2025 Indianapolis 500

I've been watching American open wheel racing since they had Johnny Lightning cars in the 60's. There's something magical about the Indy 500.

 

Tied up in your basement?

 

There have been some really cool historical compilation videos posted on YouTube. It used to be so magical. I’ve lived within spitting distance of IMS for most of my life. I loved going there. Now with the spec cars, lack of big personalities, no real competition to get in the field and silly looking cars. For me the magic is gone.

 

I would also say the magic is gone from pro motorcycle road racing in the USA. However, my wife and I have been to a bunch of MotoAmerica races in the last couple of years and we’ve had a blast. I think I’m a finicky fan!

 

https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/...ng-scandal-devastating-roger-penske/10724537/

 

That's @motion.

 

Yep. It's his 25th Indy 500 as a spotter.

 

That is so cool, congratulations to him! Welp, I know who I’m rooting for…

 

My dad was a big USAC fan in the 50’s so I just naturally grew into liking Indy and Champ cars, both dirt and asphalt. Obviously I’ve been a long term fan of guys like Foyt and Parnelli, Mario, the Unser brothers and right up through all the current stars, including Palou, who seems to be the current standout talent on road courses. I have been a fan a long time, so long I vividly remember listening on the radio as a little youngster to Billy Vucovich’s fatal crash in 1955–he was a local hero from my hometown, and like most local race fans my dad was a big fan. Vukey was one of the greats—he won two years running in ‘53 and ‘54, dropped out of the race while leading in ‘52, and died in a crash while leading in ‘55. Indy cars were huge in the 80’s/early 90’s then took a big self- inflicted nosedive in the 90’s and it’s nice to see the series finally coming back to be so big again. And very nice that IndyCar has integrity and has been left free to punish Penske team cars for their violations. Looking forward to the race.

 

Regarding the Penske cheat, I am 100% convinced that at least one of the other teams had been sitting on this information for months and waited until the ideal opportunity to tip off the tech team.

It's just too convenient. There's video of the inspection on Youtube, the head of tech inspection takes less than a minute to notice the issue after more than a year of missing it?

Like, there's pictures of the Penske cars running with the modification last year and the 2024 winner, currently in the museum at the speedway, is sitting here with the modification on it. So we know for fact that they missed it a lot.

Add the fact that it was found when the back-to-back 500 winner is in tech and not one of his teammates, I'm only further convinced that someone very carefully timed pulling the pin on this grenade. You could try to do it next weekend but I don't think Indycar has the stones to disqualify a 500 winner. With the current cars it takes some real luck to go 30th+ to the front of the grid, even with 500 miles of racing. Chip Ganassi or Mclaren would benefit massively from moving 2 Penskes to the rear of the field.

While the details of this whole affair are embarrassing (IE Doug Boles said they don't have the rule book at tech inspection. What???), this controversy is probably the most relevant Indycar has been in years.

 

Captain Roger owns the speedway. He can do what he wants.

 

I live in Indianapolis and I haven’t heard a single person talk about anything to do with the speedway this year.

 

Look! A squirrel!

 

BOOM! Penske sacks the President, MD, and GM.

But dammit boys we're still going racing this weekend!

 

Also racing, lol.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a64830104/oscar-mayer-wienermobiles-indy-500-race/

 

Can Indycar strip last year's win from the team? Marshall Pruett, god bless him, went straight to the museum after the car was dq'd and has been posting photos of the winning car, cheater part included.

 

They're all cheating, Penske just got caught.

 

I would suppose they could but that opens up a pretty big can of worms. When you start getting into retroactive purses, that's a pretty nasty debacle.

Cheating is always interesting. It's a witch hunt until those pointing the finger come into question. Then it's mums the word.