What does a driver do on the Sunday of a Memorial Day weekend?
If he’s not in one of the two Big Ones, he’s generally watching one or both – being darn happy he’s not there after Brit Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay do the “Mess Around” dance and one of ‘em get launched. “I had nowhere to go,” Hunter-Reay said afterward.
Conway did. Up, up away and over. And while Conway was looking at the track (assuming he had his eyes open) his tub was being grated by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway catch fencing. Meanwhile – ABC TV viewers having had only a cursory look at the launch and its aftermath – Ms. Franchitti was running up pit road trying to catch her husband, Dario Franchitti, who’d just one the race.
When ABC returned to Conway’s car and his being attended by numerous personnel, ABC switched back to Mrs. Franchitti for a special bulletin: “She’s shed her footwear, Jim, presumably to make her sprint even quicker,” came the word from the pits. “She’s doing a great job,” (or some similar baloney came back from the broadcast booth. Gosh, do you reckon local affiliates when into “stupid” mode, too?)
Ms. Judd is a stunning woman. I happened to be lucky enough to be hanging out with EFR a couple of years ago when Dario, Marino and aforementioned knockout conversed with us for awhile and not only is she downright nice, she’s smart, too. Why she married Dario: “An Italian possessing a Scottish brogue.”
But I digress.
Neither the IRL’s Indy 500 nor NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600 would occupy Alex Gurney’s time until he got “in a run.” Not a “jog,” mind you. None of that wimpy, feel good stuff that gets one thinking something’s been accomplished. Still, Alex didn’t sound like he was too terribly happy to be in the neighborhood so we didn’t exactly discuss race favorites.
Though Alex didn’t express such, his “head” might well have been the same as a few other heads up this way for the two days of racing, with races split over a four-day period during which only three involve race cars being raced on Lime Rock’s 2.45-mile near oval.
Meanwhile, 90-minutes away in the nearest real hotel room (the ones which usually stock all the things we traveling folks fail to bring with us; better yet, those things we take home, especially $25 bottles of cognac. Around here, they start at $50 – even then such being considered something akin to bock beer. “Are you really sure you wouldn’t rather have this $500 bottle?” The counter guy seemed absolutely mortified that someone would, gasp, actually drink the cheaper version.
Speaking of cognac, there must be more registered Volvos in this state than in Sweden. Subaru’s – especially Outbacks - too. (And, yes, Mark, I know they’re a Japanese product).(Aren’t they?).
Motor Racing Network’s Eli Gold and Preston Root chilled while taking in the 1100 from the Double Tree lobby. The lap times at Indy and Charlotte (have they stopped calling it Lowe’s Home Improvement Speedway, yet?) gave Root and Gold some excellent practice for calling Monday’s LRP race, which’ll be posting mid-40’s. Yes, yes, I can hear the self-professed “real” sporty car types’ snide remarks but the operative difference Monday at Lime rock is that there will be a bunch of cars which will have a chance. Maybe even the entire field. Where is it written that a Daytona Prototype absolutely, positively must defeat a Grand Touring car? Simply stated: must a lesser-class car lose to a “primo” class; like the time the Porsche LMP2 beat an Audi LMP1? Or Bob Garretson’s GTO trounced the IMSA BIG DOG field at Sebring in the early 1980’’s.
And, speaking of this whole lesser is better thing, how about those DTMs?
Seen like never before except at the “Big Brother” races, the NASCAR media and public relations folks are in Lime Rock, some already apparently wondering what all this sporty car stuff is about. They’ll get it, I’m sure, and then light some sort of special fuse but, in the meantime, it’s interesting to watch fish out of water.
So, too, in Lime Rock are race-attendance numbers never before seen at the facility. Skip’s place has expanded the camping areas into places they’ve never gone before. A record crowd being on hand already was apparent Friday afternoon and the LRP personnel have been shoehorning them in ever since.
The happiness evoked over those crowds might be tempered somewhat by the LRP throng’s longstanding love relationship with the internal combustion engine, domestic or foreign, because one is just as likely to see an Alfa Romeo dealership/shop as a Ford sales floor. IT’s kinda like that Long Beach Race where the show is the event. Not the race. The only difference herein, though, is the race is the show.
The Alfa shop I regularly pass while undertaking my journey to the track is assuredly of old stock; probably a former horeless carriage shop and a buggy carriage shop before that.
But, it’s a hoot to see countless Volvos tailgate whoever’s in front of them. Does everyone on earth except physicists think physics doesn’t apply to everything?
I suppose if one is to choose between jogging and, say, pigging out at Mickey D’s (for achieving the ends of which the No. 77 McDonald’s Doran-Dallara-Ford reportedly has plenty of coupons, so many so that Memo Gidley gave up on his all-veg lifestyle because it was the only way he could buy food.)
Oh, and Jonathan Bomarito was enthralled in the race, watching a large flat-screen TV under the Grand-Am Tech tent, wherein teams got a buy one (tech inspection) and get one free(watch the 500 while being teched.)
A high-falootin factory driver with Mazda, Bomarito said he’s having as much fun, probably more fun than ever before in life after hooking up full time with SpeedSource. After he watched Mike Conway do his thing at Indy just laps before Dario Franchitti cried like a baby, Bomarito said, “Yeah, I’d do it again.
It’s gonna be a humdinger, the Lime Rock race Monday at 2 p.m. on Speed and XM Satellite.
Be sure to tune in. Even Chip said he’d be in.
(This was just as safe and bland as I could make it.)
Later,
DC
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