A win for the good guys!

[Boorish Grobian]

Tony Kanaan's win in the 97th Indianapolis 500 yesterday was proof that over once in a while nice guys do finish first.  There are a hell of alot of things wrong with Indycar racing at the moment, its a pale shadow of what it once was, but to get your mug on the Borg Warner trophy is still one of the highest honors in the sport.  In a sport long overpopulated with the pampered, self-important son's of past greats, Tony is one of the guys who actually earned his way into the sport, didn't have a wealthy dad write a check to a team owner so his kid can play racer.  Long recognized as one of the most talented, and genuinally good guys in Indycar, he's one of the last of the old guard who drove real Indycars.  Well done TK!
Fax

[gatordad]

Nine years ago he went to a local hospital in Indy to visit a girl facing brain surgery the next day.  He gave her his lucky medallion for the surgery.  Last Friday a FedEx package arrived at the track for TK.  In it was the medallion from the now 24 year old young lady who survived and is in perfect health.  The note said that she had great luck with the medallion and now it was Tony's turn.  After he poured the milk on his face the reporter asked him about the medallion.  He reached into his pocket and pulled it out of his race suit.  How cool was that?

Also, Alex Zanardi was there with Max Papas.  He took his gold medal from the London para-Olympics and rubbed it all over his car.  It worked...that and some great driving.  I have friends that go to Indy on a regular basis.  They say that when TK gets into the lead the whole crowd cheers and have been doing that for years.  He is a very popular driver and I was very happy to see him win.

[Boorish Grobian]

Agreed, enormously popular win.  This was the first 500 I've missed in person in a long time, and as your friends have said, in recent years whenever Tony grabbed the lead, the crowd up at the north end of the speedway where we sat would erupt in approval.  Watched this years race from the cafe my wife works at, and there were alot of folks at the bar cheering him on.  Would have traded many of my previous trips to be there this year.
Fax

[chop456]

But I thought foreign drivers were what the Idiotgrandson^TM had to save us from.  What with that, the street races, engine leases and disconnect from the dirt-tracking USAC heritage, you'd think what exists now was the exact thing he railed against in 1994-95.    The whole sham should be plowed under.

TV ratings were around 1/3 of the last real 500 in 1995 and their TV contract is a joke.  Demand for seats is nil.  The family under the Idiotgrandson's guidance blew through $600M in the last 17 years.  The races where they make people pay for indycar tickets in order to purchase nascar tickets are empty, meaning that those people don't bother to show up for something they already paid for, and can't even give them away.  The whole operation is now apparently hemorrhaging money so badly that they're fining people $10,000 for crossing the white line at pit out.

OW racing in the U.S. is effectively dead and there's one person to blame.

[Boorish Grobian]

Hey Chop, I listen to 1070 out of Indy all the time at work, the radio in my tractor seems to pick it up really well, and its better sports talk than the blithering morons we have here.  The racing people in inside the 465 beltway however, are truly dillusional, every year its the same old crap "This is the year!  The interest is back!" It's good comedy listening to Mike King try desperately to put a positive spin on the state of the sport.  Next week at Belle Isle there will be more people in the pitlane than there will be spectators.  Did you see the footage from the season finale last year at Fontana?  Holy Crap!  No need for debris fencing that night, no one there to hit!  I take that back, I think I saw some guy and his dog sitting near the start-finish line.  Must have made RHR proud when he jumped out of his car to celebrate his championship, to the sound of crickets.
TK's win was nice, but that series is really floundering...
Fax

[gatordad]

The next sign that the Apocalypse is upon us will be the banning of the blimp so the overhead shots showing the empty grandstands cannot happen.  When they show the cars on the track from overhead they really try to not show the grandstands.  Even then they can't help but show some.  Turn three has nobody sitting in the first 15 rows.  Turn three was one of the best viewing ares on the whole track.  It seems that the berm out of two and down the backstretch look pretty full but even then it's not shoulder to shoulder.  They are very careful in the front stretch when they show fans to make sure we see no empty seats.

Imagine if Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, and Jeff Gordon were still there competing with these Brazilians driving turbocharged engines around the speedway!  Tony George should be flogged!  For that matter, so should the rest of his family.  Can't wait for the old battle axe just up and dies.  What a great track!  What a disaster in management!     

[spoonies]

Luckily I was there and was very pleased to see TK take the win. To be honest though the whole event was an anti-climax. It seems to me that the organisers have started to believe their own publicity and forgotten that people visit to see and hear racing. I was initially excited that my seat was near the action and to be in a crowd of the size they talk about would be amazing. My 9 year old was also excited that I would come home deaf, no danger of that with these engines!
It was fun, due to the people I was with and those I met. Blagging entry to the pits after the race added interest, but overall, it rates as just OK.
It was my first Indy 500 and will be my last, even if it is free again!

Many congratulations TK and roll on Le Mans.

P.S. Where else in the world does a bald 47 year old bloke have to produce ID to buy a beer?

[Boorish Grobian]

Hi Spoonie, its a shame you didn't get a chance to see the race back in the glory days before the IdiotGrandson (sorry Chop, had to borrow your name for him) sabatoged the sport.  It was really a special event, 400,000 spectators, the 230mph+ CART turbo cars, great driver line-ups, electric atmosphere.  All a thing of the past.
Apparently not many people watched it on TV either, this pretty much says it all http://www.indystar.com/article/20130528/SPORTS0107/305280133/Indianapolis-500-TV-ratings-hit-record-low.
Fax