She’s a Screamer!

This is really old, but I need to post and I figured everyone would get a kick out of it.

This is what happens when a retired F1 driver runs a lap with his wife and a candid camera. The expression on his face through the whole thing is priceless:

MAMA MIAAAAAA!!!!

“Finally, the most anticipated moment in racing”

Since it turns out that my fellow bloggers don’t know much about 1998 Daytona 500 (possibly my favorite moment in sports), here’s the final few laps. Basically, Earnhardt already had his 7 championships and had won nearly everything both in NASCAR and at Daytona except the Daytona 500 itself. Despite being the favorite several times in his career, something always seem to go wrong – most famously in 1990 a blown tire on the final lap while leading. “20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration.”

The most famous part of the whole thing is what happens as Earnhardt is driving to victory lane: “Every man on every crew has come out to the edge of pit lane to congratulate the man who has dominated everything there is to win in this sport except this race, ’til today.”

A Day of Great Finishes

I haven’t talked about racing in a long time, but today is worth it. First, the F1 race was decided by a controversial penalty after 3 laps of incredible racing. Kimi Raikkonen was leading (red Ferrari) and Lewis Hamilton was chasing (silver McLaren) when it started raining. Rather than pit for rain tires, they tried to stick it out and Hamilton quickly caught Raikkonen. He attempted a daring outside pass and ended up cutting a corner to save himself and Kimi (and it’s borderline, but I could argue that Kimi forced him off). He rejoined the track and gave back the spot, just to regain the lead with a ridiculous juke (don’t forget, track is wet). After Raikkonen went way wide, both cars caught a slow lapped car and Hamilton was forced to the grass and gave up the lead. However, Raikkonen spun exiting the corner and although he made a great save, he gave the lead back. As the track became soaked, he eventually crashed and Hamilton managed to barely keep the car on track to get the win… for the moment. The FIA later gave Hamilton a time penalty for cutting the course although it seems fairly clear to me that he gained no advantage by doing so. If this ends up costing Hamilton the championship (possible, because the winner Felipe Massa is now only 2 points behind him in the standings), this has to be one of the worst calls of all time.

"This is huge for points"

Also, the final race of the IndyCar season was decided in dramatic fashion with Helio Castroneves passing Scott Dixon at the line (with help from his teammate) to win by 0.0033 seconds. This is the 2nd closest finish in IndyCar history (the closest was awesome too). It would have been cool if Briscoe had tried to make a move 3-wide at the finish (SPLIT EM!!) kinda like this finish, but Dixon would probably have won in that case. Despite finishing 2nd, Dixon won the championship so he should be happy anyway.

Everyone watch the finish to the Chargers-Panthers game? When did Jake Delhomme become good (or the San Diego defense become bad??). I gotta give him props though, we all thought the game was over when the Chargers were up by 5. Too bad so many people were stuck watching the Cowboys. Seriously, you gotta show the Chargers to a bigger market than that – the tiny bit of blue in SoCal (not even LA??) is completely pathetic.

Finally, even though it’s a new season, it’s hard to forget last year when you see something like this. “What a lingering tragedy” is the right way to put it, and hopefully the auction/other donations have been enough to finance the future of his baby daughter Jackie.

Redneck Racists

So there was no way I could let a story like this get past us.

A former racing official is suing NASCAR for $250 million, alleging racial and sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.

Wouldn’t be the first time NASCAR officials are accused of racism – good luck getting 250mil though. My suspicion for the real reason this suit has appeared is the last bit of the sentence – “wrongful termination”. Yep, she’s mad she got fired.

Mauricia Grant, who is black, worked as a technical inspector responsible for certifying cars in NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series from January 2005 until she was fired last October. Grant alleged she was referred to as “Nappy Headed Mo” and “Queen Sheba,” by co-workers, was often told she worked on “colored people time” and was frightened by one official who routinely made references to the Ku Klux Klan.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who chuckled when they read “Nappy Headed Mo” – I thought rednecks were dumb and couldn’t make word associations like that? (Don’t worry, I still don’t think they’re the brightest). Considering all these statements are supposed to be racist, I assume when they said “colored people time” they meant that she worked slowly – which would be why she got fired. Seriously though, all these statements are ridiculous (especially the KKK, they can go to hell) and if they’re true, she has quite a case.

Grant said she was subjected to sexual advances from male co-workers, including two who allegedly exposed themselves to her, and graphic and lewd jokes.

Well here she is with a black official who is making some sort of an “advance”, so at least the racism and sexism are separate, I guess.

In the lawsuit, Grant said she complained numerous times to her supervisors about the way she was treated, to no avail. On one occasion, Grant said Nationwide Series director Joe Balash, her immediate supervisor, was dismissive of her complaints, explaining her co-workers were “former military guys” with a rough sense of humor. “You just have to deal with it,” she says Balash told her.

I doubt the conversation went down exactly like this, but it sounds like Balash has some explaining to do. Also, “Deal with it” is quite the famous line around these parts… the other bloggers know what I’m talkin bout.

Another time, she said Balash participated in the harassment. “Does your workout include an urban obstacle course with a flat-screen TV on your back?” she said Balash asked her during the week of July 28, 2007 while working in Indianapolis.

Wow, another “black people are criminals” joke. Seriously Balash, that’s less original than the “Nappy Headed Mo” joke which was devised by rednecks. If you’re going to make a dumb racist statement, at least make yourself look intelligent by being original.

Grant was forced to work outside more often than the white male officials because her supervisors believed she couldn’t sunburn because she was black.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t NASCAR officials basically always work outside?

While riding in the backseat of her carpool at Talladega Superspeedway, co-workers told her to duck as they passed race fans. “I don’t want to start a riot when these fans see a black woman in my car,” she claims one official said.

Talladega has the worst fans of any track, ever. I wouldn’t be surprised for them to start a riot over that. They really can’t set their standards any lower – when was the last time they didn’t throw beer cans at the winning car after the race?

When packing up in a dark garage at Texas Motor Speedway an official told Grant: “Keep smiling and pop your eyes out ’cause we can’t see you.”

Another classic, unoriginal joke. The only “good” thing out of this is they really didn’t go out of their way to make new racist jokes.

When she ignored advances from co-workers, Grant was accused of being gay. She adds that co-workers questioned the sexual orientation of two other female officials.

This is sexual harassment. If she had really brought this up to her boss, I assume that those officials would’ve been given a “final warning” like most companies do. But all of this raises the major question to me: why didn’t we hear about this while she was working for NASCAR? Apparently, it didn’t become a big enough issue to her until she lost her job. Once again, I’m not defending the actions of any of the people in this and they should be appropriately punished, but time and time again we see people sue for racial discrimination after being fired and basing it on things that should have been solved while he or she were employed there. I just don’t understand how she can expect to get $250 million when, apparently, these issues didn’t affect her enough to cry foul until she lost her job.

Also, NASCAR, get to work diversifying your employees and stopping these racial confrontations. Seriously, no other national sport is as reliant on a single demographic.

It’s quiet in here

Not a lot going on here, so I’ll talk about what’s on my mind. The IRL racing at Texas is a disaster waiting to happen… no, a disaster that has happened. If you like watching danger in racing, watch tonight’s race – it’s the only track on the circuit that I actually worry about. I’ve thought this ever since Kenny Brack crashed here in 2003:

The crash reportedly measured over 200G’s, but miraculously Brack survived with a broken sternum, femur, back, and both ankles. The issue for tonight’s race is that there will be 28 cars – up from 20 last year – and many rookie/inexperienced drivers on the high-speed oval. Can’t really do anything but hope for the best.

Other topics:

Casino Drive, the closest challenger for Big Brown at the Belmont stakes, will not be racing with a hoof injury. Barring a disaster for Big Brown (they did draw inside rail, so you never know) I’d say that little stands between him and the Triple Crown.

Good news Matt Forte, you can expect to start for the Chicago Bears next season! Cedric Benson is a complete moron and is pretty bad anyway. The fact that Benson can’t lay off the alcohol while his NFL career is in peril is a complete joke, and I’d say the chances he sees another snap for the Bears just dropped dramatically.

Simple solution to lower gas prices!

Eliminate NASCAR! Woooo brilliant! We solved it!

I feel like these people are kin to the ones from PETA who want to stop horse racing. The logic is pretty much the same: “Hey look I don’t like Horse Racing/NASCAR and I like horses/cheap gas so let’s get rid of the sport!!” I started reading through the article and got to this:

The second is a group of people, who many probably do not even think about: Race car drivers like NASCAR. They use the same gas we do.

WOAH!! This dude powers his car with 98 octane Sunoco 260 GTX racing fuel! He’s using fuel that is illegal on city streets. Speak for yourself, I do not use this fuel because I don’t own a car with 800 horsepower. Needless to say, all credibility was lost at this statement.

They have to put gas in the trucks that transport the race cars.

Yes, you are correct, they don’t teleport. You just redeemed yourself. But wait… there are 43 teams racing each week which means 43 trucks (plus a few for DNQs). I’ll add a bunch more for NASCAR trucks and souvenir trailers and that’s around 100. Now, after driving on I-95 for 10 minutes I see more than 100 trucks. In fact, the number of trucks used by NASCAR is minuscule compared to the rest of the trucks on the road. Maybe you should concentrate your time on reviving the railroads?

If NASCAR did not exist, there would automatically be less demand for gas, and therefore more of a supply.

I commend this guy for going to the first day of Econ class. However, he clearly didn’t go to any more classes because he isn’t very good with numbers. From a nascar.com article:

Even so, there are critics who complain that NASCAR races are dipping into the national supply. But NASCAR officials claim the amount of fuel being used — less than 175,000 gallons per year on the Sprint Cup Series — doesn’t come close to the 366 million gallons that Americans average in daily usage.

Based on these numbers, Americans use more than 2000 times more fuel each day than NASCAR does for an entire season.

And let’s not forget the fans that expend gas traveling to these events.

But let’s forget that other sports hold countless games per week while NASCAR efficiently has all 43 teams competing at one place, at one time.

The third group consists of store owners. If we lived in a perfect world, we could go to one place and purchase everything that we needed, from groceries to clothes to auto parts, etc. But we do not live in a perfect world and businesses are shuffled all across neighborhoods, towns and cities. In reality, we cannot fault store owners, though. They have to purchase properties where they can.

*cough* communist *cough*. But really, this would be nice – I think it’s called Wal-Mart?

And what about NASCAR drivers who drive to the stores? Those greedy shop owners, not selling every product imaginable, and instead only having specialty shops that sell “ice cream” or “compact discs” or whatever!

No no, the evil NASCAR drivers fly their personal planes to the stores to waste as much gas as possible!

I do like the idea of lowering gas prices by eliminating NASCAR and making every store a Wal-Mart. Don’t they have the same clientele?

I can’t tell who just got burned worse: NASCAR fans for being called Wal-Mart shoppers, or the guy who just said he wants every store to be a Wal-Mart then promptly making fun of it, and thus himself?

What about people who fly to Sweden to buy penis enlargers?

He really hit the nail on the head with this statement. The jet fuel required to fly across the Atlantic is astronomical. Oh wait, this was actually a comment and not in the article. I knew it made too much sense.

You have to commend NASCAR for the steps they’ve taken though. Last season (yes, 2007) they started complying with the 1970 Clean Air Act by switching from leaded to unleaded fuel. Meanwhile, IndyCar powers its cars with clean, green Ethanol. At this rate, NASCAR will make the switch in 2045. By then, everybody will be driving the ridiculous-looking Smart ForTwo car, and pushing for their introduction into NASCAR.

Yao Ming “Spotted” in Charlotte

By “spotted”… I mean he stuck out like a sore thumb. Apparently Yao took advantage of his time off from the Houston Rockets with a trip to Charlotte for last Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600. He and some drivers played a game of “Around the World” in victory lane which I imagine was a disaster for the drivers. I hear that they tried to fit him in a car, but anybody who’s ever seen one of these cars realizes that had a snowball’s chance in hell of working. Maybe if they had outfitted the car with Michael Waltrip’s roof hatch from 2003 they could’ve dropped him in there. He would definitely have had incredible visibility with his whole head above the roof – however, no word from NASCAR on exactly how safe this would have been.

Indy 500 Raceday

For any racing fan, today is the day you look forward to. With the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula 1, the Indy 500, and the Coke 600 in NASCAR, all three races are special to their discipline of racing, and all three happen on the same day. (I was writing a post about this a few days ago when I got interrupted, and I guess Alzheimer’s set in because I didn’t remember it until now) Monaco was won this morning by Lewis Hamilton who had a great drive in the wet conditions. Monaco is the most recognizable temporary circuit in the world because the track flows through the hills, around the harbor, and through a tunnel in the province of France. The famous hairpin is shown above. Take a lap with Fernando Alonso to see how difficult this circuit is.

Enough about F1, we’re gearing up for Indy now. Here is the starting grid, with Ganassi teammates Dixon and Wheldon 1-2, and Penske driver Ryan Briscoe filling out the front row. Here’s the finish to the 2006 500. And the 2007 500 (this was essentially the end, rain called the race). With unification of ChampCar and IndyCar this year, the grid is the deepest since 1995, the final 500 before the split. Looks like about 40 minutes until green, I’ll probably do occasional updates in live-blog style, I have nothing better to do.

12:25: ABC acting as if Danica is the only driver in the field. At least they showed her photoshoot pics. The hype surrounding her is ridiculous, this segment has to be like 10 minutes long.

12:35: Driver intros are underway, Marco’s suit is awesome. The group photo on the yard of bricks was pretty awkward… let’s just race.

12:45: Just had a big segment about “the dangers of racing”. These cars are glorified missiles with wheels running between concrete walls and catch fences, so yeah Indy’s dangerous.

12:48: Gotta love Helio – “Come on, if you meet Oprah, you’re the MAN”.

1:03: You know you’re close when Jim Nabors sings “Back home again in Indiaaanaaa”. And the engines are fired woooo.

Green Flag: So much for 3-wide, single file in a hurry.

Lap 3: Wheldon kinda dive-bombed teammate Dixon for the lead, but they made it. Scheckter is flying!

Lap 8: Danica’s team tells her to not worry about fuel… no kidding it’s lap 8 fools. Caution for debris – Scheckter already moved from 11th to 4th during the green run. The debris is Junqueira’s mirror… an aero advantage without it, I’d leave it off (nvm, apparently this is illegal).

Lap 13: Sarah Fisher has spun… under CAUTION. Wow… time to add the tag “Women drivers”. Eddie Cheever: “That was a silly mistake”

Lap 18: Buddy Rice is the new leader by not pitting, new tires restart third on back.

Lap 30: Wheldon leads, Rice was gobbled up on the restart. Junqueira is 14 laps down after fixing the mirror… what a terrible way to lose track time.

Lap 40 or so: Graham Rahal crashes out of Turn 4… damn the kid was having a good month before today. Looks like Alex Lloyd decided to slow in front of him to pit… you know you can go full throttle all the way to the frontstretch right Alex? I know this from my experience on IndyCar Series 2005. Seriously, it’s good stuff.

BIG trouble on Foyt IV’s car, car caught fire on pitroad, looks like a major fuel leak because the cap didn’t close. He had a similar issue during qualifying.

Lap 61: Leaders in HEAVY traffic, and Marty Roth crashes – very similar to Rahal’s crash, seems to have gotten too high at the same spot because Buddy Lazier decided to slow to pit early. Cmon guys, practice on IndyCar Series 2005 some more. Helio has a broken wing from debris, but that can be fixed quickly.

Anyone see the commercials for the show “Wipeout”? What a joke, that’s an exact copy of MXC, minus the hilarious commentary.

300,000+ people in attendance today, that’s 4x this year’s super bowl.

Lap 81: Jaime Camara destroys his car hitting the wall out of turn 1, and then again in turn 2 – debris all over the track.

Pretty sure ESPN just had a commercial that said “Let’s be honest, we watch this to see people wipe out”. Go fuc… I mean “Stay classy, ESPN”.

Lap 94: Kanaan passes both Ganassi cars and takes the lead!

Lap 100: Halfway running order: Kanaan, Dixon, Wheldon, Andretti, Scheckter, Carperter, Meira, Patrick, Hunter-Reay, Mutoh.

Andretti up to 3rd. The AGR cars are coming on strong now in 1st and 3rd. Does that mean… Danica is going to move forward?!!?!? Naaaah.

Lap 105 or so: NO WAY!! Leader Kanaan crashes! Looks like his teammate Marco made a late move into turn 3 and a hard crash for Kanaan who spun and got T-boned by Sarah Fisher who had nowhere to go. What the hell Marco…

Kanaan’s response to Marco “being sorry”: “He better be, it was a very stupid move”. He said Fisher cried all the way back in the ambulance… wow. You have to feel bad, it was her own team on a minimal budget. She doesn’t get the breaks Danica does.

And Jeff Simmons crashes under yellow… on the straightaway. What? something must have broken, the car turned dead right…

Lap 120: Race control to Danica “Keep the car in a straight line”. So you mean the driver who complains so much about blocking is getting warned for blocking? Yep. Also, Marco to the lead.

Lap 132: Justin Wilson spins into the inside wall, which is too bad because he was doing well for the ChampCar drivers. This has been a pretty grinding race with all these crashes.

Danica’s radio conversation: “I can’t do anything!!”, “I am slooooow”. Believe it or not, she actually said that. Thanks for confirming that Danica.

Lap 140: Mario Moraes!! WOW, he got out of line and somehow saved it inches from the wall. Dixon is now leading, his teammate Wheldon has dropped waaaay back – 14th at lap 147.

Lap 155: Alex Lloyd crashes into the pitlane. VERY scary, as he could have hit the pit barrier, and debris sent people scattering in the pits.

Tomas Scheckter, who ran in the top 5 most of the day, is now out with a broken driveshaft. A number of good cars have fallen by the wayside today. Vitor Meira to the lead on lap 159! Very daring move through the middle.

Lap 167: Milka Duno spins but avoids contact. Looks like Lazier chopped her a bit, and Milka kinda drove into the grass by herself after the contact.

Meira shockingly still leads. He’s never won in his 80 starts, but has finished 2nd 7 times. Still, a single car team isn’t expected to do much at Indy.

Crash in pitroad! Danica and Briscoe crash and Danica is out with a broken suspension! Looks like Shammgod made a good prediction. Briscoe’s crew didn’t seem to warn him that Danica was on his outside. Tough caution for the 2 remaining women drivers who are both involved in incidents. Fortunately the coverage will be about drivers up front from now on, not Danica running 10th.

Danica has a hissy fit and storms down pitlane looking to pick a fight with Briscoe. Sorry Danica, but any guy would probably beat you in a fight.

Lap 176: WILD restart, and Wheldon attempts to make a pass in the grass on the backstretch.

Lap 188: With 12 to go, the top five of Dixon, Meira, Castroneves, Andretti, and Carpenter are running nose-to-tail.

Lap 191: Marco is coming forward… up to 3rd now and closing fast.

Lap 196: Meira has closed and it’s going to be a race between him and Dixon.

Lap 198: Dixon hits traffic, but so far is getting through cleanly, he has a healthy lead now.

Lap 200: Congrats to Scott Dixon for his first Indy 500 win!

Final order: Dixon, Meira, Andretti, Castroneves, Carpenter, Hunter-Reay, Mutoh, Rice, Manning, Bell

Dumb reporter to Dixon in victory circle: “No longer can we call you the iceman, we will call you… the milkman”

Danica acts like if she had gotten down to Briscoe, sh!t woulda gone down. uhhh… haha.

Finals comments: 1) So many cautions really hurt the flow of the race, but it was good. 2) Awesome runs by Vitor Meira in 2nd, Ed Carpenter in 5th, and Ryan Hunter-Reay in 6th. For all the talk about the “Big 3″ teams they did real well. 3) Danica needs to chill out – she makes mistakes all the time too, and she wasn’t even good today. 4) Sucks that Kanaan got taken out, he might have had something for Dixon. 5) Let’s go to Milwaukee!

All-Star Race Preview

On Saturday Night, the 24th annual NASCAR all-star race will take place at Lowe’s Motor Speedway just outside Charlotte. The event has a storied history of wild racing because it’s a non-points race with a large purse, including $1 million to the winner.

The event is famous for teams bringing tricked-out cars, the most notable being Jeff Gordon’s 1997 car named “T-Rex”. While the team said it merely pushed the gray areas of the rulebook, that car has been a source of controversy ever since it dominated the ’97 running of the event – after the race, NASCAR told the team to never bring the car back. Teams often bring special paint schemes – this year, Dale Jr. is running a Buddy Baker throwback (minus the chrome numbers, now banned by NASCAR). The format of the event has changed each of the last few years to eliminate any competitive advantage. This year, the race is 100 laps broken into four 25-lap segments with a brief stoppage between each. Gone are the inversions and eliminations, so the finishing order of the 3rd segment will be crucial for the final sprint. Immediately before the All-Star race will be the All-Star Challenge – a short race for all drivers not qualifying for the All-Star race. The top 2 advance to the main event and 1 other driver will advance based on a fan vote. All-Star week is also known for unique competitions; last night was the “Pit-crew challenge”, a competition between pit crews in bracket elimination format. The team must change all 4 tires and fuel the car, then push it a distance across the line faster than the opponent crew, who simultaneously pits their car – the 2008 competition was won by Brian Vickers’ team in a photo finish over Denny Hamlin’s team. A new event this year is the burnout competition, which requires the 5 participating drivers to perform a long burnout and do 360′s in particular spots. Finally, qualifying for the All-Star race is unique because unlike most races where your time is determined by the best of 2 laps, your time is the total for completing 3 laps plus a pit stop.

Several famous moments in NASCAR history have occurred during the All-Star race, and some of the best moments are shown below:

1987: In the 3rd year of the race (then called “The Winston”), Dale Earnhardt executed the famous “pass in the grass”, which really wasn’t a pass but a miraculous save. He and Bill Elliot were racing for the lead when they made contact – Earnhardt somehow saved it and went on to win. (VIDEO)

1992: In the months before the race, Charlotte Motor Speedway track president “Humpy” Wheeler announced that the All-Star race would be run, for the first time, under the lights. However, no track greater than a half mile had ever been lit before, and people thought he was crazy for trying to light the 1.5 mile track. The race was promoted as “One Hot Night”, and it had the most famous finish in All-Star history. The winner Davey Allison never made it to victory lane, instead spending the night in the hospital. (VIDEO)

2001: On a rainy night in Charlotte, the race got underway on a track the appeared dry. However, as the cars crossed the line and got the green flag, a downpour began causing several cars to crash in turn 1. For the first and only time in NASCAR history, drivers were allowed to bring out their backup cars after the start was attempted. The result? Jeff Gordon won the race after a long rain delay driving his backup car. (VIDEO)

2002: For format of the race this year, the first segment was 40 laps long with a mandatory green-flag pit stop and elimination at the end of the segment. As the laps wound down, everybody had made their stop except Jeff Burton, who was the leader by a large margin. In a brilliant strategy move, his crew chief Frank Stoddard brought him in on the last lap, which was legal because his pit box was on the 2nd half of pit road, so he did not have to cross the finish line before getting to his box. Once the stop was finished, he only had to roll forward a few feet to finish the race on pit road. This race also had Kurt Busch intentionally take out Robby Gordon, and a great finish between winner Ryan Newman and Dale Jr. (VIDEO)

2005: Just 10 laps into the race there is a huge crash on the front straightaway, seemingly caused by Tony Stewart. However, Kevin Harvick and Joe Nemechek end up fighting in the infield which spills over into the garage area. That is where, when interviewed, Harvick said a gem of a comment: “He can take that and shove it where the sun don’t shine baby”. (VIDEO)

2007: As Kurt Busch battled for 2nd place in the final segment of the race, little brother Kyle made an aggressive move to the inside on the frontstretch. However, both brothers ended up wrecked in turn 1 much to the delight of the fans. (VIDEO)

Indy 500 Pole Day Approaches

Tomorrow marks the first day of qualifying for the Indy 500 – Pole Day – where the first 11 starting positions are set. This caps the first full week of practice and is the first major event of the month of the Indy 500. The fastest lap recorded overall in practice was registered by Scott Dixon in the final practice – 226.968 mph, which is the average speed of the lap. This equates a top speed of over 233 mph at the end of the straights for the fastest cars.

However, before we can look forward, we have to examine the controversial and unfortunate events of the day. First, Alex Lloyd, the 2007 Indy Pro Series champion and current IndyCar rookie, crashed hard off turn 1 and was taken to the hospital complaining of neck and back pain (video). This crash will likely limit Lloyd’s ability to participate in the events leading up to the Indy 500, although the extent of his injuries are unknown. While the opportunity could be taken to criticize the somewhat dangerous Dallara chassis, I say the car held up well for the impact, which was at 220+ mph, and we hope for Lloyd’s return soon.

The major news of the day involved Danica Patrick mowing down a Dale Coyne Racing crew member on pit road (video Note: video is gruesome although ESPN has no problem replaying it thousands of times). Accidents on pit road, one of the most feared occurrences in racing, happen from time to time and usually result in injuries. However, for the media to react to this happening by immediately saying “It’s not Danica’s fault!!” rather than focusing on the crew member is ridiculous. Also, the story has been reported by saying “Danica’s car strikes crew member.” Let’s get this straight – Danica drove her car into the pit area, turned into her pitbox, and SHE hit the guy. Everybody’s arguments that “the guy shouldn’t have been there” or “he should have been more attentive” are all true and the crew member could have prevented the incident, but in the end the driver is responsible for the car and what he/she does with the car. Of course it wasn’t intentional and who knows if Danica had enough time to react, but the media should be focusing more on the injured guy than covering for Danica. Upon watching the replay, it is clear that the crew member, Charles Buckman, is fairly lucky to not have serious head/neck injuries from the back wheel and wing of Danica’s car and hopefully like Lloyd, he will recover quickly. At the very least, it’s good to see that this list has not been updated since 2003.

In the coming weeks I’ll try to post a picture of an Indy 500 car from each decade – we’ll see how far I get. First up is the Marmon Wasp, winner of the first Indy 500 in 1911. This car is famous for having the first rear-view mirror (visible above the dash). It was controversial at the time because it meant that this car was the only one in the field without a passenger mechanic – a clear advantage. The average speed for the race? About 75 miles per hour, which means the race took more than six and a half hours.