May 28, 2007

Indy: Making a Spectacle of Itself

There was a time when we who followed auto racing used to wait for the Indianapolis 500 with a kind of breathless anticipation. It represented the pinnacle of all motor racing, an event that drew the greatest drivers from around the world, its aura summoning not just the cream of American racers, but also many of the upper echelon drivers from Formula One. The race was filled with technical innovation, attracting everyone from the major passenger car companies to mainstream racing specialists to engineering kooks. Come one, come all -- rear-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, turbines, diesels, "stock blocks" -- they all had their place on the hallowed Brickyard.

How the mighty has fallen. What a shame it is to see the grand dame of American racing doing its Gloria-Swanson-in-"Sunset Boulevard" turn. Now it is just a largely irrelevant and slightly whacked-out dowager nearing the final fade-out. You can almost hear the great old race saying, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

As are other vanishing constants of my long lost youth, the decline of the Indianapolis 500 is truly troubling to watch. Like baseball's Ladies' Days and Sunday doubleheaders, the Indy 500 has not vanished from the Earth, but it sure ain't what it used to be. When I was a kid (said the doddering old sportswriter), the Indy 500 clearly showed that America was the center of the racing universe.  It drew unimaginable crowds not only for the race itself, but also on many of its practice days -- days when there was no real racing go on. The practices were televised, but the race itself was much too big to be shown on free, commercial television. Instead, it was shown on a fascinating innovation called "closed-circuit television" in movie theaters. Of course, that was far too rich for the blood of a 10 year-old kid (truth be told, it was too rich for anyone in my family of limited means), so we never got to see the race. But it was on the radio, and I vividly remember listening to the crackle of the broadcast of the race while the annual Memorial Day parade passed by -- a Norman Rockwell painting come to life.

Now, all that is no more. The race is on network TV live, and the coverage is great. But the race itself is not nearly as interesting as it used to be. Gone are the best drivers in the world, and gone are the zany variety of racing machines that used to populate the race. It has become standardized and homogenized. And that's sad, because in the minds of those of us a half-century old or older, the Indy 500 was THE RACE. It's a shame it's no longer THE RACE anymore.