Working for AJ Foyt is brutal - he's a tough son of a bitch! After the fire, he was on the radio saying "VITOR! Get out on the track, you pussy! What are you waiting for?" And then after the crash, AJ was hollering "Walk it off, you LOSER!! Come on! You are holding up the race!! Just because tomorrow is Memorial Day doesn't mean that you get the day off!!"
Using a bucket brigade to put him out is possibly the worst part of the fire. It looks like they grabbed some buckets that had been collecting rainwater from the leaky roof and threw it on him. Nobody's heard of fire extinguishers at Indy? I know that they use water for the ethanol fires and all that, but surely in pressurized form they'd work better and not soak the track and car.
Tony Kanaan, Vitor Meira, Raphael Matos, Nelson Piquet Jr. Should I be worried of a Brazilian extermination program? Or should I roll the Barrichello-Castroneves way? Maybe not Barrichello, I'm not Brawn's #2 pilot...
The Guardians are just making sure Victor doesn't win if he does, the Illuminati will rule over the world. It's an Illuminati plot to make all racing unified. No F1 and Nascar, just 1 racing series.
It is the tabernacle of top speed. The cars and engines may all be the same. It may not be the race it used to be but it is still Indy. Still, no other event has a lap speed that can rival it. As someone said on another post the 'run what you brung' formula was about to exceed the facility's safety margins, if it hadn't already.
Just being on the grounds of that great venue gives me chills.
If you went to Indy and didn't visit the museum you really missed out on one of the great features of any event at the track.
@4wheeldrift: Here's the thing, I really like Indy, i'd go every year if I could just to hear the engines wail and watch the drama build to the last few laps, but you'd be burying your head in the sand if you said it was all lollipops and gumdrops. It's about 7/10ths super awesome fun time, 3/10th pain in the ass.
Take it easy, race fans. Ben's not (necessarily) saying that any of these things should keep you from attending the race. He's merely compiling a list of the things that suck about being there. Can we agree that these things suck, in general, and regardless of location? So why wouldn't they suck at Indy?
My issue with the list is that #2 supersedes the need for #1, #6, and #10. The crowd is the reason for shitty egress, shitty parking, and excessive traffic.
God, I hate people. Not individual persons, but people en masse.
Rednecks, in general, don't bother me, but race fan rednecks are a different breed. The rednecks that are out wrenching on their mud truck whilst blasting some Skynyrd, and drinking some Pisswater Blue Ribbon...them's my people.
Fair enough. If these are the things that suck in general, and the Indy 500 is a big freakin deal wouldn't it be safe to say that the things that suck in general are givens? Frankly, to shove half the population of Indy proper into one arena and STILL allow bloggers access to the race, the crowd, alcohol and manage to get them out again is pretty impressive. I guess I see this as the equivalent of pissing on my home. Sort of like my traveling to Detroit and making fun of the unemployed milling around. Would Jalopnik pay me for that different perspective? Ten Things That Suck About Living Near Detroit. I smell a whatever the blogger awards are called.
#11 - No need to brake on the last split of a second before entering a corner, makes it for the viewer a parade where one driver slowly (at high speeds) overtakes another.
Gee, Grandmaw, maybe you shouldn't have gone. I can't say anything on the list is a hot news flash about Indy--watching it on TV for the first time years ago told me I would never want to be there live.
Oh, and I actually like the Cavemen. So that would have been a +1.
Apart from #4 and #8 (obviously), and really #10, you've just listed the Ten Worst Things about Bonnaroo.
As for #10, if you want to live in a city where things happen, get over it. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work during the fourish weeks of Mardi Gras season. That's normally a ten minute drive.
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If there's any good that has come out of this, it's that Paul Tracy will be driving the 14 car at Milwaukee this weekend.
The Thrill from West Hill rides again!
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Something I'm not getting?
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Just being on the grounds of that great venue gives me chills.
If you went to Indy and didn't visit the museum you really missed out on one of the great features of any event at the track.
I suggest you watch it on TV next year.
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My issue with the list is that #2 supersedes the need for #1, #6, and #10. The crowd is the reason for shitty egress, shitty parking, and excessive traffic.
God, I hate people. Not individual persons, but people en masse.
Rednecks, in general, don't bother me, but race fan rednecks are a different breed. The rednecks that are out wrenching on their mud truck whilst blasting some Skynyrd, and drinking some Pisswater Blue Ribbon...them's my people.
05/24/09
Fair enough. If these are the things that suck in general, and the Indy 500 is a big freakin deal wouldn't it be safe to say that the things that suck in general are givens? Frankly, to shove half the population of Indy proper into one arena and STILL allow bloggers access to the race, the crowd, alcohol and manage to get them out again is pretty impressive. I guess I see this as the equivalent of pissing on my home. Sort of like my traveling to Detroit and making fun of the unemployed milling around. Would Jalopnik pay me for that different perspective? Ten Things That Suck About Living Near Detroit. I smell a whatever the blogger awards are called.
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/Bitter, unemployed, living near(ish) Detroit.
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Oh, and I actually like the Cavemen. So that would have been a +1.
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As for #10, if you want to live in a city where things happen, get over it. It takes me an hour and a half to get to work during the fourish weeks of Mardi Gras season. That's normally a ten minute drive.