The Month of May is Underway

It's May!
Yes, I'm a little late. 500 travel preparations are in full swing at the Flat Into One house, and they unfortunately coincide with family visits, nice-weather projects, and other obligations so, sadly, sometimes the blog gets shuffled down the priority list.

I did watch the Grand Prix of Indianapolis: Great race!
(Yes, a 2-word review is a cop-out. This is going to be a short post)
I also watched the Fast Nine qualifying shootout. More good stuff. Congrats to Ed Carpenter on his second pole position. You may have noticed the interloper in the booth humiliating Eddie Cheever. That would have been Flat Into One favorite, Dario Franchitti.

Dario may have been the best motorsport analyst I've ever heard/seen on TV. Bold statement, yes, but contrast him to Cheever-Dario has first hand knowledge of the cars being discussed. Dario has driven a car in anger within the past decade. He also has charisma and a personality that comes across on TV. The best part was the sheer depth of detail he added. For instance, during Simon Pagenaud's run, Dario pointed out Simon's body language and noted that it was the stress of running flat-out at Indianapolis, not necessarily any exceptional physical exertion. Stuff like this is fantastic.

Other websites have hyped two new books on historically important events at the Indianapolis 500. One covers the horrific crash that came shortly after the start of the 1964 race. I'm sure it's good reading and will make time to read it through. In the meantime, here is another account of those events. 

The second new book covers the Penske Racing domination of the 1994 race with a purpose-built pushrod engine. This series covers the story of that engine and the events that surrounded it (including what happened to the Penskes in 1995, the formation of the IRL, etc). It's packed full of information, analysis, and tangential asides-just the way I like it!

By the way, if you're as big a race fan as I am, it might not be a good idea to visit the home website of the above links without several hours to killl...

Anyway, there are a couple of things I wanted to get off my chest. If I don't get another entry posted, then I hope to see you somewhere in Indianapolis this weekend!