I know a lot of you may not watch auto racing. Hell, I don't watch auto racing. But my step-father is a NASCAR and IRL fan so since I was a youngin' I always knew who the popular racers were and I've sat through (of caught a part of) alot of Daytona 500 races and Indy 500 races. In fact, we even visited Daytona Speedway once while on vacation in Florida. Also, my grandfather is a racing fan and he used to tell me about Cale Yarborough (sp?), Richard Petty, and Dale Earnhardt way back in the day when I was in elementary school.
But that's just a little background for the real subject of my post. I watched the last 20 or so laps of the Indy 500 today and I have to say that this was hands-down the most excited thing I saw on television all weekend. Probably the most excitement since the Cavaliers/Wizards series. My favorite driver is probably Helio Castroneves just because he likes to climb the fence after he wins and I think that's kind of original and cool. But today, Helio must have crashed and was out early. So my next driver to root for was Danica Patrick. Yeah, I know some of you are probably tired of hearing the name or about her, but I figure it'd be historic if she won and why not make history today. But she was too far back to really challenge at the end of the race.
So here's how it went down...
Marco Andretti, a 19-year old rookie on the IRL circuit and son of Michael Andretti and grand-son of Mario Andretti (both Indy racing legends), almost won this race. He had the lead through 3 turns on the final lap and was passed by Sam Hornish, Jr. and lost by about a half-second.
The last two laps of this race were probably the most exciting laps of racing I've seen in quite some time. The announcers do a wonderific job of commentating and the commentary combined with shots of Mario Andretti in the pits was really really good and really engaged you for the last few laps. I felt bad for Marco because it definitely looked like he had the win in the bag. I wish I had some footage to show you just how close it was. Overall though, very exciting race. I was pleasantly surprised. Just thought I'd share that.
2 comments:
Glad to see I wasn't the only one I know who watched the race.
Nah. It was a great race though. Very very entertaining.
Post a Comment