POLL: Do you care about the Indy 500?
The 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500 will take place tomorrow at noon. ABC will provide the usual live coverage, and viewers will watch to see if pole-sitter Helio Castroneves manages to do his Spider-Man thing at the race's conclusion. Or if Danica makes history. Or maybe you're just looking for a race – and a finish – as exciting as the spectacular ending to the 2006 Indy 500.
Or maybe you don't care anymore.
Maybe you tuned out after the nasty CART/IRL split and never looked back.
So here we are, into the second season of the freshly-reunited Indy Racing League, hours away from its signature event – the most storied race in American motorsports. The starting grid boasts plenty of fast drivers. Young ones, too. Some are scions of Indy legends. But the variety pretty much ends there. Everyone's running a Dallara chassis with a Honda engine. Fast as hell, to be sure–Helio qualified with an average speed of 224.824 mph. But still, to many, the 500 now almost feels more like a habitual event instead of the massively-important, "Capital-E" Event it was prior to 1996.
So here's where we toss it to you. Do you care about Indy anymore? Did you ever? Are you planning to watch the 500? Vote after the jump, and comment away.
[Image: Jamie Squire/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
David Wiles 6:17PM (5/23/2009)
I've watched since the days when everyone ran a Watson or Kurtis Kraft chassis and used an Offenhauser engine, through the introduction of rear engines, turbines, four-wheel drive, Cosworth V-8's, stock block V8's, turbos, to what we have now.
I'll continue to watch.
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Joe K. 7:51PM (5/23/2009)
I envy you. I got to see a lot in old replays... My Dad was at time trials when they broke 200, to this day he talks about going to trials. 6-pack of beer, 6-pack of orange pop and a bucket of fried chicken, watch the spectacle...
Hey Autoblog, I realize you're journalists and not market researchers, but watch the double-barreled questions.
I think it's the greatest race on American soil, but I also feel it lost a lot of its glamor after the split.
Fact is the cars were getting too fast for the track, and the sport couldn't persist if they were going to lose good drivers every year in May.
jeepster4 9:10PM (5/23/2009)
The split and now the re convergence using standard motors and transmissions reduces the significance of Indy racing to the same level as NASCAR. Watching kit cars run is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Despite this, I'll still check in periodically to see how it is going and watch the last 10 or 15 laps to see the driver's demonstrate their skill.
Aaron 3:04AM (5/24/2009)
To Autoblog:
What about these options:
- Yes, I will support any motorsport that is not NASCAR.
- Yes, maybe the SPEED channel will start focusing on something other than NASCAR.
- Yes, because it's not NASCAR.
- No, because it's the NASCAR of F1
- No, because though it is not NASCAR, it's still not WRC
it's open wheel nascar 9:14AM (5/24/2009)
I totally agree with Aaron
Smegley 6:17PM (5/23/2009)
I think most bigtime organized racing these days is a lot like bigtime politics - nothing about it feels real and relevant any more. People are in the mood to have the slate wiped clean and get back to the meat and enjoyment of it, but corporations and politicians either haven't figured that out, or they have figured it out but haven't yet figured out how to make a buck off it and control people with it.
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Rob 7:46PM (5/23/2009)
Exactly. That is why I'm a fan of rally racing, autocross, GT, and anything else based on actual stock cars.
greenchile505 11:58PM (5/23/2009)
You should check out MotoGP and the 250cc races have been insane to watch too. The Italian GP is next weekend and is usually very good (Mugello).
And WSBK has been very awesome too. Ben Spies, US AMA SBK champ, with 90% win ratio, has gone to Europe and he's been winning races on tracks he's never been on, against WSBK veterans. Good stuff. They actually race two races per weekend.
GT racing is good this year too.
Kitko 6:18PM (5/23/2009)
I'll watch in a hope there will be some racing - last year was rather boring.
But don't forget other tomorrow's race - F1 in Monte Carlo. I'll watch that too. TSN uses BBC's very much pro-British biased commentary (taking ITV crew on board was a big mistake) but at least those guys know what they're talking about.
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Nick 6:32PM (5/23/2009)
Having watched my share of both TSN's broadcasts and SPEED's broadcasts, the SPEED guys are much more objective, are a hell of a lot more engaging, and with Hobbs, Windsor and Matchett, they certainly know what they're talking about. Even during the most boring of races, the SPEED guys keep it interesting and entertaining.
Kitko 7:13PM (5/23/2009)
Nick, I wasn't criticising Speed guys, I just expressed my annoyance with Hamilton/Button-can't-do-anything-wrong-and-everything-wrong-is-someone-else's-fault attitude of the former ITV crew that made it to the BBC. TSN commetary is the BBC's feed now (was ITV's last year).
On the other hand, these ITV/BBC guys were professional racers, even F1 racers, and being British and all over the pitlane, grid and paddock they have rather unprecedented access to pretty much everything and everybody. Hence their knowledge.
Nick 8:30PM (5/23/2009)
Peter Windsor probably has far more hook-ups than any of the ITV/BBC guys. Then you have Hobbs, who raced pretty much everything at one time or another, and Matchett, who worked with the most successful F1 driver of all time. It's a pretty good little group they have going there, and they certainly don't lack in knowledge nor experience.
Kitko 10:53PM (5/23/2009)
Again, I did not compare BBC/ITV folks to anyone, I made my own, personal, observation.
But since you started...
I'm not saying Speed TV guys are bad, not professional, biased. On the contrary and since they work primarily towards North American audience and there's no US or Canadian driver in F1, they don't have to cater for patriotic needs of British or any other audience.
But with all respect to them... Do you seriously suggest that Peter Windsor's and David Hobbs's pedigrees are in the same league as the team's comprising Martin Brundle, David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan ... ? Only Steve Matchett bio is on par with them.
Here's link for the short bios.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7908585.stm
Eddie Jordan gave a ride to "the most successful F1 driver of all time", Brundle happened to be a team-mate of "the most successful F1 driver of all time" and Coulhart happened to beat "the most successful F1 driver of all time" several times on track.... and also happened to be a team-mate of several other F1 best drivers, legends and world champions.
ropeburn 6:22PM (5/23/2009)
Besides Danica Tweeting I wouldn't know it's going on...
TV spots have been no existent.
Go @DanicaPatrick !!!
.....you sexy little MINX!
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Ben Roethig 6:25PM (5/23/2009)
I'm worried about this pole being skewed by the Euro-road race types. They tend to be incredibly intolerant of anything that isn't theirs.
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Nick 6:30PM (5/23/2009)
What are you talking about? It's a public poll open to whoever wants to vote. If a person doesn't want to watch the Indy 500, it doesn't make them some Euro-elitist. I'd rather watch the Coke 600 than the Indy 500, and it's like a 5-hour race and incredibly boring for about 4.5 of them, so that's saying something about the state of Indy.
Sorry, but watching Indy got old years and years ago.
Yaroukh 6:34PM (5/23/2009)
How can they skew the "pole"? When their actual opinion on Indy is negative should they vote "I like Indy" to keep the poll "unskewed"?
doug 11:20PM (5/24/2009)
@Nick: He's talking about simple statistics. (I should know, it only took me 3x to pass the damn class!) Anyways, it's something along the lines that public polls are inherently flawed, because generally the only people that vote are ones that have a complaint, simply because they have a complaint. Another issue, especially on a website, is the audience. Yes, it is public, but if the public doesn't know about the poll, then it's not a true representative sample of the general public. To take this to an extreme, it'd be like posting a poll about rap music on the country music channel website. You're gonna get a biased response, and (i think) the original poster is claiming that the readership of this website is skewed to euro-road racing types of people.
For the record, I've lived in Indy all my life and only went to the race once, because I had free tickets. I never have followed Indy, and screw sitting in traffic for 4 hours for a 2-3 hour race.
Jared 6:28PM (5/23/2009)
I gave up caring about Indy after the split.
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mitchw 6:39PM (5/23/2009)
How many people under thirty care much? Is there enough money in the world to bring back innovation when the principles of high speed driving are so well understood now? Going electrical propulsion would increase innovation, but who will pay?
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