The 2024 running motorsports thread

They showed the radar a few minutes before the delay and there was a line of thunderstorms closing in.

 

Yeah, they just had a live shot of the rain. They've lost the track.

 

They've called it. Christopher Bell is your Coca-Cola 600 winner.

 

Didn’t get to see any of anything today. I wanted to read that Larson ran all 1,100 miles and get a pair of top-5s. Oh well.

 

People in Daytona Beach are shocked that NASCAR refused to restart the race at 1 a.m.

 

Larson ran really well at Indy, despite the 18th place finish. He had a pit lane speeding penalty on his first green flag pit stop that moved him to the back of the pack after staying in the top 10 most of the day. Even after the penalty he logged a few laps as the race leader in an off-cycle fuel strategy.

I was impressed and hope he'll give it another try at some point. I know they mentioned the possibility of doing it next year, but I wonder if Hendrick will still be on board with that after it kept him from running in Charlotte.

 

He may be the only driver in history to experience two rain delays at two different tracks in two states on the same day.

Once the weather cleared, the 500 was like everybody racing like it was the last lap from Lap 1. I've never seen a more frenzied three-hour race in my life. A lot of questionable moves worked, a few didn't.

We didn't get back to Columbus (Indiana) until 12:30 a.m., and then got socked with a massive thunderstorm that poured buckets for at least an hour. Now I'm packing for my own 500-mile race home today, hopefully at substantially slower speeds.

I guess I'm renewing the tickets for 2025.

 

He's the Joel Youngblood of auto racing.

 

Why not? Yeah, NASCAR is claiming that they can hold him out of the idiot playoff format because he technically missed the Charlotte race, but as PR needy as NASCAR is – not to mention it would upset Rick Hendrick to the infinite power, which would lose even more points – can you see NASCAR getting away with doing such to Larson?

Me neither. Plus someone with that organization has to see that his attempt to pull off the Indy 600/Concord 600 would do more to help its credibility, which needs all the help it can get.

 

I'm going to defer to maumann and some of the experienced people here but one of the things I noticed was that it was practically a "plate race" out there. I don't think anyone led by more than a second at any point. Granted, the folks in IndyCar probably don't view that as a bad thing, but it seems like (and Rossi insinuated post-race) that it was impossible to hold the lead down the stretch, or in Rossi's case, impossible to launch an attack on the front from third. I think the weaving looks goofy and I don't like that they run so close to the inside wall down the frontstretch.

I just wish the last few laps were more about the ability of the drivers and the cars and less about aerodynamics.

 

It's mind-boggling how stupid NASCAR is with their PR and marketing to not promote these double-race guys and say "See, we have drivers who are so great they can do both ... even in the same day!"

I'd go as far as to say they should be helping in some way to make sure the drivers who want to do this can more easily get it done. Also, put a reporter or someone with the guy from the moment he leaves Indy to arrival in Charlotte. Post updates during the flight. Maybe an online fan Q&A during the flight. Landing at (or near) the track. Instead, NASCAR seemingly gets its panties in a wad and blows a good opportunity for crossover marketing. The Olds probably wouldn't care what Larson is doing on the flight but maybe some of The Youngs would, if he was streaming-tweetering-TockTickin with them.

NASCAR is astonishingly stupid sometimes.