The Indy 500

I just got back from the Indy 500...my first car racing experience. Now, to be honest, I am not a car racing kind-of-guy. My wife and I were offered tickets, we decided a mini trip from Chicago to check it out with some friends would be fun. It was an experience....

First off, it is the biggest melting pot (of White People) of an event that I have ever seen. There were 500,000 people there. I have been to some big events...but this was ridiculous. The make-up of the crowd was about 30% CWSMP (Crazy White Sunburned Mullet People), 30% CFP (Confederate Flag People), 15% ultra rich, and 25% middle of the road people. I have never seen such a mix before...that seemed to exclude just about every "minority". I saw three African Americans...one of which was a Security Dude. I saw no Hispanics. I think I saw a small group of Japanese...but they were hanging with the Ultra Rich. So thinking about this...I don't know whether or not race car driving is an extremely racist sport, or if the sport just doesn't appeal to may people outside of the CWSMP's or CFP's.

My take is this. The event itself was cool. You do a lot of drinking and talking with whoever you go with...mainly because the cars are going 200 plus miles per hour and you are only seeing a tiny portion of the track (picture going to a hockey game and only being able to see the neutral zone). The fact that the car's use ethanol fuel is a plus...because wasting all that gas would be a dumb thing to do. But for people who are "car" people...you are basically watching people go around in circles at speeds that you can't even tell who is who. It also creates a noise that gets sort of nauseating after about 100 laps. The race itself is so dangerous, that some of the drivers don't even finish and racing has to stop about 800 times due to accidents or debris on the track ( for people who hate tv time-outs in basketball this sport isn't for you).

Overall I think the CWSMP's and the CFP's just like it because they are able to get really drunk and don't have to worry about sounding stupid because the noise from the cars basically wipes out any comprehension of what people are saying.

So my overall take is that it is a fun thing to do...once or twice, for the "experience of the day". If you are one of these race fans...you probably hate this blog...but I guess I just don't see the draw (unless a really bad sunburn is plus).


Other then that...Indy is a nice city. It is smaller then I expected and the farms literally go up into the suburbs.

That's all for blog #2...