Commentary June 06, 2005

Sports Commentary



B & G Imagination Junction



Gearing Up For A Very Odd Battle? ………………

Last weekend was the biggest day in auto racing, of each year, in America. In the afternoon was the Indianapolis 500 followed-under the lights=by the Coca-Cola 600 from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Self billed as the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indy 500 is still one of the biggest single day events on the yearly sports calendar as open wheel vehicles roar around the most famous race circuit-in North America-at speeds exceeding two-hundred twenty miles per hour.

The 500 is part of the schedule of the Indy Racing League.

Until getting a corporate moniker the night race used to be known as the World 600 and is still stock car racing’s longest event and one of the jewels of the thirty-six-race NASCAR schedule.

For this reporter, it is the one Sunday of the year when the entire day is dedicated to viewing nothing but the worshiping of speed.

In years of yore Indy and open wheel racing was king—in Europe it was what is now known as Formula One and here it was the Indy cars. Clearly, all of the best-known figures in auto racing toiled in those two forms of the sport.

NASCAR was established in 1950 but, through the 1980s, was mainly the property of the Southeastern US.

Formula One, worldwide, is still the top auto-racing league yet in the colonies NASCAR has taken the spotlight from the Indy Racing League since the early 1990s. The Indianapolis 500 is still a huge single day event but every NASCAR race is the near equal of Indy.

American open wheel racing shot itself in the toes, during the early 90s, with a nasty split between feuding factions. Since then there have been two competing organizations, the upstart IRL and the established CART group.

It has caused nothing but confusion, for the casual race fan, while nearly killing that form of the sport. The upstart has gained the upper hand of consciousness because most of its events are on oval tracks and IRL runs Indy while CART (or CHAMP as it is now known) tries to be the poor man’s Formula One by running solely on roads and streets.

Meanwhile, the good ole boys of NASCAR have become the five hundred pound gorilla just getting larger by the year.

On television, where it ultimately counts the most, NASCAR has been wiping out the IRL. Yes the Indy 500 is still big but, to that casual fan, that is the beginning and end of the IRL season while every week is like Indy over at NASCAR.

The stock cars always get high TV ratings, for a sports event, while the low to the ground swifter machines have seen declining numbers for its showcase event.

IRL is not without star power but since the split with CART have been slow to establish enough featured performers to get more than a casual glance while NASCAR is loaded with familiar faces.
In recent years IRL has done better at marketing itself. If total victory, in their war with CART is not yet achieved, IRL is solid enough to have turned its attention away from the bickering and back to trying to regain its racing preeminence in America. NASCAR still is many laps ahead but IRL seems back in the race.

Dan Wheldon, of England, won last Sunday’s 500 while Jimmy Johnson won at Charlotte. Wheldon has done a terrific impression of Formula One king, Michael Schumacher, by winning five of this season’s first six races while Johnson leads the NASCAR point battle.
The race team owned by Kip Green and Michael Andretti employs Wheldon. The latter was a long time driver and is the son of former Indy champion Mario Andretti yet Michael never won, at the brickyard, in the cockpit. So, Wheldon’s victory was as big for the car’s owner as for its driver.

The TV ratings, for this year’s 500, were up forty per cent but it had nothing to do with Wheldon, Andretti, driver Dario Francini’s wife-actress Ashley Judd-or even celebrity car owners David Letterman or Paul Newman.

This year it was all about Danica Patrick and through her, IRL might have discovered a means to make up those lost laps.

Patrick is a very talented twenty-three year old rookie driver from Illinois that has been a factor in every race this season. She drives for another former 500 winner Bobby Rahal and Letterman and is a teammate of last year’s winner Buddy Rice who missed this year’s event because of a crash during practice.The Danica story was the story at Indy this year mainly because she’s a very good young driver and of course because she is a she.

Patrick is not the first female to race at the brickyard as she follows Janet Guthrie, Lynn St. James and Sarah Fisher. Yet, Patrick caused more of a pre race buzz because she actually was thought to have a chance to win the race.

Patrick, in fact, qualified fourth starting on the outside of the second row.

No woman, of course, has ever won the 500—in fact none of Patrick’s female predecessors had ever even led a single lap until last Sunday. Patrick, at about the midway point, made history when she was ahead during a yellow flag lap while the leaders were in the pits.

Late in the race, though, the impossible nearly happened as Patrick’s blue Rahal/Letterman car went to the front and stayed there through eighteen consecutive laps. The fairy tale ending was not to be as the car ran out of fuel and succumbed to Wheldon’s late charge.

Patrick finished where she began in fourth place—still, by far, the best finish ever for a female driver at Indy.

Patrick was a hotter sports story, in May, than Shaquille O’Neal and just the marketing tonic that IRL needed. IRL took her to New York, between qualifying and the race and in one day she did forty-seven media interviews including a guest shot on her boss’ late night TV show.

Patrick’s strong finishes all season shows that there is substance to go with the style. Danica is hardly camera or microphone shy and is a publicist’s dream—IRL has struck a publicity goldmine with a good-looking young woman driver that once strapped into the car can actually compete.

Patrick still has not won an IRL event so, until she does, the question will be if she is for real or just a racing version of tennis sex bomb Anna Kornakova or golf knockout Laura Baugh neither of which ever won a single tournament?

The next question is whether more attention will come to the IRL’s other races and help to put American open wheel racing back on the sports map—the answer might very well lie in the hands of a twenty-three year old rookie.

Back to NASCAR might they be worried that Danica might snip the bloom from their rose? Silly question but, just in case, NASCAR might soon have its own female bullet.

Fisher has left IRL and is now in NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick’s driver development program in the western US. Yep, it might not be long until a gal might run with the good old boys and if Sarah can be the distaff Jeff Gordon it might be back to the drawing board for IRL.

To an auto racing male chauvinist pig this might be a big nightmare but dueling female drivers, on the two top American racing circuits, would be fun stuff to watch.

So go for it Danica, good luck Sarah and zip it Robbie Gordon. Mr. R. Gordon, a driver both in NASCAR and IRL, last week said that Ms. Patrick had an unfair advantage because she is lighter in weight than her male driving colleagues. Aha.

IRL has needed that one positive thing to get them back in the ball game and perhaps NASCAR has been getting a bit too smug with its lofty status. As with so much in life, leave it to the ladies to set things right.

So-from now on-let us hear more of, “Gentlemen and ladies start your engines.”

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