With the 104th Running of the Indianapolis 500 finally in the books, it’s time to look back on a couple of the major talking points coming out of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Aside from Takuma Sato joining 19 other drivers as multiple-time winners of the great race, Race Control made its way back into the headlines with a pair of calls that have dominated the talking points over the past 72 hours.
It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to rules of auto racing and the Indianapolis 500. (Maybe more than “a bit.”) I prefer to let events on the track dictate the outcome of the race, and however it finishes, it finishes. That said, I’m willing to make concessions where necessary so long as said concessions not detrimental to the integrity of the event.
So leads into the discussion George Phillips (of Oilpressure.com) and I had regarding the two most controversial calls from Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 on this most recent episode of Two Sites Unite. While we are in lockstep agreement on one of the calls, we strongly disagreed on the other. Eventually, however, George resorts to an sophomoric tactic of admitting I was correct without actually admitting he was wrong, thus granting me the pleasure of knowing I had bested him.
We did our best to shorten this episode up a little bit from our previous excessively long-winded discussions, but it still comes in at a healthy 36 minutes. I think it was good banter, though, and hopefully you will feel it’s worth your time to give us a listen.
Please let us know what you think of our viewpoints in the comments below. As always, your support is so greatly appreciated.
The Field of 33 
The poll question on my site agrees with me; currently 61% to 39%. So there.
LikeLike
What’s popular is not always right. And what’s right is not always popular. 😆
A fairer option would have been “the call of the infraction was correct but the penalty too harsh.”
LikeLike
Great discussion as always, fellows.
Rossi’s penalty was justified even as the penalty was awful punitive. Something like a 5 position penalty would have been appropriate but I am sure that is neither something with precedent or with justification in the rulebook.
I won’t deny the driver intros being kind of awkward, but I think they are important. It is the one time in which the casual Indycar viewer gets to see every driver without their helmet on and (probably more importantly) gets to see the sponsors on their firesuits .
LikeLike