Bryan's Random Indycar Thoughts - Rage Edition

So I am going to start these random thoughts with the first not so random thing.  I am pissed.  I am angrier than I’ve been watching a race than I can remember.  So I will try and make the rest of these light hearted, but I spent watching someone I’ve known of since he was a kid (and a member of my old karting club) come within 2 laps of winning his first ever Indycar race and have it taken away.  Then no penalty!!  So while I am super pissed at Rossi for taking out Wickens I am just as pissed with Indycar for letting it go.  You have two choices Indycar; one is to penalize incidents that cause another driver to crash out of a race, or you can just let it be a free for all like NASCAR.  It’s their call but if I want bullshit theatrics in a car, with drivers dishing out justice like the old west, there is NASCAR.  Otherwise clean it up.  I understand I’m raging a lot more because it was Robby in the car but had the roles been reversed I sure wouldn’t be celebrating it.  It would feel hollow in a different way.

Ok on to the Random thoughts:

·        ABC, you guys are literally the worst.  Coming back from commercial AFTER two restarts, missing battles for the lead to show Graham Rahal pass a Carlin car for like… 34th or whatever it was.  Eddie Cheever and Scott Goodyear talking nonsense about… well nothing.  I cannot wait for the TV deal to end and for Indycar (I HOPE) to get a decent, dedicated coverage.  NBC is awesome.  As much as I disagree with Townsend Bell a lot of the time, at least he is sort of aware of the here and now.  Also Paul Tracy and him are together are great.  ABC takes the excitement out of chess.

·        These next too are sort of related to the first one here.  First part is the new aero kits look amazing!  The cars look properly balanced and fast!  They don’t look like a drunken wind tunnel experiment anymore which is great.  I flat out like the looks of the cars, maybe more than anything currently racing.  Formula 1 cars are cool for their technology, but these Indycar’s just look amazing.  And with less downforce which means…

·        The cars slide more.  Yes that is how it works, when you have less downforce than prior years the cars do slide more.  The only issue with that are degrees of sliding!  It isn’t a lot!  ABC please stop talking about the sliding!  We get it!  The cars no longer have all the downforce in the world anymore, so they don’t stick like gum to carpet anymore.  But they are still an aero dependant race car with slick tires.  Sliding is slower, wears the tires more and just isn’t going to be as quick.  I understand the drivers work a bit more, and that is amazing, but this isn’t some drifting competition.

·        Scott Dixon was making mistakes!  I don’t want to hammer too much about this, but he dive bombed Hinch into turn 1 and crunched Sato of all people!  Also was looking a little ragged out there which was very uncharacteristic.  It won’t last, and I’m sure he’ll be fighting for the title at the end of the year, but it was weird to see.  Especially with the Rookies doing so well

·        Finally, and back to my initial rant, I would have love to see Robby take a win in his first race.  I was heartbroken when he got backed into the wall.  And I don’t think I would have expected anything else out of Rossi in terms of going for it there.  That being said there has to be consequences for taking someone out of the lead.  Especially if you still end up on the podium.  I’m not as angry as I finish writing this but I’m still angry.  It didn’t need to happen.  I’m also just as mad at Binder and Chilton for those final two yellows.  Keep it on the damn track boys!