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

Senna's death was much like Earnhardt's in many respects. Both wrecks claimed the lives of the sports' biggest stars, and both wrecks looked fairly commonplace. Any inch or two either way, and both would probably have walked away. It's because of both wrecks the sports are so safe now. When Ratzenberger and Irwin were killed right before the megastars, it was kind of like, "Oh, that's a shame," but when Senna and Earnhardt were killed, the earth shook.

 

Incredible crash at the start of yesterdays Indianapolis Grand Prix

It's hard to believe seeing that no one was hurt. Have to wonder if IndyCar will re-think the use of standing starts. That's Saavedra's only car and practice for the 500 starts tomorrow. He's going to be behind all month because of that.

 

Standing starts are done the world over in nearly every form of racing and most IndyCar drivers almost universally come from that background. They don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater after that.

 

I was amazed no one was hurt. A wreck like that killed Ronnie Peterson at Monza. I was impressed so many people got by him.

I really prefer standing starts over rolling starts, but I'm not sure they're realistic with the drivers they have in IndyCar. Two of them stalled it off the line yesterday. If you put three IndyCar drivers in close proximity to each other, you will have a wreck within three corners.

 

You got to the crux of what I was driving at. It's the drivers, and to an extent, the cars, not the rules. The drivers want rule changes to cover them for their lack of competence.

And it's not as if wrecks don't occur with rolling starts anyway.

 

My first thought while I was watching this was that it reminded me a lot of the wreck that killed Riccardo Paletti. I'm glad everyone walked away from this one.

Did they sell any of the seats on the front stretch? IMS looked pretty empty on TV.

 

Robin Miller was estimating 20,000 to 30,000 yesterday. As he pointed out, that's bigger than any crowd they've had at qualifying in May in a long time. The Speedway claimed 40,000. Any crowd under 100,000 is going to look tiny at IMS though.

I guess whether yesterday's attendance is a success depends on how you look at it. If the goal is to make the entire month of May about the track, again, then it was probably pretty good. But as a stand alone race that's not a particularly impressive number. If they're going to keep it in early May, it should be the cheapest ticket on the schedule, IMO.

 

It looked to me like they only sold the upper deck along the front stretch, which has a much better view. On the road course you really can't even see the cars from the lower level.

Turn one is by far the best spot to watch on the road course, and that looked pretty packed.

It did look strange with the lower level empty, though.

 

Simon Pagenaud won this for all the people who saw the gas light come on and hoped they could milk it to the next gas station.

As for the opening wreck, Greg Ballard came the closest to first mayor assassinated by carbon-fiber debris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTDoOJdYE8w

 

Here's your Indy feel-good story.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sam-schmidt-riding-again-indianapolis-204837363--irl.html

Some great quotes from a great man.

 

How long will it take Ed Carpenter to fuck up in the 500?

 

With Bernie's F1 trial continuing, it's amazing to read how there is no back-up in place. From the reports I've read, if Bernie loses his case there will be a scramble to find someone to run F1. To me, what's even more dire is if Bernie has an accident or health ailment that kills him tomorrow (after all, he is 83), there doesn't seem to be a Plan B. How can an organization that old and with so much money tied into it not have a successor in place?