IndyCar is now NSFW

That's just pure pornography right there. 

I haven't seen a rear end that nice since Lara Sue Jacobson mooned me in 11th grade. Wow.

And how are we supposed to discuss the Indy 500 this year when the censors are going to blur the cars?

As with many things in life, I think Richard Pyror has the best way to describe this car. (Which really is NSFW)

(Credit Damon Sturrock for the pics)

Who will miss pack racing?

 Will it be those 20,000 people that showed up to the last race at Chicago? Maybe those 10,000 that showed up to the last race at Kentucky will miss it. I bet it will be the 200,000 people that watched the 2009 Kansas race on TV.

 Basically, no one will miss pack racing, because almost no one was watching it.

 Sure, the ratings across the board for IndyCar isn't great, but when you look at the highest attended and rated races outside of Indy, it's typically a street course. The ratings for the last Kentucky and Chicago races were so bad, Versus didn't even bother to report them.

 I hear you screaming over there mister, "IndyCar needs exciting races with .000001012 second finishes cause that's what oval racing is all about!!!!!" First, calm down. Second, that's fine once or twice, but race after race it's a little much. It's basically making every race into a Michael Bay movie. Sure, there's lots of 'splosions and sexy girls, but it's just mindless entertainment after awhile.

 When people talk about IndyCar's roots being on ovals, they're talking about flat tracks and super speedways. Not these NASCAR cookie cutter tracks. You want to return to the roots of IndyCar, you need to return to Michigan, Milwaukee, Phoenix, and Pocono. Those are the tracks that are still around that made IndyCar famous.

 Why not tap back into that fanbase that made Indy popular in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? Why not be an alternative to NASCAR? They race at so many 1.5 mile tracks the fans call them cookie cutters, but not in a fun "Yay, were going to have cookies!" way, but in a way you get excited for McDonald's, cause that's what cookie cutter tracks are, they are the McDonald's of the racing world. Maybe IndyCar should strive to be a little better than that? I'd much rather be the In-n-Out than the McDonald's anyways.

Brace for the G's

"And that, I think, was the handle - that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

I'm starting this blog with one of my favorite quotes from Hunter S. Thompson (okay, it's the only one I know) because it seem very fitting for what I hope will be the major theme of this blog. I'm going to spend a lot of time discussing IndyCar, my passion for it, where it's been, where it's at, and where I hope it's going.

I started watching IndyCar in 1985. I was 8 years old, but seeing Danny Sullivan spin his car in the south short chute, not wreck, and then go on to win the race got me hooked. Now, at 33 years of age, I look back at IndyCar during my youth and realize how it was "riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave." It was the greatest racing on the planet. Free from hype or gimmicks, it was the sport of auto racing in it's purist form. But, over the years, we've lost our way due to the egos of just a few.

In what is called his "Wave Speech," Hunter says, "You can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." After the death of Dan Wheldon, Las Vegas may end up being a water mark for IndyCar. Not the high-water mark in Hunter's speech, but the low-water mark. Maybe, Vegas will be the point were IndyCar finally sheds itself of all the things that went wrong during the split. I like to think that IndyCar can just get back to what it does best:

Pure, unadulterated, no gimmicks, no BS, straight up racing.