Pole Day: Speed Matters

It was a great qualification weekend at IMS for the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500.  A few thoughts looking back.

Overall, the new qualifying format was fairly well received.  The drivers said they like it, fans seem as pleased, and ABC got decent ratings numbers for both Saturday and Sunday.   ABC is finally doing the right thing by showing live qualifying.  The product produced by ABC is another conversation, but having Dario in the booth was FANTASTIC.  His ability to explain the minute details of what’s going on in the car is fascinating. 

Ed Carpenter did another great job qualifying.  It's cool to see a local guy up front, and the crowd was loving it on Sunday.  ECR has become quite the little team over the last couple of years.  With the combination of Ed and Mike Conway, they can win any race.  

It was also great to see Hinch up front as well.  It's hard to imagine he only ran a handful of practice laps before having to qualify.  A good finish to a pretty up and down week.

Personally I’m not sold on the new qualifying format, but it’s a function of only have 33 cars vying for the 33 starting spots.  I would like to see the “fast 9” given another couple of runs, would could create some drama with cars being withdrawn and such.  I also was not a fan of the on track action ending at 3:00 on Sunday.  I feel like fans at the track got shorted a couple hours of cars running on track.

A would like to preference this next part with a little background information on my personal experience with the 500.  I have watched the 500 for as long as I can remember.  It was like Super Bowl Sunday in my house growing up.  However, the first race I attended was in 1999 long after the split and the downturn it caused.  I’m not trying to get political, but I missed the glory days of the 500 in person.

With that said, this past Sunday Pole Day was the most exciting non race day I’ve experienced.  It was probably the biggest qualifying crowd I’ve seen since I’ve started attending.  At the end of the day, the crowd stood on their feet and cheered for Ed Carpenter’s pole run.  People were excited, and this is something I’ve never seen at a qualifying day before.  

My final thought on qualifying is this;  SPEED MATTERS!  When the first lap of 230+ was turned in the first group of qualifying, people cheered.  When the JPM rattled off the first 231+ lap, the crowd went crazy!  People are excited that the speeds are improving, and I think this is the reason behind the good crowd at the track, and the good TV numbers.  IndyCar needs to continue with their goal of increasing the speeds and breaking the track record.  There may never be 300,000 people in the stands for Pole Day again, but I guarantee interest will increase. 

A few shots from Sunday...