![]() Individually, The Car, The Team, and The Venue are all unique and special organisms, all worthy on their own of pilgrimage and fandom. ![]() I say ‘official’ because every racegoer has their own set of odd traditions for race weekend and a large majority of the fans travel from out of state and surely have their own unique race day road trip rituals. It’s weird to think Jim Nabors, The Snake Pit, and pounding a quart of milk have something in common, but these are just a few of the numerous official traditions that take place every Memorial Day weekend in Indianapolis, more specifically Speedway Indiana. But it’s not just the track that makes this place what it is. Upwards of 400,000 people attend, although no official attendance is reported, there is seating for 235,000 people. The track itself is a 2.5-mile oval and there is not a seat in the house that has a view of the whole track – that is how big it is. The Venue is what makes this race better than any other race on the planet. The chess match of when and how to pit, combined with the risk of human or mechanical error in the pit crew is true athletic theatre. A mistake in the pits can cost positions on the track and easily alter the outcome of the race. All these movements and actions are choreographed to take 6-10 seconds. At each pit stop, the cars get 2-4 new tires, each tire has five nuts that need to be unscrewed and re-screwed (tightly), and the car gets about 40 gallons of fuel – in 6-10 seconds. Over the course of the 500, the cars will make 5-6 pit stops. The nerves, the training, and the skill to process so many computations so quickly and precisely are nothing short of surgical.īehind every Driver, is the team. The athleticism and bravado it takes to drive a car as fast as it can possibly go straight at a 90-degree corner, only to lift your foot off the gas at the last milli-second, to beat the driver inches to your right or behind you or in front of you is something regular people cannot fathom. ![]() The tension and beauty in this danger is extreme and intoxicating.Įach race car has a team, the most notable member of that team is the Driver. Unlike NASCAR, where, “if you’re not rubbin’, you’re not racin’”, Indy cars are pretty precious and any contact will, best case scenario, mess up the aerodynamics, worst case and most likely, crash the car. The aerodynamics of an Indy are so good that if you were able to turn the track upside down, while traveling at these speeds, the cars would stick to the track and not fall off.Īnother important factor to these cars, is that the Indy car – like an F1 car – is considered ‘open-wheel’ racing. The average lap time for the polesitter in recent years has hovered around 228 mph. The top speed for a large oval, such as the 500, is about 235 miles per hour (down from a staggering 244). The car sitting in your garage is twice as heavy with 170 ponies under the hood. The typical Indy car weighs about 1600 lbs and the engine is approximately 650 horsepower. And yet, it has been said, what heaven is to Catholics, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is to race fans – and everyone should experience that thrill at least once in their lifetime. ![]() ![]() Real loyalties to teams or drivers are only a fraction of the draw. It is an event in the first half of the race season, with very few of the cars or teams are based in Indianapolis. The Indianapolis 500 is different in every way. While to the uninformed viewer, a car race may simply appear to be a series of left-hand turns, a waste of gas, a redneck pastime, boring, dumb, stupid, or whatever dismissive term is most easily and readily applicable – indeed it is much more than that. Is the hyperbolic title of The Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports Racing truly apt? First, is it important to decide what a great sporting event is defined by the culmination of a season’s worth of wins/losses that pit the two best teams for a winner take all finale, fans of those teams packed into an arena or stadium (or bar, or home, or backyard) to cheer together for their respective team to win, a hail Mary pass, a walk-off home run, a last-minute goal to win? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |