Homestead-Miami, 2008

I don't listen to the ESPN broadcasts of American open-wheel racing much. The images, love 'em. The talking heads? They try to make the broadcast a non-stop barrage of infotainment: first emphasis, on the unification, is not about explaining the matter to potential new fans...as to why it occurred, who did what, who believed what, who said what, and who behaved how (granted, that could take 30 minutes, but that would be a pre-race show actually worth a crap for once...we could call it, "What Has Gone Before")...but rather the simplistic reality of the drivers from both series now UNIFIED, and TAKING the GREEN, TOGETHER!

Second emphasis, anyone can call it before they see it. DANICA...and Helio first, technically. The Hot Racing Cover-Chick (both a legitimate May-June 2005 Sports Illustrated issue, lest anyone forget, as well as the recent swimsuit) and the Dancing Master...pop-culture references first, automobile racing prowess second; or third; or something. Sometimes you wonder if ESPN even knows what non-WWE automobile racing is. Or cares.

So, I don't listen to ESPN much at all...the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network is the way to go. Granted, I live in Indy, so 1070 WFNI (still weird to say that) automatically allows me to hear it, but even if it didn't, looking it up online at http://www.indycar.com/ is well worth it: they're just a more interesting call of the race. Not as good as they used to be...before they all got drunk on the call of the 1982 500 and tried to make every steady five car-length lead inside the last 20 laps of a race sound like Emmo vs. Al touching wheels in '89...but still better than the all-too-often Danicafanicamanicadivadepressiva stints we tend to get elsewhere. Sid Collins, where art thou...

Leading into this race, things are SET as they have never been before, in modern (post-civil war) IndyCar. Of course, this is the first race when there hasn't been an American open-wheel civil war, so it stands to reason.

THE WAR IS OVER!!! I remember a month ago, when I first heard this. My reaction was pretty boring, all told, compared to some: I calmly got up, walked over to my CD collection, and played the Hallelujah Chorus for three full sets, pumping fists in the air and rejoicing like a total nut; at 3:30 in the morning. Since then, I have calmed my reaction by some 75%, but it's still...and will always remain...a heady feeling. Question is whether this turns out to be the end of World War II...or World War I. Knowing our luck...

The opening information of interest was the disqualification, to the back of the field, of the Vision Racing cars of Ed Carpenter (#20) and A.J. Foyt IV (#2), for failing tech-inspection after qualifying, somewhat shockingly, in the second and third positions. I was personally curious (like many) as to what exactly it was...and radio mentioned improper wing-settings. How you can have improper wing-settings on a high-banked oval is beyond me, but there you go.

Going into this race, EVERYONE was talking about the theoretical danger posed to the veteren drivers by the (FORMER!) ChampCar drivers, some of whom probably have never even set foot on the grounds of an oval course, much less driven one. Would they begin spinning and crashing left and right, creating mayhem and Damn Good Television? Qualifications seemed to beg the question even more, with Graham Rahal crashing out in practice...and there not being enough friggin' spare parts around to repair it in time, for the love of God...but then, Dan Wheldon, the winner of the last three races in a row, crashed in quals. Rookie; veteren. In the end, who was to know which way it would be?

I love this sport. I LOVE it. Every moment, every second...despite all the idiotic, NFL- and NBA-worshipping television media I/we have to put up with so often, the counterpunch is worth it, that you can't REALLY script it. Even NASCAR's blatant cheating-to-excite-it-up is done with the constant background danger of it all blowing up in those scripters' faces with one bad twist of a wheel, one spare part loose on the track causing a tire to explode. NAS uses that reality, mind you, to call caution periods for very often non-existent debris on the course...in order to Enhance Everyone's Safety by shoving all the cars close together after they've gotten strung out...but still, the idea of single a moment of CHAOS changing EVERYTHING (translate: usually, the lead car of the race) is a draw I will never tire of. Get a big enough lead in football, and it is insurmountable; get a full lap on the field in motorsport (not to be confused with NASCAR, which has literally outlawed that happening again before the next ice age), and you might become a byword, at least for a week, for frickin' rotten luck.

Anyway: everyone's supposedly afraid of ChampCar Chaos. Not; afraid of chaos REIGNING, sure. No chaos at all means little screen time on the sports news infotainment segments.

Coming up to the green flag, I was impressed with one thing, immediately...and ironically: they called it off. The field was straggled and rather pathetic in the back rows, and they actually CALLED A START OFF. Holy ****. Is this the impact of Tony Cotman, already? If so, they need to put him in charge of the start at Indianapolis; in ten years, we've only had one start that was legitimately worth a crap, and not half-single-file down the line. In recent years, Mr. Brian Barnhart, Cotman's direct superior as president of competition (aka "Dumbass", according to my brother) has stressed the need for Safety At The Start, year after year; to this I reply, "Make 7-...Up Yours." If they can't handle that first turn without crashing, either put ground effect tech back in the chassis so they can control it on the high side...or let 'em crash. INDY---three; friggin'; wide.

The second start was decent. Scott Dixon (#9), who started on pole position, took the lead, and looked very strong from the get. Danica (#7), of aforementioned modeling fame, and slotted up to second on the grid with the rearing of the Vision cars, began dropping back immediately. Go figure. Tony Kanaan (#11) roared like gangbusters after Dixon in roughly two seconds, and we had a race on our hands at the front...

...and at the rear, soon midpack, as Wheldon (#10) started kicking ass, and ripped 8 spots on the field in five, five more laps and he's a top ten. This, after car owner Chip Ganassi told him to take it easy in those opening laps. At that pace, I'd hate, and love, to see him in a bar fight drunk.

The ChampCar Chaos never materialized. If a car was so bad they couldn't work with it, several of them (notably Bruno Junqueira, one of the guys who was not classified as an IRL rookie), they parked it; like...a sportsman would. Most of the other ones, running at comparatively slow pace, kept their lines and didn't block throughout the night. Granted, they weren't fighting for anything, so no real reason to block, but...holy ****...we may have excellent drivers coming in, here.

The dominant drivers of previous years move to the front quickly. Kanaan closes on Dixon pretty quick, and moves to the lead, but loses it again through the first round of pitstops. The Players are Dixon (Ganassi), Kanaan (Andretti-Green Racing/AGR), Castroneves (#3; Team Penske), Marco Andretti (#26; son of Michael, son of Mario; AGR), Wheldon (Ganassi), Ryan Briscoe (#6; just in from the America Le Mans Series, as replacement for some other guy; Penske), Danica (AGR). Seeing a pattern? Others fill out the top ten...Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17; Rahal-Letterman Racing), A.J. Foyt IV (Vision), and Vitor Meira (#4; Panther Racing) at lap 50...but those are also-runners, with the exception of maybe Rahal, via Hunter-Reay, getting the old days back soon. The Big Three Teams are UBER-dominant, and will remain so throughout the night.

On Lap 74 we had the most exciting move of the new season, as Dixon became so loose as to fully fishtail the backend, and Marco Andretti, coming up outside, came within about...oh, his hair...of scraping/SLAMMING the wall, to avoid, even while working to make the pass. He succeeded. Had he not, everyone would've been wondering about just how strong Marco truly was, given how he checked out on the field for the next half of the race, 1/4 to about 3/4 of the way through.

The running order was Andretti and Dixon at the front for a long while, Marco slowly building a comfortable lead, Dixon losing ground...until a yellow came out on lap 127, bunching the field, after Wheldon had brought it all the way up to second, passing his teammate, and slowly closing on Andretti. The yellow made it so that if Marco was going to win, he was going to have to outrun them, head-to-head and close.

He did. For awhile.

Clearing the pack quickly, it took Wheldon, Dixon and suddenly Kanaan as well, one or two laps to clear the backmarker lap cars between; then it was an inch-by-inch show, as the three began reeling in each one in front of them. Wheldon on Andretti, Dixon on Wheldon, Kanaan on Dixon. Kanaan was thus the fastest, and inside twenty laps of the restart, he ripped by each in turn, finally using a pick-move, via lap car Mario Morales, to get AGR teammate Marco. With 40 to go, it started looking better and better for Kanaan, who stretched it out to about 3 seconds. Past the final pitstops, it STILL looked great for Kanaan, for, despite losing ground to Dixon who had improved his car in the stop and moved back past Wheldon and then Andretti, seemed to have enough of a gap on him in the eight remaining laps to grind it home.

And then everything went to hell. Closing up fast (he couldn't not do so) on Ernesto Viso (#33; HVM Racing), Kanaan was suddenly hit in the right-front tire, knocking it loose, by Viso's equally-suddenly spinning car. Kanaan ALMOST SAVED IT...but no. Just a tap, and that was all it took.

On the subsequent yellow, leading down to the final restart with four to go, Kanaan stayed out; whether or not he shouldn't been allowed to take the green flag as leader, a controversial subject; as someone who's seen enough open-wheel racing, I could've guaranteed then (and can now) that he couldn't run with Dixon; just can't be done, on three good wheels and one bad. Should it be a black flag, forcing him to come in?

American open-wheel fans have very bad memories of the conclusion of the 1995 Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, where leader Scott Goodyear was black flagged for passing the pace car before it came into the pits on the final restart. Problem with this was, for anyone with the eyes and brains to see it, that the pace car driver himself was at fault, and Goodyear was getting a normal run at the start of the north short chute, not somewhere down the line, at the top of the mainstretch off of turn four, like a NASCAR restart. The driver, and perhaps race control, was trying to force the 500 field to restart like a NASCAR start; and it went to hell, then. They penalized Goodyear, took away his then strongly-leading position, and gave it to Jacques Villeneuve, who had previously been the victim of an equally idiotically-PERMITTED infraction, involving the pace car (had to be a frelling D/CK in the Pace, that year) waving him by twice, then getting penalized for obeying the wave-by, and not slowing up behind the car which he had been told to go past.

I.e., rip off a guy by stupid antics, and give it to a guy who got ripped off earlier from his rightful lead. Dishwater aftertaste, anyone??

So. No one wants to black flag the leader near the end of a race. NO ONE: God Himself might have mentioned it somewhere as being extremely bad form. The closest they've come without creating huge controversy is a ChampCar race a few years ago where they told the leader to let second place go by into the lead, as penalty for blatantly blocking him. No black flag, in other words; ignore the command to let the car behind take the lead, and then the black would've rightfully come.

So, all the way back to the point, do you show it to Kanaan?

I say no. Simple and straightforward, I say the fact that you cannot know how bad the damage is on Kanaan's car, and whether he can still keep race pace, even though the odds are 99.5% in favor of the field blowing by him, means you can't flag him as hazard. The moment they do a single lap and Kanaan's 100 mph off the pace, then you can; not before. Them's the breaks for the field, AND the leader.

They didn't flag him; he didn't pull in. He also didn't keep in the pack, bombing down through it on the mainstretch restart. Fate...but the right choice here. Keep high while he's low and things will remain fine. Kanaan pulled in with three to go, one full lap around. Dixon had it, and Marco was his only challenger...

But not enough time. Despite gaining a few car lengths, the cars are too evenly matched. Dixon wins, Marco second, Wheldon third...for the podium that they have started setting up after races, at every place but Indy and Texas (Texas owner says he's sticking to the AMERICAN concept of Victory Lane...which harkens back to the old days when the winner mattered, and podiums wouldn't be thought of for motorsport until the late 1960s, in F1; damn straight). The top five is the Dancing Master, last car on the lead lap, fourth, Ed Carpenter, for Vision, one back in fifth. Danica and Hunter-Reay one back, Kanaan and Foyt IV two back, and Meira three, for top ten. Past that, and you can look it up on Wikiproject:American Open-Wheel Racing on Wikipedia.

All in all: I thought it was great. Only four cars on the lead lap is something several people are complaining about: I say if you've got it, show it. If you don't, get better or leave. This shouldn't be damn NASCAR, as you the reader well-know by now. Once upon a time, back in the 1920s...the leader could sometimes win by four laps (rookie George Souders, 1927 at Indianapolis). This is racing. This is open-wheel.

Things to watch for next race: the ChampCar boys. If they were this decent their first time out with practically no car to work with...the Danica fans are going to get antsy as soon as they watch the F(Former)CCers roar forward, to dice it up on the lead with the best of the IC boys. If this sounds slightly sexist, it is, in the sense that Danica is a woman...and I'll write up something scientific about this in a future post. Until then, what readers may be out there...

Hurrah for the men of the cast-iron chariots.