Indy Round-Up

A busy weekend in motorsports – Juan Pablo Montoya is moving from Formula 1 to NASCAR, Dirtiest Driver Ever^TM Jeff Gordon stole a win in Chicago, and the Webber and I baked for two days in the bleachers at Toronto’s Molson Indy.

As a stock car fan, I think of open-wheel racing as follow-the-leader in wheeled kayaks, so I approached this event a little cynically. Unlike the chest-pounding roar of stock cars, you wince with the turbo-charged screams reverberating in your teeth and, like a one-way tennis match, your head snaps from left to right whenever the cars happen to pass by. More video screens and a leader board would make the race easier to follow, but the speeds are impressive and Toronto’s Paul Tracy satisfied everyone with his second-place finish in the two-lap shootout to the checkers.

The real spectacle, however, was off the track where plenty of skin, sunburn, and suds rendered us both delirious. There must be an agency that arranges for exotic women to hock goods and services because, from the instant you pass through the gate, barely-clad women descend, promoting everything from poker schools to pills that clean your engine (I think they were talking about cars, but forgive us for our distraction). As insufficient as the girls’ costumes may have been, the concessions offered plenty of excess with over-cooked Pogos and over-priced Coors on which we gorged.