Event Coverage Are you as boored with the Indy 500 as me

TRUE= and I would like to see an American win it. Not a south American ether.

 

And what does anymore? Everything changes, nothing is the same as it was "back in the day".

Can you do it? I've done it and it's damn hard to do well.

I don't know, call me crazy but I still love racing of all kinds. From midgets on a 1/4 mile oval, drag racing, NASCAR, to F1, I watch it all, and go live to as many as I can.

I refuse to be a Negative Nellie. Anybody can be critical. I don't care what the technology is, driving a race car, any race car, at it's absolute limit is a pucker inducing experience and I will watch anybody do it anywhere, anytime.

This coming Sunday I will be a total couch potato watching the F1 race from Turkey, the 500, and the Coke 600 from Charlotte. The phones will be off, the front door locked, and the fridge stocked. Don't bother me.

 

then and only then i will go to a vintage nascar race.i guess they think it would take the spectators away from there current shit...... and it would!

 

It's the NHRA I'm bored with, I like Indy!

 

You are correct. No individual innovation allowed any more.
Nothing wrong with drivers skill determining most of the results, but I agree is approaching boring now.
Kinda like when they introduced silicone to women....

 

I'll agree with the OP in general. It is NOT the same as it once was, however, it is much cooler in person than on television.

I could care less about most of the drivers anymore, the series, or even the race. To go there on a warm day, drink beer, watch the cars practice or qualify, hear the sounds, and see the speed up close, is a rush..........but not as much as before the split. I miss the different manufactures and different sounding engines, and names that I recognize from sprint cars ect

 

your right about that but I think many of the series could use a vintage series where cars really look like cars (what a concept)......and like superchargers,nitro,Nos,and the like,my hat goes off to the guy that invented the inplant!

 

Just glad I grew in the early 60s. Always looked forward to the coverage. As for me, sunday will be outside with my son at the drag strip at Lebanon Valley NY. Remember to honor our Veterans monday. Slim

Follow PAYNES advice. Go to this KILLER thread.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=380814

Thanks to Harley Gene for this scan.

 

My uncle was on Roger Rager's (sp?) team in the early 80's. They even led a lap or two....the whole family was nuts for it. We even built a rock polisher out of one of the used-up tires.

Now, I don't pay any attention.

 

I'm a Nascar fan.I wasn't around in the old day's but I enjoy watching the races. Yes I would like to see more then 10 guys have a chance to win and the Danica thing is a joke but I truly like watching. I would guess that in the old days when Richard Petty was winning by a lap, people were probably saying the same thing. I guess it all goes back to Cale and the Allisons fighting in the infield is what really changed Nascar as far as the marketing and money aspect.If you don't like Nascar there are plenty of local shortracks but don't you get the same thing there? It's always gonna be the guy with the big dollar setup winning the races while the little guy doesn't eat that week so he can put all his money into the car to show up and be an also ran.

 

All the Indy races are boring as hell. F1 on the other hand is killer

 

I am a huge racing fan myself.
One of my great disappointments in life
is not being old enough to see the Can am cars in full glory.
From the videos and I have seen this was the ultimate racing class.
From what I have read Porsche basically outspent everyone in the early 70's and dominated the class, the cars started to get too
dangerous
displacement and other "rules" kicked in and destroyed the class.

Being a guy that loves to work with his hands I often find myself buying up old racing books or vids from the 60's and 70's. When cars were unique and a gray rulebooks were pushed to their extremes.

The cars of today Nascar,Indy ect. are just IROC cars to me.
BORING to look at,uninspiring and dull.
I find myself watching the gt cars and American Le-mans series more and more.

Lets say they at LEAST open the engine rule.Let us have turbo fours,Supercharged sixes,na eights ect.. Hell I would love to see an electric or diesel powered Indy car.

I too would like to see a "open rulebook" Indy car but it will never happen.
Too many safety concerns today with damn tethers/safety pods/flaps ect.
God forbid Joe Blow builds a car in his small town shop and ends up killing a driver.Worse yet a spectator...It would be the end of racing as we know it.
I swear I was born in the wrong era. lol

 

It's lost the Thrill of Victory and the agony of defeat for me. Racing cars at Indy used to be cutting edge.

 

Another thing that has been lost is the natural progression of race drivers. It used to be the bull ring dirt tracks of America were the proving grounds for future Indy champions. USAC 1/4 midgets, midgets, sprints, the "big cars", all were a natural progression with the pinacle of your success being a chance to strut your stuff at the Brickyard. When an event looses track of it's history, it is destined to become mundane and boring.

 

Grew up listening on the radio in the 50s
Our Boston local short track used to send a few busloads of fans
And supplied a few drivers to the 500
It was the Highlight of the year
By the 80s Indy was drifting away from me and main street USA
By the 90s I watched only out of respect for the past
A 'short' burst of hope with the IRL proved illusory
Haven't watched the race in several years

things change

 

All of the racing series have become too commercial...and as with anything when too much money is involved it becomes disconnected from the everyday Joe.

 

. . . damn, they're still running that thing, I didn't know they were still doing it.

I've read that the steering wheel alone is over $50,000.00 , that's right, over fifty THOUSAND dollars just for the steering wheel.

 

When I was a kid, that day me and my dad were always out in the garage with the race playing on a radio. You knew most if not all the names and there was a lot of history behind the greatest spectacle in racing. Bubble day used to be a big thing too. But ever since then the whole demeanor of the race has changed and you couldn't keep up with all the drivers. It especially changed for me when the one winner wouldn't drink the coveted milk - a lot of people would have killed to do that! No respect for the race - just his orange juice business. That pretty much turned me off of it. Even though I live here in Indiana, it's just not the same and I have little or no interest in it at all.

 

I too am a fan since childhood. My Dad was involved twice in the 50s, didn't qualify but made 1st alternate once. Nick Arias told me that if he could have added 10% nitro he would have had the car in the show. Owner held him back.

All professional racing has become impersonal. The people who remember the history of Indy, NASCAR, NHRA, etc. will always have their memories. I think that the modified qualifying this year was good entertainment, made a better two day show than the often boring 4 day deal from the past. NASCAR has modified their racing with the green, white, checker and two wide restarts. Although it is like pro basketball, wath the last two minutes.

It is what it is - "That was then, this is now" as someone has said.

I watch it all and enjoy it all. I currently have "carb day" on now. At least two cars have lost wheels due to pit errors.

DW

 

I have absolutely no interest in the indy 500. there are no old cars there.

 

i could run thru all the old crap about how the old days at indy were so great.........(and they were) i could also say that the roadster days were the best...(and they were)........but the one thing that brings me back to indy is the race track itself.........if you ever get the chance to STAND on the track LOOKING into either the first turn or the third turn........then try to tell your self your gonna make that corner WITHOUT lifting your foot off the gas pedal.......the one thing that still remains is the pure guts of the INDIANAPOLIS drivers that has never changed......

 

My dad took me all the way from Abilene, Texas in a new 1951 Buick. I vividly recall overhearing a service station attendant telling his co-worker to check out our windshield (tinted glass option). After seeing the license plates, he said, "Damn, those Texans have to have bullet proof glass in their cars". I was sure that someone like Bill Vukovich, Johnny Parsons or Troy Ruttman would win, but to my surprise, it was a fellow named Lee Wallard. Never heard of him after that. Still quite an experience for a 15 year old kid. Enthused or not, I always watch it.

 

yeah, that pretty much says it best. what has happened?? Its strange that every car guy I talk to seems to agree. So that being said what kind of people are watching this crap. I once in a while will tune in the nascar race and after jimmie johnson wins I realize why I havn't watched it for the last few weeks.

 

My hero as a kid was Bill Vukavich. I would run an extension cord from the barn out under a elm tree and lesion to the whole race on the radio.

 

as is has been said

 

I've taken the bus tour around the track twice now. I agree. Looking down that front straight and thinking about what it must be like to take the first turn at 230 mph makes the little hairs on the back of your neck stand right up!

 

Couldn't agree more!
One extra plus for Indy . . . it get's my boss out of the office for a couple days! It's is so nice & calm & quiet today . . .

 

Haven't paid much attention to the Indy 500 since the last time Bruce Crower crewed on a car and Sid Collins said "Stay tuned for the greatest spectacle in racing". Never heard of most of the drivers and can't even pronounce some of their names.

 

I find it awful hard to relate to modern Indy cars but a trip to the museum should be on every car guy's bucket list. For a few extra buck$ you can lap the track in a short bus, only then can a person really appreciate how steep the banking is. Very cool...

 

Great stories. I had read bits and pieces of how it all went down but this lays it all out. I now have a better appreciation of the last maybe twenty years of Indy cars. I still wish there was some way of putting more innovation into Indy car racing though. So you would have something more to cheer about that a driver and the strategy of the team.
Oh I bitch but I will be there glued to the boob tube screen Sunday just like every other 500 for the last 50 or so years.