mmack's nnotes

Posted by Iannucci | 9/01/2008 | 1 comments »
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Ladies and gentleman, please welcome a man who's brain is so large he can connect an IndyCar race to the Scopes Monkey Trial (albeit in name only). Once again, please welcome the one, the only, the mmack.

Due to a "New Orleans Style" brunch the Fabulous Mrs. Maria threw today for us, my mother, her mom, and her best friend and her mother (on the menu: gumbo, beignets, coconut shrimp, crabmeat and sausage omelettes, Creole tomato and cheese tarts, bread pudding, mimosas, and coffee with chicory), race coverage for me starts just after the drop of the green flag. I tune in to see a golf game, sorry, force of habit, I tune in just in time to see Milka spin sideways after racing with another car. This causes an outbreak of yellow fever and Junky gets penalized for something called "avoidable contact". Hmmmmmmmmm.

A shout out to Alex Tagliani, who is replacing Bernoldi and his sore thumb. I believe Bernoldi's sore head will probably get Tags the ride for the rest of the season.

At this point the overhead shot of the field emphasizes the thin grandstands. And we replaced MIS with this why? My pondering is cut short as Wreckter pits and climbs out too early. As the field goes back to green it I'm calling it lock step before Marty can. I mean, it looks like a one lane slot car track out there. 90 laps of this?!?!?!? I've a bad feeling all the passing will be in the pits.

As for the Firestone whitewall "Magic Rings", nice bling! But no respectable Detroit land barge rolls out with just whitewalls. Where's the vinyl top, fender skirts, landau irons and opera lamps to go with? And for some of these drivers, a set of curb feelers would help too.

During the interview with Tomas, it sounds like the clutch went. I had a great joke about Tomas switching to driving automatics, then I hear it's a half-shaft. Hey ABC, how about dumping the f@#$ing onboard side-by-side when you're interviewing a driver? The race noise drowns out Sheck.

Great, an announcement of a Fuel Mileage race! By now, there's more excitement in the '07 replay of Wreckter and The Dancing King than the entire race so far.

WOW! An actual pass for position! On Danica no less! Then, Olympic Style Synchronized Spinning hits ABC as "Choppers" Wheldon and "Bitchin'" Camara loop. Hey ABC, how about skipping the damned commercials and cut to the incident?

Under yellow, Helio gets closer to Dixon than he's been all race. A festival of pitting shows Iceman and Briscoe Inferno dive in, Helio stays out. As the race restarts, Danica passes Milka. No towels are thrown. HEY! There's some ACTUAL PASSING for position! Tags goes around Carpenter, then Dixon works on Ed. Just as Dixon goes to pass Ed, we get A COMMERCIAL!

We return just as Vitor and Graham try to make a Danica Sandwich. OH NO! Vitor broke The Danica Directive and then her car breaks! Will Danica slap Vitor? While all this is happening EJ Viso gets jealous of the attention paid to Vitor and Danica and crashes to get airtime. Luckily Danica only had a flat tire, so she's in-and-out of the pits, but then gets a drive through penalty. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm, Big Three cars DO get slapped with penalties.

At this point EVERYONE passes Mutoh like an old guy on the highway going ten under, but being Detroit, there's some scary moments. Justin "Too-Tall" Wilson is looking to get past Helio as we see Junky using The Chrome Horn! Now as things get exciting I hear: Timed Race! Great! At this point I contemplate washing the dishes to fight off the "lock step" boredom.

Whoa! RHR and Will Power are, you know, ACTUALLY racing. Can a pass happen? NOPE! Power tries the old Andretti family "stick the front wing endplate into the rear tire of the car in front of me" trick and fails miserably. To be fair, it looks like RHR slammed the door without looking. Note to Scott and Marty: CMA1 -> Cover My @ss, plan 1 to use when The Iron Hand of Justice stops by. Power ducks in for a new front wing and we find out the broken wing was covering the radiator inlet, causing his car to hiss steam like an old Plymouth I used to own.

Briscoe is sent FAR away from Helio with his last pit stop. Helio does the in-and-out and Servia leads. Can he win it? NOPE! Servia ducks in for fuel and tires.

At this point, I must ask: AJ Foyt IV in eighth? Quattro in the top 10 on a street course?!?

Dixon fights with Servia and then his teammate Choppers torpedoes the tire barrier! At the same time Mario Moraes suffers brain fade and hits the run off.

With our restart, Wilson is all over Helio, then Helio throws the Chop-Block-O-Rama he learned from Briscoe at the last race. Suddenly Race Control calls blocking on The Dancing King, and tells him to let Wilson past. What the???? I was watching an auto race and suddenly I'm watching a remake of the old Spencer Tracy film, Inherit the Win.

At this point I do get up off the comfy couch and start washing dishes. Justin wins and becomes the tallest Indy Car driver to win an IRL race. To celebrate he kills the car trying to do a donut. Note to Justin: c'mon by my house, say round about December - January after it's just snowed and I'll take you out in my pick-em-up and teach you how to do a proper donut, m'lad.

Jack tries to interview Helio, but Helio gamely fights off hs anger and walks away. Interview with the winner, and then with Dixon. I have to agree with Dixon: Just WHERE can you pass cleanly around here?

So now it's off to MY HOUSE and MY RACETRACK, Chicagoland. Scott is 30 "markers" ahead of Helio. I will be reporting from on site and meeting the fabled "Pressdog" from Pressdog.com.

Oh, and Maria says be careful what SHE wishes for, since a "CART" guy won this race, and that's what she wanted for this week. ;^)

P.S. Good luck to all the folks in the path of Hurricane Gustov. Hopefully it'll miss New Orleans and Mississippi.

1 comments

  1. John in Speedway // September 01, 2008 9:34 PM  

    I am really looking forward to coming up to Joliet from Indy. We were originally going to go up with the Downforce crew, but my buddy volunteered to drive. My thoughts and prayers are with all the hurricane victims, but I hope that these storms don't migrate up to the midwest. I'm looking forward to a great race in which Dixon somehow finishes outside the top 10 and Helio pulls the car into victory lane for the Championsip.

    But anyways, I just hope for a lovely weekend and a safe trip from Indy up to Joliet for another hi-speed exciting oval race that is the staple of the IndyCar Series. I am a proponent of no less than 50% ovals on all schedules moving forward. Make it happen.