The Indianapolis 500 - 2005 - Danica Patrick Strikes Back
May 31, 2005 · Filed Under Sports
Prior to the Indy 500, the largest sporting even I had ever attended was Ohio State vs. Michigan during OSU’s championship season. (Eat your heart out Skip Bayless.) As a result of that event, I feel like I have experience with drunken party-like sporting event atmospheres. What could possibly say “party” more than a crowd getting pepper sprayed while trying to take down the field goal posts after the game?
The thing is that OSU seats just over 100,000 people and the seating surrounding the 2.6 mile track in Indianapolis seats somewhere between 250,000 and 350,000 depending on the number of people in the infield.
Here are some of my thoughts and observations on the Indy 500 from this weekend. Some of it was funny. Some of it was really amazing. All of it was fun. I wouldn’t consider myself a race fan just yet, but I think I could definitely make time for the Indy 500 every year. On with the list.
- Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) needs to be there singing “Welcome Home to Indiana.” The song is called something like that, anyway. I think I was the only one in the stands who didn’t know the words and wasn’t singing along.
- You can’t have a party without Florence Henderson warbling “God Bless America” (with entirely too long of a prelude, which guarantees at least 2 minutes of vocal histrionics while waiting for the familiar opening line.)
- You also need a flyover from the Stealth Bomber.
- Apparently you can’t have a party without real A-List celebrities like Richard Karn (Al from Tool-Time on Tim Allen’s Home Improvement.) Other celebs included Chester Bennington (Linkin Park,) Russell Crowe, some chick from one of the Home Improvement Shows, Cheech Marin (sans Chong,)
- Oh, and you need a Miss America sighting, as if anyone knows her name.
- You need a parade of candidates for “Miss Indy 500″ (some homecoming queen type of deal?) including 27 girls from Butler which I believe is about 37% of the female population that matriculates at the school.
- You need 174 guys waiting in line to get to the “bathroom” (troughs) during a yellow flag warning on the track after a crash, and at least 10 of the guys need to be mimicking Larry The Cable Guy’s catchphrase “Get Er Done!” while encouraging their drunken compatriots to make room at the trough so they can attempt to retain at least a small portion of their remaining dignity by not peeing themselves.
- You need to have a strategy session on the best way to get to and from the Speedway, along with strategies for parking and getting your cooler the last mile from parking lot to gate.
- Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen and Sunscreen. Apparently, the running joke is that most times you will need an umbrella, but this year there was perfect weather for the entire race.
- You need a compelling story line. Danica Patrick was hyped up for this race, and I would say that the majority of the crowd was totally behind her. For whatever reason, I would have thought race fans would be especially resistant to a female driver invading their territory, but not in this case.
- In a race with this many drivers there has to be more than one crowd favorite and it was easy to see that the crowd was also behind Sam Hornisch Jr. as they collectively groaned when he wiped out against the wall just over half way through the race.
- Earplugs are an essential part of an event with high powered engines propelling vehicles north of 200 MPH. We were sitting on the third turn, and I can’t really tell you how loud it was. Just make sure you have ear plugs.
- Oh, and the mullets. You can’t have race day without the mullets. Be sure to click through and check out some of the mullet pictures I got. They weren’t outstanding, but I am still proud of the one I got below with the mullet and the racecar all in the same frame.
That is all I can really think of for now. I am sure more will come to me. Thanks to Jen’s family for all their hospitality this weekend. And thanks to Jen’s dad for the ticket. These were our seats for the event in turn number three.
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13 Responses to “The Indianapolis 500 - 2005 - Danica Patrick Strikes Back”
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Great post Craig! Your observations are very astute for a rookie!
You forgot to add one drunk Joe screaming “Helioooooo” at the top of his lungs : )
Unfortunately for me, Joe was not a part of this year’s race experience as he was off in a bike race of some sort. There’s always next year, though.
It’s quite a sight, that drunk, Helio-lovin’ Joe. One of the Seven Wonders of Indiana.
I know this outs me as a big liberal elitist pinko commie America hater, but that bottom picture sure looks a lot like a hundred thousand people lined up to watch the highway.
Except with guaranteed crashes into walls at 200 MPH… and David Letterman paying for it.
Hey Chris,
I guess I am also a big liberal elitist pinko commie America hater cause I agree with you on the picture.
Although everyone does say it is much better live. Craig, I have no doubt that Laps 1 was awesome, and probably even Lap 20, but how cool was Lap 158? Doesnt it get old or are you just waiting for a crash?
Chris D.
I would be lying if I said parts of it didn’t get a little bit old. Here is a rundown of cool stuff though. Laps 1-10 are really cool. You get crashes, cautions, pit stops and restarts which are fun. The last 20 laps or so are fun because the drivers are starting to get ballsy trying to figure out how to win. So, that is 30 laps that have you watching closely, and then an additional 5 laps per occurrence I would guess.
The rest of the laps are like 3 and outs in football I guess.
All things considered, once you start to get a feel for the structure, it is a lot of fun. Plus, you are filling in down moments with food, drink etc like any other sporting event.
I still wouldn’t go to Nascar, and I wouldn’t want to go to a race more than once
Well Craig, you have opened up a whole can of Mullet Science I’ll have to preform now. Considering you were at an open wheel racing event which typically caters to higher end clientelle I would guess your Mullet viewing would be less than that of a person attending a closed wheel racing event or NASCAR race. I (no offense to Jen) have to also consider that geographical region you were in to view this race. Indiana is a mullet enriched environment and therefore could draw more mulleted spectators than say Connecticut which doesn’t have as high a mullet per capita. So with this in mind I would devise a complex yet untested hypothesi to truly understand the saturation of the mullet viewing you experienced. It goes a little something like this.
Mullets (m) + Geographical considerations (g)+ Racing Variety (r) is equal to the coefficent of the net total of m+r+c
So I counted 6 total mullets out of 12 pictures taken with a total attendence of 275,000 people there….roughly Craig your’e looking at a mullet saturation factor of 1.756:4 or a moderately high concentration of mullets….
Moderately High Mullet Saturation ranks just below
1. Tractor pulls
2. Gun shows
3. Ratt reunion concerts
4. Toughman boxing competitions
5. Mechanical Bull riding compeitions
Have you looked at Danica Patrick? I’ll give you one good guess as to why the race fans don’t mind having a female that looks like that out there driving.
I’ll have to test that mullet formula out next time I go to Bristol for Nascar. I went to the Busch Series (i.e. minor-league) race this past spring but it was rained out and postponed to Monday, when I was working and not interested enough in the race to take a vacation day.
I trust you’ll be sending a real thank-you note in addition to thanking your beloved’s family on this “website.” The old ways are best.
A great weekend for racing. TO the F1 fans confused by open wheel racing in a loop, they’ll never get it. Kind of like how I don’t get Paris Hilton (have you seen that face?!? That’s a scoop-billed pout to make a flamingo proud!) Part of the attraction IS the crowd, and the loop just serves to foster that. After all, how exciting is it to be three deep in turn 15 of 28? Not to mention, the importance of a good crew seems to be lost in F1.
Thanks for sharing the pics, the 500 is one of those experiences I haven’t been able to enjoy yet. I hold that in the same light as the Kentucky Derby, sorry to say OSU-UM isn’t up there for me (unless, of course, OSU is stacked. I’m a Spartan fan. . . )
BTW, Jen sent me!
Hey Jim, thanks for stopping in. You should really make it to the race one of these days. Even as a non-race fan, I was pleasantly surprised. So if you are a race fan, it is a no-brainer.