Go See a Race!

Five of my favorite hours of the entire year come during the two Indycar races I attend annually. It feels good to settle into a seat (er, balance on the edge of a bleacher) and watch a race unfold. The sights, sounds, smells, and general experience are nothing like one gets on TV. A modern race-watching experience usually includes video boards and scoring towers that convey most of the information the coverage is good for. Television universally, however, misses and flattens out the real experience. Just how long does the backstretch at Indianapolis look? How busy are two dozen drivers on a flat 1-mile oval? How fast does a car slow down to negotiate the esses at Mid-Ohio?
I've given up trying to do basically anything on my phone during a race (if you know who you are, sorry... I didn't want to miss anything...), but my stopwatch and camera are always at ready. I spent the final couple of stints at Milwaukee timing Will Power's deficit, and got a lot of good (for my skills, anyway) pit stop photos. Anyway, it will be a long wait until Indianapolis next year, when I plan to be at my next Indycar race...

In any event, maybe the most fun part of actually going to races is meeting and hanging out with all those friends I seldom see any other time. To everyone I met up with at Indianapolis and Milwaukee, Thanks and I'm looking forward to next year!

It's May... Time for Rambling Nostalgia

Three road and street course races into the season, and Will Power has yet to finish on the podium, much less win. In fact, neither Penske nor Ganassi cars have scored a win yet this year. Takuma Sato won in a Foyt car. What im trying to say is... it's shaping up to be an unusual season. Even the teams that have done well have been less than consistent. 

 

I guess we'll probably start to see some patterns this weekend at Sao Paulo (like RHR's pole...)-Just in time to shake everything up at Indianapolis. 

 

The hectic schedule of this month has me struggling to keep up-outdoor work in what's still 'Early Spring' here in the Midwest, kids' activities, daily hours of BOTH Trackside AND Talk of Gasoline Alley... I guess it's a part of the changing seasons as anything else: A week from now, the Speedway will open for practice. One week after that will see the two most exciting qualifying events in racing. Then things really get going as the 33 starters are dispatched to national media to talk up the race in the week leading up to it. All the while, we're getting daily hours of "Trackside" AND "Talk of Gasoline Alley". 

I'll be keeping an eye on speeds, times, and news all along, but things will really start for me on qualifying weekend. There will likely be dozens of texts sent between my friends and I over the course of the weekend. I like to watch the showdown for the pole on Saturday afternoon, and the last hour or so of Bump Day. By the time the gun fires on Sunday afternoon, I'm making packing lists, double-checking driving routes, and planning to gently remind my boss that I'll be out of the office on Friday... I hope I can keep the same schedule as last year and arrive in time for at least some of the Carb Day activities. Then it's two and a half solid days of friends, history, and racing. 

 

Whew. First, let's concentrate on Brazil. Then maybe I can start packing that bag...

 

Watch this space for some actual commenting and analysis in the next few days. There are a lot of things brewing (and I'm sure a lot of announcements coming) that I'd like to weigh in on. Until then,