As one of my friends in racing so accurately suggested to me when she said, “Go to bed lad!!”, I’ll keep these thoughts brief. It has been since 4:30 a.m. EST that I woke up for an 8:45 a.m. flight, and it’s now 8:30 p.m. PST — yeah, you do the math.
Baltimore has mega potential. Sure, there were the inevitable first year kinks—the track wasn’t done on time, the access points for photographers and fans were limited, and there were points of the track that could have been better. But I’ve never experienced a vibe and ambiance at a U.S. race quite like it, especially for a first year event. The Long Beach comparison is not a stretch.
There were really only three major complaints I’d offer. One was rather minor in comparison to the two that happened on Sunday—the in-house timing & scoring for the ALMS race was wrong throughout and I’m pretty sure that’s what the fans saw. It seemed embarrassing but all things considered, a fairly minor flaw compared to what happened on Sunday.
When the IndyCar “morning warm-up from hell” took place, some corner workers were right in the line of fire when the Tony Kanaan/Helio Castroneves accident occurred. Had Kanaan not gone airborne, chances are the corner workers could have been seriously hurt or worse.
Worse still was when a Holmatro safety truck was running at full speed in the opposite direction, on a HOT track, right as the IndyCar race started. The YouTube videos of both situations say it all, really.
A sampling of photos is below. Although at times exhausting and frustrating, the overall take-out from this weekend is that this thing could really catch on as an annual event. If it doesn’t, I’m glad as hell I got the chance to experience this one.
Out for now, cheers.
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