Moonlighting at the Silent Pagoda

Posted by Iannucci | 12/31/2008 | 4 comments »
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The year was 1981, and Mario Andretti was clearly in possession of one of the fastest cars for the upcoming Indianapolis 500. However, rain on the first two days of qualification and an obligation to race overseas rudely prevented Mario from putting his own car in the show, so Wally Dallenbach (yes, THAT Wally Dallenbach) had to come out of retirement and get the car qualified.

And as a result, Mario started in the back row from the 32nd position.

So on race day Mario had to reconcile not only how he had a spectacular car with a spectacular opportunity to win a this spectacular race but also that he had to start this annual quest sucking exhaust and avoiding the lesser drivers ahead. He had what it took to get to the front, but he had to make his way through a lot of traffic to get there.

This, dear reader, is exactly where The Silent Pagoda is right now.


IndyCar.com has done many things right over the years, but they’ve treated Silent Pagoda like some kind of backmarker of their site. Last year Roy Hobbson was denied the very basics of the medium – graphics, links, italics – but he still managed to diligently plod through the racing season despite having the site existing where it could only be found by some kind of magical “Easter Egg” combination of clicking and keystrokes.

Meanwhile the lovely but tone-deaf Lauren Bohlander gets a staff, a video camera and catered brunch from Square Donuts just to help her warble out the “12 Days of Christmas” on the front page. Talk about social injustice.

Well, Roy has had enough. He’s not only brought in the finest Eastern European HTML gnomes that beer money can buy, but he’s also managed to encourage others like myself to come aboard and help get this sleek and shiny set of zeroes and ones up to front where it belongs. Are we doing it for the money? Pffft, there’s no money to be made in IndyCars. Are we doing it for the fame? As if. Then what are we doing it for? Because, quite frankly, it needs to be done.

Henceforth I’ll not only be contributing to The Silent Pagoda under the banner of "The Velvet Terrace" but I’ll also be linking it on the sidebar, where hopefully you and tens of your friends will eagerly click, reading every post during every waking moment of your day. I’m just one small part of the equation, friends, but if we can save just one reader from accidentally clicking on yet another mind-numbing article about ethanol production it will be entirely worth the collective effort.

(Fear not, I’m still going to be here at My Name Is IRL. I haven’t spread myself so thin that I've kicked myself off my own site. Not yet, at least.)

4 comments

  1. Justin // December 31, 2008 11:50 AM  
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  2. Justin // December 31, 2008 11:53 AM  

    Oh shit thats the first time I've heard the Indycar.com 12 Days of Christmas.I think I could use Bohlander's singing to repel animals or possibly for my car alarm!!

  3. Unknown // December 31, 2008 4:06 PM  

    Jeff, I don't think it's fair to you to hold yourself to Bolanderesque standards. That's like comparing yourself to Van Gogh.

  4. Iannucci // December 31, 2008 4:09 PM  

    That depends - are we comparing as an artists or masochists?