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I have a somewhat offensive question. Let's say we set aside tradition and other historical considerations, and get to this race like another championship race. Is there anything special about the track that warrants so many testing sessions, and a rookie orientation session, and a convoluted qualification process? 5 full practice days and 3 qualy sessions, to setup your car for 4 different corners?

I like the build-up to the race just like any other guy, but sometimes it just feels more like folklore than a necessity. The speeds reached here don't seem enough of a reason, in comparison with a Fontana/Michigan CART weekend where drivers reached 250mph and the week-end just went by as normal, rookie or not. Same for the rest of the ovals who are just as tricky.

A long time ago* Indy used to be a kind of melting pot for all sorts of different cars with different aero profiles and different engines and different everything. So it seemed fair (and exciting) to let them all get as fast as they possibly could for qualifying. Ultimate speed was (and is) very important, from an engineering and a bravery viewpoint. Indy is also quite unique in how fast it is despite having shallow banking and a rectangular shape.

You could treat it as a standard race meeting but the tradition has been there for so long that it would go over like a fart in church if you tried.

*I think the last time an entrant came to Indy with a fully tricked-out package designed to push the boundaries was Penske and the Beast, which was over 20 years ago now.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Same can be said for F1 and NASCAR. They're all become more or less a spec series. Yeaa, we have different manufacturers but their engines are all the same. There's no V8, V10, V12 mix in F1 any more. Take the decals off NASCAR and they're al pretty much the same. And now the bodykit's in Indycar look set to be gone too.

I wish they could go back to how it was, but at what cost would that be?

good times when Jim Hall showed up at Indy with a ground effect car based in a F1 design that owned the field during that year

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Motorsports trend for 2024: everything is a bad taste joke now

Grace Autosport have said they can't enter this year's race due to a shortage of cars.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... y-500-shot

5 years into the DW12's life how can there not be enough cars available to the point where the only way potential new entrants can get one is to go to full time teams & enter partnerships to get one of there spares. For all the hype around the 100th running you would think they would have made sure we had more than 33 entrants to bring some drama & excitement back into qualifying/Bump day.

In the spec series era, as others have said, you're right it's not necessary. And CART proposing just that is one of the things that enraged dickhead George in the first place. (Even though at that point it was a proper MONTH of may and later on Tony himself ended up giving us what we have now, ie the 2 weeks of may)

However I'm sure Chevy and particularly Honda won't be too upset about all the track time to develop their engines.
And the rookies getting used to the track etc

Also as a fan, can't complain about daily action!

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Wow Ryan Hunter-reay fastest right now with a 228.2. I'm thinking a 233ish pole speed might be possible.

Codewords for "we didn't have the money."

If we take away all the tradition and history, no... Sort of. Even now, in this day of the spec cars, Indy is a very different animal compared to any other oval. Now, granted, so is Pocono, so is Gateway and Milwaulkee, etc. but at no other track that I can think of do 4 identically constructed corners act so differently. Does it justify the lengthy schedule? No and neither does Daytona but Speedweeks is still around long after the need for so many practice sessions has ended.

Through tradition, history, mystique and no small bit of exaggeration, Indy has become this thing that almost seems to have a life of it's own. Each May it seems like the track itself winds up playing a part in deciding who will win or lose in a nearly tangible sense. Like the track is a living thing that allows triumph or dishes out defeat at a whim. Back in the day, when 50+ teams would show up, all with something different, it took a month of practice to get a handle on all the possible weather combinations that can effect the car. Same for qualifying when you had so many cars you had to have multiple days to sort it out, giving everyone there the maximum time to take their shot at making the field for the greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Is all of that needed today? No. Has the grandeur of the event diminished because record speeds, record pole day crowds and 50+ car counts aiming for a chance at glory are gone? My opinion is yes, but only to an extent.

When raceday Sunday rolls around and the green hits the air with 33 Indycars steaming down the 5/8 mile front straight and into T1, for that briefest of moments until the race settles in, all seems right in the world.

If we didn't have all the qualifying and practice and pageantry and didn't spend all this time at the track, I don't know if that feeling would be the same or not.

Sponsorship announcement for Daly along with a hilarious press confrence
http://motorsports.nbcsports.com/2016/0 ... dom-wagon/

hard crash for Pigot, taking a few min to get himself out of the car.

"safety flaps did their job" wreck or not?

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ALPINE SKIING CRASHES SPREADSHEET

Looks like everything did what it was supposed to do. Similar impact angle to Helio's wreck last year. Basically hit flush with the left side.

All those sandbags did a good job keeping that on the ground.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

I had the stream on the background while doing stuff around the house and caught the crash live.

The crash started exactly like Carpenter, Newgarden, Castroneves did last year. Car should've been miles in the air but the flaps did seem to keep the rear firmly on the ground instead.

Wow, first time I get to see them repairing the SAFER barrier. Those foams pads weigh nothing.

Yeah, but placing them in their spot is another, harder thing

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ALPINE SKIING CRASHES SPREADSHEET

Much harder hit than Helio last year though.