Q: Well, that was… interesting. The first-turn crash in the first heat race seemed to calm everyone down. I’m happy for Rosenqvist as MSR seems to be off to a good start and they are working well with each other. Interesting strategy by Herta, but it was fun to watch him run up through the field. Overall, I’m kinda ambivalent about the event. But I am glad IndyCar tried something.
The Andretti organization still looks like they are missing something. I didn’t expect them to dominate immediately after dropping from four cars to three, but I did expect the team to be running better than they have so far. MSR as Andretti lite is the top performer so far. Any insight?
John
MP: Only surprise for me has been the slow start for Kirkwood. I need to dig into that a bit. Andretti wasn’t going to overtake Ganassi and Penske simply by dropping a car and adding Ericsson. We’re also talking about a season that’s two weeks old for IndyCar, so I’m not sure how much we should expect them to be achieving by March 24 when the first race was on March 10.
They didn’t fire out of the offseason with a ton of momentum, so that’s a disappointment, but the season is young. And they add Craig Hampson next month, and that will only help to accelerate their progress.
On the MSR side, I’m due to interview the drivers and Shank for a feature on the topic. I can say this: We’re seeing the best Rosenqvist since he was a rookie, and a lot of it has to do with his new role as the team leader among drivers.
Q: I’m the kind of IndyCar fan that’ll look at the weather and consider driving four hours one-way for the open test in April I’ll be at a practice day at least once this year along with the 500 itself and hopefully another race. I am a hardcore fan, I think. I don’t understand all the angst against this past weekend. I didn’t pay close attention to it, but I did watch all of qualifying and I had NBC on for both heats and the main. I also saw things shared by someone who was there, and I think if that event had been at IMS I would have spent $500 to go. I can take four people to the Indy 500 for the cost of one weekend ticket for Thermal, but it sure did look like a fun adult weekend for those who decided to make the trip.
Here’s another interesting twist for it. Instead of a race, make it a time trial. Throw Herta’s joker into the time trial idea and let drivers decide when to use that and the impact it may have on push to pass allotment and tire degradation. Make it a shootout-style race against the clock. NBC gets to box the driver on the hot seat holding the best time and build the drama in reverse order of some sort of qualifying for the shootout. That said, the racing was a bit better than I expected. Kudos to the drivers for making any on-track passes.
Ryan in West Michigan
MP: Thanks for writing in, Ryan.
Q: For a smaller team like Meyer Shank, how big of an impact does the $250k payday from Thermal make? I’m very happy to see them and Rosenqvist performing well out of the gate.
Joe
MP: None. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but instead of pocketing half of the prize, the team will get some really nice bonuses. MSR isn’t lacking in sponsorship, so when they have a nice payday like Sunday, you use that money to reward the men and women who made it possible.
Q: On one hand, I can appreciate IndyCar trying something new. I understand the scheduling troubles with NBC and the Olympics played a part in this event’s existence this year. I also understand that this facility isn’t a regular facility for regular fans. I also understand it’s better than nothing. However, what a turd.
The optics from my seat were just bad. It felt weird watching it. The commentators going on ad nauseum about the millionaire houses, on-site sushi chef, showing exotic cars, etc., while hyping up the race that had no actual feeling of hype was weird. You want people jazzed up about a sprint race when there’s basically no one there to celebrate it and essentially nobody can go? I didn’t see excited Thermal Club members watching from their balconies (or they weren’t shown), which was odd. It simply was strange.
I saw folks online saying, “Well, this is a business opportunity. This is probably to help get rich people interested in investing in a team or creating a team.” I say there’s already plenty of rich people interested in starting a team. And, if more wanted to, they couldn’t get an engine lease if they tried. IndyCar is already trying to figure out how to limit teams with charters and such, and they’ve already complained that some facilities can barely handle 27 full-time entries. Plus, was this oddly formatted, processional race with no fans really the way to hook an interested business person? Take them to the 500 for that.
The whole thing just came off as off-putting with a feeling of, “Why are you doing this and for whom? We didn’t ask for this.” And was it actually better than the schedule gap when it seems lots of people watching were put off by the whole thing?
Ross Bynum
MP: This was the first time I can recall getting on a plane with no feel for what I was about to encounter at a motor race, and by late morning Sunday, wishing there was an earlier non-stop flight home. We showed up, hoped for the best, and returned home. Since it counted for nothing, I just wanted to get back to spending time on things that matter.
Reminded me of a concert my wife and I went to a long time ago — she loves Donna Summer — where we drove two hours north to see her at a smoke-filled casino. Small room, sat towards the front, Summer came out, did about three songs, walked off stage, and shortly after, someone came out and told us she was ill and the concert was over. Might have lasted 15 minutes.
Stunned, we got up and left and drove the two hours home, took showers to wash off the stink, and wondered what the hell just happened. That’s what Thermal felt like for me; a lot of time and effort invested by everyone, a miniscule payoff with the main event, and folks packing up and putting the strange encounter behind them as quickly as possible. The catering was great and the fans who participated were great, but as racers, and to borrow a line from Bill Shakespeare, it was a lot of sound and fury that signified nothing,
If it returns, and it’s for points, I’ll show up knowing what it is. Whatever that thing was last weekend wasn’t a motor race as it computes in my brain and wasn’t worthy of the teams’ time. I wish I had a different takeaway, because I certainly wanted the event to be a winner, but you take what you’re given. Such a confusing event.