Goodyear Stinks and other Indy Observations

The only functioning Goodyear product at the 2008 Brickyard 400:

Pre-race drive by:

How exciting the race was:

Thank you, Goodyear, for ruining my trip to the Indianapolis Speedway for the Brickyard 400. 160 laps of misery, well, technically 140 laps because at that point we gave up and left. We spent a lot of money in Indianapolis between our hotel and miscellaneous expenditures for the race and came back with nothing but a sunburn and a good deal of post-race disappointment.

Wait, the cars are actually moving... at 70 MPH under caution. On the right, our typical view of the track.

For those of you who don't pay attention to NASCAR, let me briefly explain. The cars should go around the track at 175 MPH, only stopping when there is a wreck or if a car needs to pit for fuel, tires, or adjustments. At the Brickyard on Sunday, NASCAR stopped the race six times so that ALL cars could get new tires, because the GOODYEAR tires would wear out after ten laps.

I blame GOODYEAR for this, because the proof was all over me. Literally. I felt like I was back at the plant after a shift working as summer help. You could literally scrape the black rubber debris off of your skin throughout the race. (This would be expected at my short-track enduros, but not so much at a 2 1/2 mile track from 15 rows up, where the cars going by only hit full speed an average of eight laps before the next inevitable caution.)

There were so many cautions (mandatory stops by NASCAR as well as incidents caused by faulty tires,) that the race couldn't keep our interest, and on top of that, we were hot and tired. So we went out behind the stands to take a little nap. Ken slept well, and I had some fries while I watched multiple ambulances pull up within 20 minutes of each other to assist fans with dehydration and heat exhaustion (and boredom issues, I'm sure.)

Ken sleeping (and protecting our stuff,) and ambulance #2.

There were three cautions during our little break, and that's when I tried to convince Ken that we should hit the road. He talked me into going back to our seats for one more attempt at watching a race, but they called another caution before we even made it to our seats. Once the race went back to green we found our seats and settled in. Sure enough, a couple of laps went by and the yellow light went on; caution again. We were done. Bye-bye Indianapolis!

The good news: people in Indiana are really nice (even the inebriated ones,) our hotel was nice and comfortable (I hope so for $200/night,) and Ken and I got some couple-time. It wasn't all a loss!