Q: Since there are often questions about other races to see while in Indy for the 500, a list:
5/21, USAC sprint cars, Terre Haute, IN
5/22 & 23, USAC sprint cars, Circle City Raceway in Indy
5/24, Silver Crown, USF Pro2000, USF 2000, Indianapolis Raceway Park
5/25, Little 500 (33 sprint cars on a paved, high-banked 1/4 mile track—absolute madness!), Anderson, IN
Tom Hinshaw, Santa Barbara, CA (formerly of Muncie, IN — Robin Miller once told me: “Good move.”)
MP: Thanks, Tom!
Q: I read your stuff every week. I really like it. However it could use more multi-dimensional race fans and contributors. Sprint car fans will tell you: Dirt is to race on. Pavement is to get to the track.
I doubt any of them care about IndyCar, F1, road racing, etc. Most do not like NASCAR much. Like me, many of them also watch midgets on dirt. Knoxville Nationals and Chili Bowl are very popular events with the dirt racing fans. These are multi-day events with lots of racing to determine the feature field. Typical one-day dirt events have multiple races where the feature event field is determined by several factors, too.
It takes a while to understand how it all works and not all the events are run the same way to determine the feature field.
Pete Pfankuch, Wisconsin
MP: Thanks, Pete.
Q: Charlie, you are a good man for taking your brother to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. I can’t give you all of our secrets, but try these for a start:
1) Breakfast every morning at Charlie Brown’s in Speedway. Get there at 7am with the Old Timers, former and current crew members, and crusty Yellow Shirts. The breakfast is surprisingly good.
2) Gold or Silver badges do not include race tickets or any other seating. For qualifications, get Gold Badges if you can so you can go in pit area — especially on Bump Day and General Admission tickets for the front straight. Take an hour off for lunch and hang in the stands, but otherwise follow the stories as they develop in the garages and pits. Get as close as you can to the team that earns the last spot in the field. Also, experience the agony of defeat with the last team bumped.
3) For Fast Friday/Carb Day: after breakfast, go to garages. Start and end the session in the pits — in the middle go to front straight grandstand for a break. GA tickets are cheap and, I think, are the only tickets available for this day. Evening: Lucas Oil Raceway/IRP for sprints, midgets, and USF Pro championships (bring clothes as if you are going to Candlestick Park).
4) For Saturday: Go to track early and get autographs from all the Old Timers — drivers, etc. Shed a tear for Al Unser, may he rest in peace. Sneak onto pit road and watch the drivers meeting leaning against the pit wall separating pits from track. You will be awed by the folks you see in this area. As soon as the drivers meeting is over, lunch at Shapiro’s Deli in downtown Indy. Work off lunch paddling a boat in the downtown canal. After paddle boats, go to the Bottleworks District and walk around and play carnival games. Dinner in Bottleworks.
5) Race Day: Sit as high as you can on the front stretch, preferably toward Turn 1. This way, you can see cars coming out of 4, in the pits, and into Turn 1. You will need to buy these good tickets from a broker unless you get incredibly lucky from IMS. Get to the track early race morning so you can experience the day without stress of traffic. The Starbucks on 10th Street (halfway between downtown and the track) opens at 6 or 6:30, so get “breakfast” (if you can choke down something amid the excitement) there on way to track. Forget lunch — too much going on in garages and grid.
Splurge for pre-race grid passes from a ticket broker so you can get onto the pre-grid. This will be the highlight. Avoid the Yellow Shirts after 11am as they will try to kick you off the grid. Leave the grid around 11:20am so you catch the cool pre-race festivities, Back Home Again, flyover, and start command, from your seats. If timed correctly, your brother and you will be sobbing during Back Home Again in Indiana.
6) Savor the race. Stay until after the winner tours the track in the Pace Car. Traffic will be bad for Indy, but just another weekday morning in the Bay Area. Have a nice dinner — plenty of good restaurants downtown, Broad Ripple, or Keystone.
Kenneth A. Ehrlich
MP: Some excellent choices, Ken.
Q: A couple of things to hold you to, Marshall:
1) In the last Mailbag, you say the Brad Pitt movie will be a dud in the USA by the time it comes out. I say, maybe so, but since it is Sir Lewis behind the project, it probably won’t matter that much to him, as this movie will be box office diamond around the rest of the planet.
2) You say the stick and ball folks don’t go out and promote their teams and leagues outside of their sports venues. Well, in the stick and puck world (ice hockey), the stars are always out doing events for the boys/girls clubs, childrens hospital visits, sport and card shows and old-timer hockey games etc. All-Star events and player drafts occur in different cities every year to promote the sport even more. Now there are hockey teams in Arizona, three in California, Dallas, and two in Florida. So no, I must disagree with you, the drivers of IndyCar and any other motorsports group should be going to the car shows, especially in big city markets like Chicago.
3) Surprised that you don’t see much in the way of IndyCar drivers in TV ads in the USA. Here in Canada (or at least Ontario) I see an ad with a former IndyCar driver two to three times a night. You can see it here.
And finally, should we be concerned that Honda, worried about the ROI, may stop the sponsorship of the various races it does sponsor? What kind of a ROI would it get if a race was run and won by an Ilmor spec engine? Not much marketing there. With Toronto being sponsored by Honda, and not supported by the mighty NBC/Peacock, or the sponsors of the various race teams as you also mentioned, I wonder what viability continued sponsorship will have for Honda in IndyCar? If I were the organizers of the Toronto race, I would be thinking about calling the Formula E group and kick some tires with them. A designated world championship round, on a track that is tailor-made for Formula E, and Honda building an EV plant and a battery plant in Allison, Ontario… seems like a nice fit for everyone, except IndyCar.
Paul Sturmey
MP: Thanks for writing in.