Indy 500?

Be sure to advance your timing 4 degrees as well, they won't stand a chance.

Not to mention a fantastic last name. She gets my vote for just about anything......Did you say she races cars? ;-)

That's what it takes in a long race! I'll root for her.

Chris

Shes cute, but I'm going to have to cheer for the Linux sponsored car. Though I don't remember off the top of my head which one that is...

Is that the one at which the starter kept waving the "Get A Life" flag? :-)

It was a freaky race, but fast, competitive, and excellent overall. The most fun Indy to watch in recent memory. No more Indy Rookie League follies. I tried watching the NASCAR race afterward, but in comparison they looked like drunk hillbilly geezers in golf carts.

And probably the most controversial.

Questions: Should it have been restarted knowing it would start raining again? Should it have been run in the first place, given the weather report?

Should the interest of the spectators and TV audience be given precedence over the safety of the drivers? We all know it is, question is should it be? They could easily have killed a couple of people on that track, only pure luck and some pretty amazing car design prevented multiple tragedies....

Personally, I watched the Arizona Diamondbacks complete their 3 game sweep of the Houston Astros, to me it was much more interesting.

I don't know, I don't watch sports on TV. The weather was nice, so I was out doing stuff.

Of course. It was uncertain when the rain would resume, and the more laps completed, the more valid and less controversial the results. The fans, almost none of whom seemed to have left early, wanted to see racing. Only one driver would have been content to quit at the first rain. IMHO, the decisions, both restart and checker, were appropriate. This is Indy, not some SCCA regional amateur event. Everyone's job was to produce a world-class race. And they did.

I assume you mean racing in general, since the rain had nothing to do with your point. When racing is too dangerous, professional drivers walk out, spectators be damned. They're adults, they know the risks, and drivers have voted with their feet in the past when the risks were unacceptable. They came to race, not to whine (even Michael Andretti this time). If they didn't get off on going fast, they'd be florists or something.

That's open to argument, to me it seemed totally bush league.

Actually it did in this case.

That's happened before a race, I've never seen or heard of it happening after the race is started.

I tried watching the NASCAR race afterward, but in comparison

Oh, nobody told you? ..............IT WAS!

Chris

Yeah like that sissy F-1 where they just keep racing rain or shine. Let me see the cars are more advanced, the drivers better and the courses more difficult and they just keep going only not around in circles.

Oh and they had a little race in Europe as well, called the Monaco Grand Prix. A tad more interesting than what happened on that old brick track in Indiana.

Wrong, they race on tracks designed for wet. Indy is not, the asphalt is slick when wet.

Not really, Monaco, Indy, Nascar are about as interesting to me as watching golf on TV or watching the TV set turned off, which it usually is....

I just love it when an expert driver joins in on a subject.

If the drivers are so "much better", why don't they do better when they come and "try" to drive at Indy ? If they are "that good", they should win on the first run at it and then go back and grin when ever Indy comes up ( if ever ) at a party ?

Have YOU ever driven an open wheel race car at 200 MPH + in the dry, let alone in the rain ? I would like to see YOU even do a perfect run on an autocross course in the rain, at 45 to 60 MPH. If you can, YOU must be the International Champion. I look forward to seeing YOU driving at Indy next year.

Yes, I have tryed it. AND NO I can't do it worth a crap. ( wet or dry )

Bruce Bing '03 LS

Well, that's true.

But that's not. Monaco was the usual 1-2-3-4 parade. Dullest race of the year, as always, unlees there's also a race at the Hungaroring.

--nLarry

Tracks "designed for the wet"? What are you smoking?

-- Larry

Driving Indy cars on ovals, like driving NASCAR, requires a highly developed *subset* of general driving skills. Pro Rally, prototype racing, and F1 require the full set of skills. Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and Emerson Fittipaldi demonstrated just the general superiority you question.

Remember when the Indy 500 mattered enough to be part of the F1 calendar? I do.

-- Larry

Tracks designed for the wet, what's hard to understand about that? Roads designed with drainage (Indy doesn't have much, water puddles on the track), asphalt that's not slick like Indy, etc. etc. etc.

Hi Larry, I am 72 and I can remember back a lot longer than that ! Can you remember what the cars at Indy were like before the went to F-1 looking cars ? The " Uprights " were a real hand full. Can you remember what the wheels and tires looked like ? ( and the tires even had tread on them ! :-) )

Bruce Bing '03 LS

Damn, it's nice to know there are people older than I am, I won't be 72 for a VERY long time..... two weeks is a very long time, isn't it? ;-)

Monaco is about the spectacle and glamour of it, I guess. It is kind of cool to have F1 cars zooming through city streets, scraping the barriers - even on that relatively tight and slow course, the fast laps are averaging around 98 mph. But as far as it being a competition, the qualifying might be more critical than the actual race.

They should put the old Nurburgring back on the schedule. That would be something.