By Daniel Dessinger

June 26, 2008

A few weeks ago I went to the Bombardier LearJet Indy Car 550 Race at Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth.  Yes, I know; I’m an oddity.  How can the same girl who blogs about movies like 27 Dresses and Sex And The City even stand to get within 20 feet of such an edifice?  Well, not only did I go…I freakin’ loved it!!

Prior to February 17, 2008, I’d watched one racing event in my life, the Talladega 500 in 1993, and the only reason I watched that was because it was the tribute after Davey Allison’s helicopter crashed on the way to the race.  I was only 12, so I can’t really tell you why we watched it, but I know that my dad and I sat there and watched the whole thing.

So when I started dating a guy in February who loved racing, I thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s a nice, relaxing way to spend Sunday afternoons.  And I have always liked cars and been interested in them.  So why not?”  I never in a million years expected to program my DVR to tape the races, and then to text said boyfriend in a rage over the injustice of Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., colliding with only a few laps to go, thereby, dashing “Junior’s” hopes of breaking his losing streak.  I almost didn’t recognize myself.

And it didn’t stop at NASCAR.  I was also introduced to Formula 1 Racing and, as you might have gathered from the opening paragraph, Indy Car Racing.  Much to my chagrin, Formula 1 and Indy Car don’t run every weekend like NASCAR does, and I much prefer open wheel racing, especially Formula 1, to stock car racing.

Formula 1 is so exciting.  That’s the kind where they run on mostly road courses, and the cars are a lot faster and a lot lighter, which inherently makes them more dangerous, but man, it’s cool to watch them fly around corners at speeds well over 150 mph and deftly maneuver around chicanes.  

What’s a chicane (pronounced shi with a short i and cane like sugar cane), you might ask?  It’s simply an S-shaped curve, but it’s so much more than that when the amazingly talented cameramen and women catch Oscar-award winning shots of Felipe Massa or Robert Kubica or Kimi Raikkonen or Lewis Hamilton (the top 4 ranking drivers in the current F1 standings) snaking through the curves before they hurtle their Ferrari (Massa and Raikkonen), BMW Sauber (Kubica) or McLaren Mercedes (Hamilton) down a straightaway.  Honestly, the camera work is part of what makes the races so amazing.  

Most Americans are not as familiar with F1 racing as the other two forms of racing because it’s largely a European sport.  In fact, this year, the only North American race was held in Canada on June 8.  The other races are held in such exotic locales as Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, Monte Carlo, Budapest and Japan.  Not exactly Bristol (Tennessee) on a Sunday afternoon.

Before the race at TMS on Saturday, June 7, Indy Car was actually my least favorite.  I mean, I was already watching NASCAR where all they do is drive around and around in circles for 3 or 4 hours, and F1 was way cooler than that with the road courses.  Why did I need to watch Indy Car?  In my mind, it was exactly like Formula 1, but nowhere near as cool.  But there isn’t another NASCAR race at TMS until November, and as I’ve already mentioned, I wasn’t going to be able to make it to an F1 race unless I suddenly came into an inheritance that would allow me to travel halfway across the world, so I thought, “What the heck?  It’s something fun to do on a Saturday night.”

Oh my gosh!!  It was so much more than “something fun to do on a Saturday night.”  Unfortunately, we didn’t get there in time for the green flag (the start of the race), so when we parked in the grass parking lot (translated: we still had a long way to walk), I could already hear the hum of the engines as they raced around at 211 mph.  Needless to say, I was a little grumpy.  If you’ve read any of my movie blogs, you know I like to completely experience things, and in my eyes, I’d already missed a large part of the experience.

When we finally got to our seats, 63 rows up while carrying a heavy cooler, and turned around and I finally experienced my first drive by, I was speechless.  Tears automatically welled in my eyes.  There are no words that can describe what happens as the cars blur by you, and you’re literally encompassed in a wave of sound.  And that was 63 rows up.  I can’t imagine how much more intense the experience would be close to the track.  

As the race went on and Marco Andretti, the 21 year-old phenom with the blood line that includes the skill and prowess of Mario and Michael Andretti, continually tried to go 3-wide to pass current points leader and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner, Scott Dixon, and 2-time Indianapolis 500 winner (2001, 2002) Helio Castroneves (yes, he’s the one who was on Dancing With The Stars), the excitement continued to rise with Marco’s RPMs.  

Unfortunately, the checker flag (end of the race) wasn’t as exciting as it could have been.  There was a caution with only five laps to go, so Scott Dixon crossed the finish line as the winner during the caution at a mere 50 mph; anticlimactic to say the least, given that an end without caution could have seen speeds at or around 215 mph at the finish line.  In fact, the winner of the last 6 or so Indy Car races at TMS has edged out the runner-up by only hundredths or sometimes thousandths of a second.

I realize that some of you may be sitting there thinking, “I don’t care how good you make it sound, they’re still just driving around and around in circles for 550 miles.  There’s no way I’d ever waste 2 or 3 hours watching that.”  I once felt the same as you, but when you get to know about the drivers and the cars and all the work and tedium that go into all this every week, it changes your perspective.  I somehow feel smarter knowing what I know about the cars and the conditions now.  It may not be for everyone, but I know that racing is something that will become an integral part of my entertainment list.  Right alongside Grey’s Anatomy and Pride & Prejudice.

© 2008 – 2010, Daniel Dessinger. All rights reserved.

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