What we're sure about is that Duke should not be oblivious to any of this. Certainly not when it was found, over the last 51/2 years, to have had 52 disciplinary incidents at a rate that was accelerating, according to the New York Times.
There were strippers, alcohol and disorderly conduct at the men's lacrosse team's party. How anyone who wasn't there could possibly think they know anything is beyond me. But that's why we call them kids.
The adults at Duke are an entirely different matter.
"Any attention we got for the wristbands paled in comparison to having the media staked outside of our practice and the girls' dorms," Duke women's lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel told reporters after the team's loss Friday. "Of watching your friends be arrested; watching your fellow students not support fellow students; watching professors not support students."
She left out a few other possibilities, but we don't need to go there.
Then again, she's working for an institution that allowed a bunch of kids to nearly run amok in a public venue with Duke's name on their jerseys, bringing more unwanted attention to the deficiencies of a university deemed nearly perfect before a woman huffed and puffed and blew its house down by screaming "rape."
Considering these latest signs of negligence, who knows what else is possible?
Post a Comment
<< Home