Without question, the month of May is a great time to be in Indianapolis. We get the first taste of summer weather and the sports world focuses on a little sports venue on the west side which hosts the greatest spectacle in racing every Memorial Day. Despite the fact that the Indianapolis 500 mile race isn't as popular as it once was, it is still an event of monumental proportions unmatched anywhere in the world, and I think it is still one of the top 3 to 5 most important races held annually. Part of the great appeal to this race is its grandiose size, and I think the other part of the appeal is made up of its history. I'm talking the milk, three-wide starts, the spin-and-win, AJ Foyt, and on and on. Part of the history and tradition of the race includes all of the events that take place in the month of May leading up to the race, including pole and bump days.
The 500 has a unique qualification system with each car taking 4 laps and the average speed of the 4 lap run counting as your qualification attempt. On pole day a certain percentage of the 33 drivers allowed into the field is set. On the following day, the remaining cars fight for the remaining open spots. Adding to the excitement is the fact that there are more cars than spots, so you know some of the cars won't make the race. If you are bumped for the field, you can re-attempt to qualify two additional times. This year's bump day was one of the more exciting sessions I can remember. The top storyline was how Andretti Autosport struggled to get its cars into the field. Mixed with this was spotty weather which delayed drivers' opportunities to qualify. As time was winding down, Danica Patrick, the darling of IndyCar was not in the race. Danica, who is a decent driver and an attractive woman (see below), is the sport's most famous driver. Her looks and driving ability combined with her fiery attitude make her an interesting story. As she sat on pit row awaiting her attempt to qualify, the rain began to fall and the clock was ticking. I wondered to myself what would happen if she didn't make the race? Would they just cancel the 500? Would they find a way to fudge her into the race? As the rain stopped and track dried, she was able to put 4 laps together that were quick enough to make the race. A short time later, her teammate Marco Andretti (grandson of Mario) qualified as time expired, bumping their other teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay.
As qualifying ended, Andretti Autosport, one of the sport's more popular teams and well known owners barely qualified two cars and failed to qualify an additional two. Then two days later, news came out that Andretti bought a car from AJ Foyt's racing team. The sold car happened to be in the race, and Andretti will be placing Hunter-Reay in the car. This is apparently legal and within the rules as the car, not the driver, qualifies for the races. Andretti bought Hunter-Reay's seat in the race for lack of a better term. I understand that in sports the richest teams frequently win and I think this is even more true in auto sports than most other sports, but I find this practice to be absurd and embarrassing. All of the excitement of qualifying, all of the time spent watching for the times on the screen and waiting for the track to dry and watching the clock turned out to be meaningless. Nothing that happened this past weekend mattered at all. Regardless of the times, a driver from a big name team with a big name sponsor will be in the race even if their car sucks. If Danica wouldn't have qualified, they would have bought her way in too.
This is apparently legal and doesn't break any rules but IndyCar has to change this starting next year. If they allow stuff like this to go on it disrupts the history and excitement that is the Indianapolis 500 and everything leading up to the race. Otherwise, next year instead of having pole and bump days they should just have an auction and have owners bid for the qualifying spots. I love IndyCar but much like their entire season up to this point, they really look like clowns on this deal.
This isn't the first time someone has bought their way into this race...but I agree its ridiculous...
ReplyDeleteYeah, some of the articles I read did mention that similar things have occurred in the past. I don't know enough about the history of the race to comment too much, but I don't remember in the recent past a similar deal being struck between two completely unrelated teams.
ReplyDeleteI understand both sides of the story. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, mostly because this deal went down between two rival teams, more so than merely the act of a driver swap, which as noted, has happened before and will again.
ReplyDeleteAll of us "racing purists" can balk at stuff like this, but the bottom line is, it's big business, and big business doesn't function without big money. I hate to say the IndyCar season series is largely irrelevant on the sporting landscape, but yeah, the IndyCar season series is largely irrelevant on the sporting landscape. Many of these teams get sponsors to sign on and provide the funding they need to operate for the entire season based solely on the promise of the massive exposure that comes along with having your brand associated with the crown jewel of series, The Indianapolis 500. So yeah, we may not like it, but I also understand why this sort of thing is a necessary evil.
You know it's pretty rare for me to not take a firm stance on any given topic, but I respect both sides of this debate. You know what/who I don't respect though? All the diehard NASCAR rednecks who are slamming IndyCar for allowing something like this to happen. With all due respect, don't give me that bullshit when I've seen guys in the Daytona 500 field who weren't good enough to qualify, but are allowed in the race anyway on some wank-off "provisonal" spot because of something they accomplished in the series a decade prior. That's no better than what went down at Indy, and I could easily make the argument it's worse.
This would be a completely different topic if it were drivers switching cars within the same team. I think it makes it completely different and much, much worse when the switching is between rival teams. Doesn't AJ's team have sponsors to satisfy too? I'd like to know how much Andretti spent to buy this car. Maybe instead of spending uber bucks buying someone else's car he should spend the money on making his cars not suck.
ReplyDelete