Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan enter Turn 3 during the Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix at Phoenix International Raceway. [Photo by: Chris Owens]
by Allan Brewer
There are times when travel-time and expense preclude this reporter from being on-scene at an IndyCar race, and that is the case for the race at Phoenix International Raceway won by Scott Dixon. Fortunately, Amazon Warehouse Deals stepped forward to put a Sony XBR 830 4K TV in my living room and it comes in handy (actually it is essential) for a Saturday night race 2000 miles away.
I actually think it’s a good thing to report from the couch every once in a while. Otherwise one never knows what is in the mind of the viewer, who in this era of telecommunications over-achievement constitutes the greater proportion of fan attendance of our sport. And with that, here are some thoughts on NBC Sports’ IndyCar television broadcast of the Phoenix Indy 250:
Wow! The first thing I can say about watching IndyCar on TV: this 4K picture technology is unbelievably good. I sat on my couch and thought “that is EXACTLY what it looks like down there on the grid” as NBC Sports panned across the field from Mario Andretti with the Honda “Fastest Seat in Sports” two-seater to Carlos Munoz at the tail end of the shot. There is an incredible level of detail, color saturation and a “be there” feel to this technology. Thank you NBC Sports and thank you Amazon….this is a superior and a phenomenal at-home experience.
To the race itself: IndyCar needs to run at Phoenix every single year, year after year, and hammer and hammer and hammer home the reality that NASCAR runs at 130 mph on this physically-challenging one-mile tri-oval track and IndyCar runs at 190 mph-plus on this little bullring. Technology and driver fitness (oh my god, how do these guys withstand the G-forces in those cars?) triumphs in the Third Millennium. Enough of this beer-gut good ol’ boy stuff. Go on a diet and get in the gym Tony Stewart. I will shake my head time and again: just how can you get excited about taxi-drivers running around out there when there is such a HUGE speed differential between them and these open-wheel rockets?
Not enough gets said about Holmatro’s safety crew and the staff at Indiana University Health (IU Health) in regard to their contribution to motorsport. The short feature about James Hinchcliffe’s near-death at Indianapolis in 2015 punctuates this point with perfect clarity. The piece is a tear-jerker; but more than that, it highlights the importance of competent, quick, thoughtful driver extraction and first-responder training of which America’s public officials at the Department of Transportation should take note. And of IU Health we all expect excellence and by God we get it every time. Thank you for saving Hinch for us.
This point struck home with a gut-punch when I reflected on the fact that I reported from the New York Auto Show within the last ten days a glutton’s banquet of high-powered cars, cars with as much or more power than an Indy Lights car, that are being sold right now to the American public in the absence of any semblance of emergency response on our public highways to match the professionalism and tenacity of the Holmatro safety crews we take for granted on IndyCar weekends. Where’s your concern about that, Mr. Trump? And you, Mrs. Clinton?
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