Discussion
ellroy said:
What a great race, although the new aero does seem a tad ‘exciting’. A real contrast to the snore fest of Monaco.
It’s a shame Wilson didn’t have enough fuel for the win, but Will Power surely deserved it, for nothing else, but the celebrations at the end!
A good day for the convicts.
That was a dire race. Probably as bad as Monaco if it wasn't for numerous crashes and restarts. The only action was restarts and then the cars quickly strung out. The only redeeming feature of the previous aero package was that it produced great racing on flat superspeedways and produced plenty slingshot passing. This year hardly any if at all mid-stint passing. if Indy is anything to go by at least we won't see stupid pack racing at Texas.It’s a shame Wilson didn’t have enough fuel for the win, but Will Power surely deserved it, for nothing else, but the celebrations at the end!
A good day for the convicts.
Eric Mc said:
How was it in the flesh? I enjoyed the TV coverage.
Good fun, although I'm not particularly a IndyCar aficionado (Caterhams, Endurance, GT, Historics/Classics and F1 are more my interest, but I occasionally watch IndyCar, NASCAR etc. I also follow the engineering side of most motorsport for professional reasons) so have been reading the punditry (professional or otherwise) with interest for another perspective. Certainly the first 30-40 laps or so went by pretty quick but it occurred to me that the nature of the overtaking wasn't quite what I expected (I've since discovered this was apparently due to the aero changes). The various yellow flag periods livened it up a bit as the cars get back together in packs for a number of laps before spreading out again, but otherwise there were a couple of dull sections somewhere in the middle. The end was exciting.
Overall it was definitely worth doing, albeit I was in the USA for work rather than flying over specifically for the race, and it is the spectacle that everyone says it is in person. The atmosphere reminded me of Le Mans but with less stag parties and more college kids. All the pre-race pageantry is OK and seeing a flyby of a B2 Spirit was pretty cool! Didn't walk about much due to the heat.
We drove from Chicago on Saturday and did a quick drive-by of the circuit to get our bearings on fully open roads before heading to our hotel in Shelbyville (20 miles easy drive from the circuit). We got some supplies in a supermarket and went to a pretty decent Mexican restaurant. On Sunday we left the hotel at 6.30am and were in our seats (N.E. Vista) by about 8.45am having queued into the parking (North 40, Gate 10) for about an hour or so having met the back of the queue about 2 miles out. It was slow but flowed well due traffic police at ever junction. The last mile was entertaining and already felt part of the event. We went back to the car just after the winner (spoiler alert!) had passed our seats in the back of a Camaro on the victory lap and it took us about an hour to reach the interstate to go back to the hotel. Similarly well organised traffic wise.
As you may have seen it was the joint second hottest on record at 92? (we saw 104? in the car on the way back to Chicago on Monday) but the organisers did a pretty good job with misting stations, reminders to hydrate etc. It was just about bearable but got close to not being so when the light breeze dropped occasionally. I was glad we were in a hotel and driving, rather than in a tent and boozing, having had experience of that at a 44? Le Mans before!
24lemons said:
Ive always found it strange how there’s no gap after the 500 to allow people to catch their breath. Given the month of build up, hype and anticipation it seems a shame that there’s not more time allowed to savour the moment before they are off again.
Yes, and not just one but two races this weekend, then another next weekend !
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