TTAC Video of the Week: Holy IndyCar Crashes, Batman!
As I've stated on these pages before, I am a semi-casual racing fan. Meaning I watch NASCAR and IndyCar and F1 and IMSA here and there, I know most of the big-name drivers, and I understand the basic rules and such for each series, but I don't watch every race or know every driver. I do tend to watch more races this time of year since baseball hasn't yet revved up (oddly matched pun fully intended).
So I plunked myself on the couch Sunday to watch the IndyCar season opener and I was rewarded with not one, but two crashes that involved flying cars. Thankfully, as far as I can tell, no one was hurt. Oh, also -- there was a late-race incident in which the race leader and the second-place runner took each other out.
It all started with this incident right after the start. Devlin DeFrancesco was hit hard and sent airborne by Benjamin Pedersen but was OK.
Here's another look, from Conor Daly's perspective. And another view.
Later in the race, Kyle Kirkwood drove right over Rinus Veekay and Jack Harvey after those two got together. Harvey was taken to the hospital for observation, checked out, and released.
Finally, this incident cost Roman Grosjean and Scott McLaughlin their shots at victory.
The Race has a fuller account. But if you just want to see flying cars, click the links above.
[Image: IndyCar]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
More by Tim Healey
Comments
Join the conversation
IMSA then F1 then Indy. Never watch NASCARP
I was at the race. While I LOVE open wheel, both Indy and F1, these street courses need to be removed from the calendar (as much as that pains me to say). The cars are too fast and too big (both wide and long), there is no place to pass, just one inch off course and your car is wrecked. In particular - and this was mentioned by the announcers (Indycar radio, not national TV) - the tire walls were stacked too deep further narrowing the track. Also for reasons unknown they didn't send out the sweepers to clear the marbles so once off the racing line it was like ice. The Indy NTX race (previously Indy Lights, the Junior series) had similar no-where-to-go type crashes with multiple yellow flags leading to everyone's frustration.
I refuse to watch CRASHCAR because making all the cars equal means that drafting is the only way forward. So its a follow the leader high speed parade with the big one with 5 laps to go at every single track. Indycar's two tire compound and push-to-pass along with fuel savings mixes up the field with cars that will be faster or slower at different laps which leads to more naturally passing opportunities.