It’s old news to be posting about this now, but since I posted so much about practice and time trials, I feel I should say something about the race.
Kudos to Andretti-Green and Dan Wheldon. I wondered at the time why Wheldon accepted his sub-par qualifying run and didn’t go out again, and I still wonder about it. But he showed once again that he’s Superman where the IRL is concerned and won his fourth race (out of five!) this year.
Kudos also to the female rookie Danica Patrick. She made some rookie mistakes, but she also showed that she has what it takes to drive out there with the men. There’s been some criticism that she’s just a pretty face and only gets attention because she’s a female, but she showed she deserves a lot of that attention. She had the highest starting position ever for a woman, the best finishing position for a woman, and was the first woman to ever lead a lap at the Indianapolis 500. She also was Rookie of the Year, and I don’t think that award has ever been presented to a woman either, but I’d have to check on that. For those that want to read more, she’s on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated, which should hit the newsstands today.
Jeers to ABC and their coverage of the race. I’ve been watching races in person and on TV for most of my life. I come from NASCAR country, and have lived near or in Indianapolis for the last 20 years. That was absolutely the worst race coverage I have ever seen. A couple of guys working out of their garage could’ve done better. They constantly went to commercial during yellows and came back AFTER the race had already gone green. Sometimes the lead had changed, and they missed it. On lap 56, when Patrick became the first woman to lead a lap at Indy, they missed it. They were talking about pit stops and then went to commercial. Only after returning from commercial did they bother to mention that “history had been made”. History was made 15 minutes ago, where were they? Late in the race, when Patrick stayed out and everyone else pitted, they didn’t even bother to mention that until after the pit stops were over. The completely ridiculous thing about that is that the camera view they were using at the time was Patrick’s in-car camera! So it was completely obvious watching everyone else go to the pits and her stay out. I could go on and on, but the entire presentation was amateurish and pathetic. IMS should sever their relationship with ABC if this is the kind of coverage they’re going to get.
The U.S. Grand Prix is in three weeks (the 19th), so everyone here is now preparing for that. I’m going to be on vacation for a little bit of that, but I’ll post what I can.
UPDATE: For those of you that missed the race, it'll be on ESPN Classic on June 3rd.