Posted on 05/25/2003 7:57:44 PM PDT by foreverfree
Friday, May 23, 2003
Crumbling Brickyard
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By Jim Armstrong
Special to Page 2
Gentlemen, start your apathy.
And since, outside of Hootie Johnson's house, we're all one big, gender-equal, happy family, you can, too, ladies. Ignore the Indy 500, that is.
There was a time not so long ago when Indy had more It than the Addams family tree. The Battle at the Brickyard was as ingrained in American culture as rock 'n' roll, backseat makeout sessions at the drive-in and church on Sunday. Memorial Day weekends were reserved for Indy, double-headers, SPF 8, and backyard burgers and brewskis.
In the immortal words of Roberto "Steak, It's What's for Quitters" Duran, no mas. The Sunday before Memorial Day has turned into a good day to mow the lawn. Elvis is dead, Raquel Welch has her AARP card and Indy is yesterday's news. It still has the roar, but it's lost the buzz.
Granted, my interest in auto racing is fleeting at best. For that matter, my interest in autos is pretty much fleeting. I want the damn thing to start in mid-January and not blow up in mid-July. I couldn't find the carburetor if my life depended on it, and I use Visa, not Valvoline, for all my oil changes.
To me, a tranny is a guy wearing a dress on a dark street corner, not some accident waiting to happen under the hood. Heck, I only pump my own gas because they make me. That, plus I want to get out of there ASAP since you never know who's lurking around the lugnuts at those places these days.
But then, that's the point. Back in the day, even I cared about Indy. For one day a year, it was something you did, like putting on the storm windows. For that one day, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and the Unser boys were larger than life. Or at least bigger than Hank Aaron or Tom Seaver. Even those of us who didn't know the second thing about auto racing -- most of us could figure out the go-fast, turn-left thing -- watched Indy.
Let me guess. You're going to be busy doing something else on Sunday. I hear ya, dude. It makes me a little sad to admit it, but I could care less about Indy these days. It's one big blur to me, kind of like J-Lo's last marriage. They tell me the pole sitter is some guy named Helio Castroneves. Might as well be Julio Iglesias or Chico Esquela. I'd rather watch men's tennis, which hasn't been worth watching since Andre Agassi needed a haircut.
Is Gomer Pyle going to sing "Back Home in Indiana" before the race? Beats me. I haven't watched Indy for years and, judging from all the empty seats at the practice runs, I'm not alone. Indy is about as hip as Abba, as hot as Janet Reno, and as relevant as Gary Hart. Disco made a comeback, but Indy is gone for good, drowned in the mainstream of American consciousness.
There are those, of course, who believe race-car industry leaders have no one to blame but themselves. The 1996 IRL-CART spat turned into the nastiest divorce since The Donald and Ivana split up Boardwalk and Park Place. Before the breakup, Indy was the Yankees. It got all the best players, because it had all the money. In the aftermath of the breakup, the race was reduced to medium-market status -- not second rate, but not first class, either.
I don't necessarily buy that argument. Sure, the IRL-CART dispute didn't help matters, but it's only part of the reason for Indy's demise. To paraphrase Otter when he meets Mrs. Wormer in the grocery store, I've got a bigger one. It's called NASCAR, which, as often as not these days, precedes the word rocks and an exclamation point or two.
You'll notice NASCAR's explosion in popularity has coincided with the IRL-CART fallout. But it's more than that, more than finding a convenient void to fill in people's pastime habits. Indy's problem is that it's still your father's Indy 500. It happens once a year, which is once more than it's promoted. Opening the gates and revving up the engines isn't enough anymore. With everything out there on the sports/entertainment landscape, it's easier than ever to get overlooked.
Then there's NASCAR, whose drivers have evolved into genuine American folk heroes, thanks in large part to a well-oiled marketing machine. Jeff Gordon, his buddy Ernie, and his other buddy Ernie have been meticulously molded and tightly packaged by Madison Avenue to the point where you wonder how stock-car racing was ever just a Southern thing in the first place. These days, NASCAR is about as popular in Dayton as it is at Daytona.
Not that I watch much of it, of course. IRL, CART, NASCAR, it's all alphabet soup to me. Which brings us to Sunday. I don't know about you, but I'm going to take a long nap.
Jim Armstrong, a sports columnist for the Denver Post, is a regular contributor to Page 2.
Exactly.
That's a good way of saying that the track (hence the race) is passe now.
Secondly, IRL isn't as competitive as NASCAR. This year Chevy is having a problem with their engines, so you had 6-7 drivers who couldn't compete against Toyota or Honda. IRL needs to make drivers use uniform engines and body styling, so that the race will be based off of drivers skills.
I was disappointed in the Indy 500 this year, and IRL really need to do something to make the races more interesting.
Can you say "IROC" (another series to snooze through)?
I was disappointed in the Indy 500 this year, and IRL really need to do something to make the races more interesting.
How much more can you do for a round-'n-round race?
Has your interest in the race more to do with 'content' (really, the drivers and pit crews ARE doing what they always have done) or 'presentation' (were you given too little of what you wanted to know {race details} and/or too much irrelevant material {unnecessary commentary, statistics, graphics/vidiot-food, flashy-nothingness, too-frequent commercials})?
Or maybe like so many others (myself included), you want a more-challenging race situation? Try watching more road racing (yes, drivers ARE capable of making right-hand turns) with the same style cars and see what that does for you. I know that if I have to watch stock cars I'd rather watch them on a road course than going in circles like a gas-powered roller derby.
Yup, that's my memory. I think when they moved Memorial Day off of May 30, that had a lot to do with killing interest in the race.
Shawna Robinson? Like any other driver, great if she doesn't take out your favorite driver, or even his competitors, and
even better if she can make the race interesting.
My guess is the whining comes from having Annika "shoved" down the fans and competitors' throats, rather than she earning her spot.
That, and the media fixation with the whole wannabe spectacle that turned out to be the media itself. IMHO.
But I've been suffering from various flavors of media fatigue for years, too.
F1 racing suffers, too, from the overly overt "team" concept, further distancing fans from drivers.
"Why'd the leader pull over? Because so the other driver on the team could win..."
I would have gone, but my hubby and Dad said "no pregnant women in the stands." It was a blast this year.
I didn't see it in Nashville.
He was still a little short on cash, so they moved his car down to Tom O'Daniel's Ford showroom. There anyone could fork over a small price (I believe it was $20) and have their name placed on the car.
That year I sponsered a car at Indy, what a great time!
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