Dude, seriously, this dark roast tastes sooooo good. Just what I needed after being disconcerted for most of yesterday. Come on in. Have a seat. Let's debrief. Just a couple things I want to talk about before I forget them. Early-onset dementia, I swear.
Milwaukee -- Mike Andretti's posse is rightly getting universal praises and shout outs for their efforts to revive the Milwaukee Mile by ... gasp ... attracting fans. By all accounts they did well, activating on many fronts, including advertising, but mostly working the public relations fronts. And -- hosanna -- they focused on fans as much or more than "presenting sponsors" or some such. Many many activities designed to add value and entertainment for fans. LUNACY. Glad to see it paid off with an increased crowd despite the rain and that they did well enough to bring Milwaukee back in 2013. (Tickets already on sale here.) All good.Hopefully they can continue to build the momentum (DRINK, ye BASTARDS).
Speaking efforts and rewards, big shout out to Bryan Herta Autosport for doing Tweet Ups (a meeting of Twitter people) at every race. I hope that the league is helping them with the effort, because it's something IndyCar should be doing. Also shout out to Ed Carpenter Racing and Fuzzy's. They do putt for pace car events at every race, Ed works the crowd and they recruit "Green Flag Girls" for fan relations at EVERY race.
I like Scott Dixon and I think Dario Franchitti grows quickly on you if you ever actually interact with him (not that I ever have outside of group question and answer sessions), but, dude, does Target Chip Ganassi do ANY fan events? Dixon and Franchitti are like ghosts at races. They do their on track stuff and then race on scooters to undisclosed locations until the next on-track stuff. What is up with that?
Maybe I am uninformed, but I hear about drivers from most other teams including Penske and Andretti working it with the fans in some way every weekend, whether it's at the track or at events like in Verizon stores, etc. Chippy's posse ... nada. Correct me if I am wrong here. Come on, Chippy. Are we all in or what? Dixon is great to talk to and maybe Dario's popularity would increase if he actually met with fans more (or at all).
One of the highlights of the Milwaukee race was Security Chief Charles, who has gotten very little air this year, escorting Ryan Hunter-Reay's car to Victory Circle in a golf cart. Viewing super enhanced. Had to grab some cell-phone video of it ..
Oh, and the penalty. From what I could gather the next day, Dixon was ruled to have jumped the start on a restart ... but the restart was waved off, so therefore he was not eligible for a penalty. So the mistake was penalizing Dixon for something that would have been a penalty had the start not been waved off. This is seems like a flawed rule -- that you can't be penalized on a waved-off restart. I think it says "take a shot!" If they wave it off because of the shot you take you can't be penalized. If that is the rule, what IndyCar should do is wave the green when someone does something goofy on a restart and THEN smack the offenders with a drive through immediately.
Because, seriously, restarts especially in IndyCar are total seven-wide clusters. Restarts at the Indy 500, the drivers said, were lunacy with people pulling out and diving around all over the place. I am a big fan of hold you position until some line .. whether that is start-finish or whatever. If you go to an oval race, watch the restarts. It's a Festival of Circus Music all the crazy stuff that goes on in the pack pre-green.
Danica, Criticism and Prison Rules Racing -- Interesting stuff from Danica Patrick's crew chief Tony Eury Jr. after yesterday's NASCAR Nationwide Race in Michigan wherein Danica spun three times. Tony says Danica isn't getting respect from other drivers on the track. Read it here.
Couple things about this resonate. First, the flaw with Prison Rules Racing (that is no rules during green) in NASCAR. This whole "earn respect" thing gets a little tedious for me, as a fan. I don't tune in to see people junking each other on purpose, whether through contact or deliberately causing looseness or whatever. It's not worth my time to see people intentionally wreck each other. That's not what racing is about to me. I realize I'm in the minority here, but one of IndyCar's big advantages for me is the lack of rubbing. I bring this up because in order to race in NASCAR, you have to not only master the car, etc. you have to learn this tedious tit-for-tat, crash-people-who-crash-you game. Obviously Danica is still learning here, which is to be expected, since she grew up in the no-touch open-wheel world.
Tony Eury Jr. is saying Danica needs work in returning the favor to people who race her dirty (in his view). OK. It is good to see Tony Eury Jr., who is respected as a good crew chief and been in the business 20 years, giving his opinions on if Danica is getting respected or not. I know very little about the tricks of the trade in NASCAR, so I'll take Tony's word for it re: discourtesy shown toward Danica.
Second, this reminds me of my new approach and that is not to argue with experts as to factual matters so much. The Texas fence situation was kind of a turning point there. A lot of people took a look at the Texas fence and, based on what they saw with zero engineering/safety training or experience, declare it this or that. Reminds me of when people diagnosed Terri Schiavo's brain function via video tape. Folly.
(Terri Schiavo recap: She suffered an irreversable brain injury that basically made her a vegetable. Her husband said Terri wouldn't want to go on like that and wanted to pull the plug, but her parents argued with the diagnosis by about 18 extreme medical experts that Shiavo had minimal brain function and therefore didn't want to pull the plug. A court battle ensued. Many people decided Terri had brain function based solely on a piece of video that appeared to show her smiling at her mom. Some Congresspersons even wanted to get involved in the situation. Her husband eventually won a court battle, pulled the plug, and the autopsy showed Shiavo's brain was something like half normal size with virtually no function.)
Someone finally got around to asking a super respected safety guy about the Texas fence and he said -- minuscule if any safety difference from every other fence. Yet people still claim this extreme expert is wrong. That's their right, but come on. The guy with 12 letters behind his name and 20 years experience in safety etc. etc. may know more the facts and probabilities than I do by simply viewing the fence.
Fans (me included) get all carried away and leap to huge conclusions immediately based on suppositions and 3.2 seconds of video before we know what the hell is going on. I'm trying to cut down on it. Like the guy who told me Katherine Legge should be parked and kicked out of the league for not driving a Lotus mid-pack in IndyCar. What? Seriously? Katherine Legge had some interesting comments on how she approaches such criticism when we talked at Iowa Speedway last week.
Katherine Legge: "I don't even look at it (criticism) any more. I really don't. All I can do is go to the people that I respect and ask their opinion -- How am I doing? What do I need to do to get there? How do I do this better? They are the ones who who know what is going on, and they are the ones who know where we should be in relation to everyone else because of all the testing, etc. etc. So all I do is listen to those people and the other people I just block out. I don't read it. I don't look at it. I don't stress about it. I just do the best job I can do."
So the thing with Danica, Katherine and every other driver, male or female, is they should seek the counsel of people who know what they are saying and who they care about pleasing and listen to them. Especially in racing, where there are about a trillion factors beyond driver skill that impact the end results. Obviously, don't take driving advice from me or any other fan who has never even sat in a race car, let alone driven one. Yeah, we all have our freedoms to express our opinions. (This blog is one big testimony to that.) I would never seek to abridge that. But we all also have the freedom to not pay attention or disagree or not care what someone else says. Freedom is a great thing.
Finally, on Danica, the cover story in this month's ESPN The Magazine about Danica is pretty good insight into her approach to life and racing. I thought it gave a good look at Danica the business woman, who is very, very formidable. Even in my hater days, I gave her huge credit for making a plan and working the plan with laser-like focus. That's America. Whether you like her plan or not is a different issue, but when it comes to deliberation, consulting her advisors, making a plan, focusing and execution, Danica is a free-enterprise machine.
Unfortunately, the author of the article ended it poorly by talking about Johanna Long for no real reason in my view (as a professional writer). Danica did not say anything disparaging about Johanna, but the author of the article had to get into "baby fat" and stupid, beside-the-point stuff. It came off to me as a bit of a sneer from the article writer. Too bad. It was like having a great meal followed by dessert that tastes like cat vomit.
That's all I got on the day after Milwaukee. Shout out to my fellow fathers on Father's Day. I'll be out at Iowa Speedway all day Friday scrapping up some stuff and trying not to get in the way. I'll be talking to Woman of pressdog® and Star Mazda driver Ashley Freiberg for sure and a few others. Saturday I'll be in fan mode with mrs. pdog and probably not at the track horribly early. If you see me Friday, holler.
IMO Dixon was the reason the first restart was called off. That deserves a penalty because you should not be the one to cause a restart being called off. And his crew chief's excuse that (paraphrasing) "everyone does it" is not a proper excuse, at least according to my mother. So I think the call--even messed up--was a good one and I hope they develop some consistently enforced rules and penalties for all races because the only thing presently consistent about restarts is that they suck.
Posted by: redcar | June 17, 2012 at 08:45 AM
I love racing, and think IndyCar is still the coolest game in town. But...Drivers are the ones doing the racing, including driving the restarts. Race Control, by very definition of their name, control that racing. These are all very smart, very talented, very experienced people. Bottom line: if they really want restarts, rules, and the overall product to be better, they can make it better. There's not a competitor in any field of endevour who won't take any rule to its limit, that simply seems to be our human nature. If the rules aren't getting the results that make the races grade "A," then the leaders (whether by title or personality) among the smart, talented, experienced group, can - and in the name of making the sport the best it can be - should step up. And that's my Father's Day wish for the sport I so enjoy being a fan of.
Posted by: Matt | June 17, 2012 at 09:41 AM
I agree with what you say about both Dixon and Dario. Dixie has really grown on me and though I haven't been a fan of Dario I sat in on the front row presser on Friday and saw a really different side of him. He was very thoughtful, funny at times and accommodating. Plus he looked like he had been hit by a truck -- Festival of Stress that afternoon. I think if people saw more of that from him they would see him in a different light. As it stands he might be the least-popular 3-time Indy 500 winner of all time. I couldn't believe the stuff that was yelled at him from the stands yesterday.
Posted by: Mike | June 17, 2012 at 10:05 AM
I really wish Barfield hadn't apologized. Indycar starts and restarts are awful. I'm still waiting to hear a driver apologize for the fact Indycar's "fastest drivers in the world" can't do a restart better than a Camping World Truck driver. NASCAR manages in all three series to do better. Sprint cars and short tracks EVERYWHERE do better. And in those places, the start would get waved off and the driver would get a penalty. Indycar needs to do the same thing and stop giving their drivers special treatment to do whatever they want, which seems like how things have been in the past.
Posted by: Dylan | June 17, 2012 at 10:43 AM
About Dixon and Dario - I remember sitting in on a fan Q&A with them at Chicagoland. They both seemed personable. Dixon was quiet, Dario was pretty candid. They spent about 30 minutes at the Q&A and it was fun.
I've tried to get Dario's autograph after his last two 500 wins and have been unsuccessful. I was disappointed after this most recent 500 because there were about 20 of us fans who had stuck around two-and-a-half hours after the race ended and tried to get his autograph between the IMS pagoda and the media center. I overheard a PR person say Dario had to be somewhere in 2 minutes as he was being shepherded to a golf cart. Dario did sign autographs for a few people as he walked by. I realize there are sponsor and media obligations, but I wish he could have just taken the 5 minutes (or less) to meet all of us and sign something.
I agree that Penske's guys do a good job showing up at Meijer and Verizon stores. Marco has also done a good job the past few years traveling around Iowa. I see little in the way of fan meet-and-greets from Dixon, Dario, or Montoya on Ganassi's NASCAR side. I don't know if it's a product of the drivers, their owner, or their PR folks.
Posted by: Martin | June 17, 2012 at 04:01 PM
P-dog, I think you summed up my feelings on the waved off restart. Like redcar stated, it was obvious that Dixon was the main reason that the restart was waved. So why is that immune to being flagged for a drive thru? I mean, we all realize how badly you need to jump a start in Indycar to get it waved off. Seems like a penalty was in order.
Here's what I'd like to see. Let all the starts go green, then come back on a lap later and start reading the list of drive thru penalties. Give them a season of this, and they'll learn to stay in line. Anything less, and you're just being inconsistent.
I think the issue with Dario and Dixon not being available, is solely due to the Chipster's long term deal with Target. With one sponsor to take care of, (and a sponsor that can't even seem to find room on their shelves for ANYTHING indycar related) why bother? Pressing the flesh, in store appearances, and signing autographs would just be wasting time on the fans. *(denotes sarcasm)
That's why we all love Chip sooooo much.
Posted by: Tom G. | June 17, 2012 at 09:05 PM
Michael Andretti did a great job promoting the Milwaukee event/race. I had the pleasure of attending and spoke with a few local Milwaukee race attendees and they really appreciated how Andretti went out of his way to connect to the local fans (fair ticket prices, infield full of fun, increased tailgating opportunities - ability to come in and out during the day, post-race concert, etc.). Subsequently, I believe this event has a strong likelihood to grow in a positive direction next year.
Also, the actual spectator race viewing experience was outstanding! It was my first trip to the Milwaukee Mile and I hope to return next year.
Posted by: Jasonshelley | June 17, 2012 at 10:41 PM
Dixon's penalty seemed straight forward to me. Either you penalize him for jumping a restart (since everyone was anticipating the restart, whether they flew the green flag or not), or you penalize him for passing under the yellow. Either way, he should have gotten the drive through. From my perception, Dixon is one of the worst violators of restarts and seems to always be hanging back and then getting a run coming to green. I was glad to see him finally get smacked down.
I will defend the drivers to some extent versus the NASCAR restarts because IndyCars are so much more responsive than any of the NASCAR cars. You hit the gas early in a 3400lb Sprint Cup car, it just slightly rumbles forward ahead of the others. Indycars are so much more agile and if a driver hits the gas even a split second before another driver, he's up next to him.
I'll echo what was said above. Throw the green flag and then review the videotape. Start handing out penalties like candy at Halloween. If Race Control has telemetry (which they could get if they wanted) look at each driver's gear and throttle position. If they jump before the green, penalty.
Posted by: Simona Fan | June 18, 2012 at 08:25 AM
My kids like to meet the drivers, my oldest daughter especially (now 13). At Milwaukee, the two that I brought with me got to meet RHR, Oriol, Helio, and Briscoe up close at the Team Chevy tent in the infield. They really liked that. Dixon and Dario aren't doing their fan base any favors by hiding.
Posted by: Jay Robinson | June 18, 2012 at 08:27 AM