Go fast, get stupid, DNF
All of you race geeks out there certainly had a weekend of thrills. Sunday's Indianapolis 500, NASCAR Coca Cola 600, and Formula One race in Nurburgring, Germany, each had something in common - inexperienced drivers, inept pit crews, and crashes galore.
Executives of the 3M Corporation were probably watching with glee as miles of their versatile, colored Duct Tape were used to patch cars together after what seemed like a mishap per lap in all three races. Records were set, not for fastest times or consecutive wins, but for record numbers of crashes, cautions, red flags, pit miscues, and bone-headed driving.
SNAFU at German GP
At the German Grand Prix, Renault had settled for second place as the second round of pit stops approached, but that was when the team signalled to Fernando Alonso that race leader Kimi Raikkonen was in trouble with the right front tire on his McLaren. This of course came after a scare at the start when Ralf Schumacher knocked Alonso sideways and nearly finished his race day.
Alonso won the race when the McLaren pit crew gambled that the right front tire Raikkonen flat-spotted earlier would hold up until the finish. The tire did, the suspension that was taking a pounding from the out-of-round tire did not, and the Spaniard was handed a gift victory. The race was marred with drivers being assessed with more than a dozen penalties for pit and pit lane violations.
FUBAR at Indy
At Indianapolis, rookie drivers dramatically illustrated why veterans routinely win the big ones. Indy Racing League gunner Dan Wheldon was all smiles and rookie Danica Patrick was near tears after the Briton took the lead from Patrick on lap 194 and drank the victory milk at Indianapolis. I met Danica at the Miami Grand Prix a few years ago, all five feet nothing of her. This girl can race, folks, and she will win, but not before she picks up some race savvy.
Despite stalling her car in the pits, wheel-bumping with Kosuke Matsuura, and a spinout involving some skullduggery by local Jupiter, Florida, driver Scott Sharp, she fought her way through the entire pack of drivers twice, held the lead for 19 laps, and finished in fourth place. Patrick said it all when she stated, "I made some mistakes, some that I'll remember for a long time."
Chaos at Charlotte
And then there was the bumper cars debacle known as the Coca Cola 600. Jimmie Johnson slid past Bobby Labonte in the final turn to win the North Carolina race for the third consecutive year. But the race will be remembered for its series-record 22 cautions, bizarre spin-outs too numerous to count, myriad wrecks, and just plain stupid driver decisions. In fact, there were so many incidents that there is not enough bandwidth to describe them here.
Excessive bump-drafting and the resulting crash knocked my guy Mark Martin out of the Nextel Championship points top ten and he was fuming after the race, something the gentleman driver never does. "In more than 30 years of racing, I've never experienced a race like that. They (NASCAR) should start looking at penalizing some of these reckless drivers," a disgusted Martin said. I know he said this because I heard it on Pit Command radio.
So there you have it. For all of you yahoos out there that get off on stupidity, crashes, and caution laps, you had a fine day. For all of you fans of good racing, there's always next week.