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msnbc.com News— We were reminded again Sunday of what a marvelous event the Indy 500 is. From Jim Nabors’ syrupy dreams of moonlight on the Wabash to milk dribbling down the chin of the winner, it’s a wonderful, sun-splashed afternoon of color, pageantry, sounds and smells you can’t get anywhere else.
It is the only auto race any casual sports fan is required to watch or pay attention to. NASCAR rules racing, but if you’re not a NASCAR fan, you don’t have to watch any of its races, not even Daytona. The Indy 500, on the other hand, is one of those events that transcends sports. Whether you call it an American institution or a cultural cliché, it’s part of the landscape.
In that, the 500 is a lot like the Kentucky Derby, the showcase event of an ancient and once enormously popular sport that runs on horsepower and is at the top of the list of critically endangered species. What pandas are to animals, the Derby and the 500 are to sports. Like the panda, they shouldn't be allowed to die.
Like horse racing, open-wheeled racing was once enormously popular, and drivers like A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti were as famous as jockeys Willie Shoemaker and Eddie Arcaro.
It’s not like that anymore. Both sports are gasping and wheezing like an asthmatic marathoner on a high pollen day.
But Sunday wasn’t a time to think about such things. Sunday was a day to remind ourselves what wonderful theater and grand spectacle Indy car racing can be.
You couldn’t do a lot better than this year’s edition. Mark Wahlberg rode with Mario Andretti in a car during the pace laps. An ESPN personality drove another pace car. In fact, there were six pace cars this year, which, I believe is a record.
Jack Nicholson sent the field off with the green flag and he seemed to be having the time of his life, grinning like the Joker as he waved the flag. Or maybe he was just high on the ethanol fumes.
In any event, the racing was everything you’d expect. There was a wreck within the first five laps, a spectacular, parts-flying-everywhere-spinning-airborne crash on the race’s last lap, and plenty of cautions in between. And nobody got hurt.
There were also plenty of pit road follies, including one driver who left the gas station with part of the hose still stuck in his tank, and two who had wheels fall off on their way out of the pits.
There were bold moves, risky strategies and, finally, a famous and beautiful woman in the winner’s circle.
The woman was Ashley Judd, but she didn’t drive in the race. Her husband did, a Scottish fellow with an Italian name — Dario Franchitti. It was Franchitti’s second win, but he’s still better known as Ashley Judd’s husband than he is as a race driver. Such is the state of Indy car racing.
There were plenty of women in the race. Thirty-three years after Janet Guthrie became the first to prove that a woman could drive 500 miles without having to stop to go to the bathroom — or ask for directions — it’s no longer news that women drive race cars. Four were in this year’s race, led by famous product endorser Danica Patrick.
Six years ago, I’d have written this entire column about Patrick and the fact that there were four women in a 33-car race. But that’s no longer news. We’ve finally reached the point where a woman would have to win, or at least finish second in a thrilling duel, in order for that to merit a story.
One assumes that the year will come when a woman will get the right car and the right conditions on race day to win. They certainly have the talent. Even the most chauvinistic male drivers admit that.
But the brickyard is always unpredictable. Everything ran perfectly for Franchitti and his team made all the right moves. He didn’t have to do anything spectacular at the end because his car was simply the best on the track.
Someday, that will happen to Patrick or one of the other rising female stars. If that woman then starts winning regularly in other Indy car races, the sport could become something we watch more than just once a year.
In the meantime, once is great.
And enough.
