Editor’s note – The man known only as Wrenchski provided this from the Barcalounger and love seat roundup of the 94th running of the Indianapolis 500 in exchange for one mint condition still-in-plastic California Masons Erase Drugs pencil eraser.
The lascivious Mrs. Brady does the national anthem justice online as Jewel does it for the TV audience. WTF? At least it didn’t get hip-hopped. We all wait for Gomer Pyle to bring us back to Indiana. The more things change the more they stay the same. Who let Musburger in here? Somebody besides me knows something as one of the live driver camera feeds is Tony Kanaan, and he starts dead last. Shouldn’t use that word. Mary starts the engines. Wonder if Robin Roberts driving the pace car will make Lone Star JR wet his pants a little. Jack Nicholson in the flag stand. Can he handle the truth? Green and Helio checks out as Davey Hamilton crashes his Indy dreams and those of the supermod set. We’ll restart. Five laps later and Tony Kinnan is up to 24th. 23rd. 21st. Stop showing the the whiner and show Kanaan! 19th.
Crash for Bruno, and Sarah’s team is down another car. Tony Kanaan has sliced through half the field. Two yellows have re-bunched the pack so the leaders don’t get away. SCREW the track feed, I’m switching to the Tony Kanaan in car. More TV about the Whiner. Is no one on the TV team watching the scoring sheets? From 33rd to 17th in 11 laps? E.J. Viso finds the only way to pass an Andretti is in the grass. Kanaan to 16th behind another Andretti – Marco, who won’t even let you pass gas no less give up a position. Marco passes Justin Wilson and leaves him in the Kanaan crosshairs. Will Power brings out a caution in the middle of pit stops by leaving with the half the fuel nozzle still in the car Grandma at the Stop ‘n Save. Whoever told Power to go will be WORKING at Stop ‘n Save after Penske gets done with him.
Kanaan somehow shuffles up to 13th. 12th as he eats Justin Wilson’s lunch. Meanwhile, Helio is cruising around in the top 3 like Kareem letting the fourth graders score on media day, and appears somehow to know he’s gonna win the last lap. Dario must feel like he’s got Freddy Krueger in the rear view mirrors. John Andretti parks his window world in the wall. Kanaan will get that much closer to the leaders. Pit stops. Me too. Next article. INDY 500 SHRINKS THE PROSTATE JUST LIKE ON TV. Matos has his checked as a tire falls off leaving his pit. Dixon ditto, as the wheels are falling off left, right and center. Race control puts Kanaan in FOURTH PLACE. Robin Roberts can see him in the pace car rear view. Ed Carpenter shows Kanaan the rear of the car on the restart, and Matos backs into the wall like his living room foreclosed on him. We go green. Something about this black flag for blocking crapola makes me wonder if this is Indy, or a Quarter Midget race.
Halfway and its Dario, Helio, Ryan and Ed in between Kanaan and the first potential win from the 33rd starting position. Waitaminnut. Rahal needs to go down a lap why? he seems to be holding Dario off and staying on the lead lap and they want him to move over at halfway. Race, dammit!
About a five second gap between 3rd and 4th. Carpenter and Tony Kanaan can’t keep up with the Penske and Ganassi juggernauts. Vitor slides up into the wall and brings out the yellow. Rahal makes it into the pits before the yellow, Carpenter does not. No wheels fall off this time around. Ed will need two pit stops to make one and Tony Kanaan moves into fourth by default. His pit crew speedily moves him into third. Cinderella, please pick up the black and white courtesy phone. Tony Kanaan blisters the restart. Third. SECOND. 15 laps past 1/2 way. No one has ever won from the last place starting position and he now has the TV teams undivided attention like a case of crotch crickets. Kanaan is seconds behind Dario, who seems to be able to pull away at will. Dammit.
Last round of pit stops start green flag lap 141 of 200. Tony Kanaan is back in second by almost 10 seconds. Nailing the pit stop could make the race. 8.8 seconds in the pits. Out 13th before the rest of the field pits. Helio stalls it and maybe takes himself out of the running. Will power has to be rolled back. 15 seconds later rolls out. Briscoe in a ten second stop. Kannan looks golden. Shakes out third behind Dario and Marco Andretti, who has used his push to pass button like a princess with a credit card at Neiman Marcus. Soon he’ll be paying the default interest rate. Brisk tries to make two solid objects occupy the same space. The wall wins. Watching Penske cars wreck is satisfying on the level of watching Wall Street day traders jumping out of high rise windows. You know it’s wrong. But.
Dario…Marco…Kanaan…Corn
49 laps to go so. At this point, I either get to see a movie star bride, An Andretti, or history made in the winners circle. If you don’t like this race, you should take up Bingo. Tony shows Marco why you don’t use up the push to pass as he passes him on the restart for second. Saavedra introduces his car to the wall in a severe fashion. 8th caution! Not a bad run for a 19 year old. 22 cars left. This could be an economy run as the fuel window is about 33 laps at race speed and we have 37 left. Dixon hits Hunter Rhey coming out of his pit space and Hunter’s front wheels point in two different directions. Conway, Wilson, Castroneves and Rahal do not pit. Dario, Marco, and Kannan come in leading. They come out 5th, 6th, and 7th. Kanaan passes Marco and uses Beatriz as a pick. Last place you wanna be is somewhere around Marco when the family curse race is on the line. Kanaan now holds the record for passing Marco without contact. 19 laps to go and the top three need to pit. Ethanol or Methanol?
Dario and Kanaan running 1-2, providing no yellow flags – like that never happens end of this race. With 11 laps to go Justin Wilson loses the lead in a pit stop for fuel. Helio leads Dario. Kanaan lurks in third. Helio pits with 8 to go, and flat spots the tires in a attempt to slow down. Dario leads Kanaan with both running lean to save fuel 7 laps to go. Ashley judd holds her breath. Kanaan needs fuel and takes himself out of the running. And now for a word from out Ethanol sponsor. Dario is Five seconds ahead of Dan Weldon. Mike Conway attempts to undercut Hunter Rhey and gets some frightening airborne airtime into the fence. Dario wins at yellow lap speed in the warmup lane. You win the Indy 500. Ashley Judd runs a half mile to greet you in the Winners Circle, and you’ve got a Scottish accent that puts Sean Connery’s Welsh to shame. Does it get any better that that?
If only Cinderella doesn’t run out of fuel.
Photos courtesy of Wrenchski, and from the Clunkbucket archives.
“Stop showing the the whiner and show Kanaan!” On the monitor in my living room, we toggled between the ABC broadcast and a stream of the KanaanCam. He was picking ’em off with the persistence and precision of a vegetarian who found bacon bits in the salad bowl.