All-purpose open-wheel (F1, IRL) racing thread

If you ever qualify for Boston, let me know. My house is sure cheaper than any hotel in this burg. Also, you'll need a pit crew.

 

I've mentioned this before, but at some point they need to either replace the current track announcer or get him to dial it way down. I was watching last year's broadcast this morning. The TV announcers do a great job of shutting the hell up and letting the moment breathe when the green flag drops. All you hear is Callabro in the background, not ever shutting ... the fuck ... up.

 

I'm about sold. It's 14 hours from here. Will text you when I'm close.

 

The car culture thing has validity, though for me (and probably a lot of my generation), it comes down to modest means. I've never driven anything newer or better than the car I have now, a 2000 Honda Accord (with low miles), and that's pretty damning. As I mentioned a while back, I had a friendly guy at church who'd give me his Autoweek back issues. I pretty much only read the racing articles, though, because I knew even then that I'd never drive anything like that. We always did OK as a family (dad was a school principal, mom worked at the home), but we were never of the means to drive (or dream of driving) anything better than a lightly used sedan. I've been watching Top Gear episodes on Netflix and I don't think I'll even make it to the old "Kia Cee-apostrophe-D" level (and not just because that car isn't sold in the US).

At least for a while in the mid-90s, I had a calendar and I'd write all the major series that were racing, who won each pole and each race. I'd love to see Indy some day. Heck, I'd go to any major series race if it were anywhere near me, but I grew up in the Northern Great Lakes region. I think the closest NASCAR track to me was Chicago, a good eight hours away.

Any of you guys been to Road America? That's probably as close as I am to any of the IndyCar tracks.

 

Yeah, it's sad how many sponsor names are recognizable. Penske has Verizon, at one race this year Power and Castroneves had matching paint schemes. Newgarden has sponsors I'm not familiar with, apparently one is some Verizon product. Ganassi lost Target and has NTT Data (who?) for Dixon and Kanaan. Andretti hasn't gotten a big name sponsor to replace Go Daddy. And those are the big teams. Joe Blow spectator flipping by the race Sunday would recognize Verizon, DHL, Geico, Steak n Shake...am i missing any big names? Go back 30 years, you had cars with Pennzoil, Miller, Bud, KMart, Texaco, Valvoline, Marlboro and Domino's, among others.
Plus the broadcasting team on ABC leaves something to be desired. Eddie UnderaCheever has never been good, and Scott Goodyear is only slightly better. I would love to have Dario in the booth. Paul Tracy is a step up as well.

 

Carpenter has Fuzzy's Vodka. Pagenaud has Menard's, I believe.

But your point is well-taken. Losing Target is rough.

 

Neither of which are available in my part of the world, which should be target-rich for auto racing.

 

I was a regular at the Toronto Indy for a number of years but the no-name fields and the lack of sponsors really jump out at me whenever I watch Indy these days. For years that race was a huge part of the Toronto sports calendar in the summer (my brother-and-law and I got our tickets months in advance to make sure we were in the grandstand at the start/finish line) but the last few years the profile of the race has disappeared (even though Fridays have been free for the last few years), there is little advertising compared to the old days and the stands are papered.

And the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal will be packed.

 

It's funny to me that you see it as a "no-name field." To me, Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon and Will Power and 20 other guys are household names.

 

It's interesting to consider which driver winning would most send the crowd into a frenzy. Probably ranked something like:

1. Pippa Mann
2. Marco Andretti
3. Helio Castroneves
4. Ed Carpenter
5. Fernando Alonso

HM: Conor Daly, Tony Kanaan, James Hinchcliffe, J.R. Hildebrand, Alexander Rossi, Graham Rahal, Buddy Lazier, Sage Karam

Milquetoast: Will Power, Simon Pagenaud (even though either would be a series star's first), Takuma Sato, RHR (some AA fans like me would like it), Carlos Munoz, Charlie Kimball, Ed Jones, all the others and the one-offs.

Will Power is going to win it, I think.

 

Certainly compared to the series heyday here when you had Vassar, Rahal, Herta, Tracy, Moore, Michael and Mario, Al Jr. Franchiti, Fittipaldi, Zanardi, Blundell....

 

It's something I've thought about, because it's not like back then people were tuning in week after week to watch CART races. The field is really, really deep and talented these days. I don't know why the stars don't cross over. Just too much on people's plates in 2017, I guess, for names from one race a year to take root. Sports radio and the Internet's relentless focus on the NFL and NBA doesn't help, either.