RacingNation.com
Home / RN News / One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

Indy 500 Miller Lite Carb Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. © [Andy Clary/ Spacesuit Media]

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. © [Andy Clary/ Spacesuit Media]

by Pete Gorski

Back in the days before series schedules dramatically expanded, there were only a handful of “super” race days. On these special Sundays, if you were really motivated and willing to get up early, you could watch three different top-level race series over the course of the day. The king of these unicorn days was of course Memorial Day. Wake up with Formula One in Monaco (or set your VCR), switch over to the Indy 500 midday, then close out the evening with NASCAR at Charlotte. Sure there might be another Sunday where you’d get two or three events spread out across the day, but those Memorial Day races are considered the premier events for their respective series. Well…almost.

While it’s true that the World / Coca Cola 600 was part of the Winston Million and is still considered a “big” race, as you’ll hear in the next week, the premier race in NASCAR, the win everybody wants to win, is the Daytona 500. So while the 600 still holds position as part of the classic “Best Day in Racing”, for the purposes of this story, we’re going to focus on Daytona. You’ll see why.

And yes, we’re not including an IMSA or MotoGP race in this discussion. Why? MotoGP, for as enjoyable, exciting, and competitive as it is, still has a very low profile in the United States. Sad really. IMSA? All of their marquee events are endurance races and as such are very different animals. You’re either the superest of super fans if you see most of the Rolex 24 or you’re trying to get divorced. Sebring, Petit Le Mans, and the Six Hours of the Glen become progressively more manageable as sit-down-and-watch-the-whole-race events, but still.

But there’s a funny thing about F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR’s top events. Only one really pays off and regularly earns its plaudits as the pinnacle of that form of racing — the Indy 500.

* * *

Let’s start with the Daytona 500. For decades, it was the race in NASCAR, at least to the general population. Until the boom really took off in the 1990s, people cared about Daytona, heard about Daytona, watched Daytona, but would have been hard-pressed to name three other tracks. Maybe Darlington or Talladega. Charlotte if only because it was on TV for five-plus hours Memorial Day weekend. Winning Daytona was a big deal, and the 1979 broadcast is credited with bringing a larger number of eyes to NASCAR. (Although in the way history gets compressed, the infield fight between Donnie and Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough is talked about more than the actual racing; Richard Petty won his sixth Daytona race that day, the main beneficiary of the Allison/Yarborough shenanigans.)

But a curious thing happened in 1988. As a result of Bobby Allison’s fence-demolishing accident at Talladega the year before, NASCAR introduced the restrictor plate. It accomplished NASCAR’s goal — slowing the cars down. But it also resulted in them staying bunched up. And that resulted in the arrival of “The Big One”, the seemingly inevitable wreck that, due to everybody circulating in close proximity, wipes out a large number of cars. Front-runners, backmarkers…the Big One does not discriminate.

Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 seven times. Yarborough won it four times. But from 1988 on, with a few exceptions, the race was won by who survived the Big One or just happened to be at the head of the right line at the right time. This is not to bad-mouth any of the “fluke” drivers, but there are more than a few whose win totals are small but still feature a Daytona 500 win. I was a big Michael Waltrip fan for years. But his four wins all came on plate tracks. One of Ward Burton’s five wins came at Daytona in 2002. Trevor Bayne’s only win came at Daytona…in his second-ever start.

NASCAR and the media love to call the Daytona 500 its Super Bowl. Yes it’s big and draws big TV ratings. In 1993 the race fell on February 14th, and my then-girlfriend (now wife) asked what we were doing for Valentine’s Day. “Uh, we’re watching the race!” But far too often the favored driver/team/car not only doesn’t win, but doesn’t even finish the race. It’d be like the Chiefs being the favorites to win this year’s Super Bowl but somehow the Bears snuck onto the field and went to Disney instead.

* * *

Cars have been racing on the streets of Monaco since 1929. The event predates the creation of the Formula One World Championship by decades. While the Wide World of Sports occasionally covered other F1 races, they visited Monaco regularly from the 1960s through the 1980s. It has all the glitz and glamour that motorsports prides itself on. It has some of the most scenic views in all of racing (especially compared to the recent batch of featureless desert tracks) — the million-dollar yachts in the harbor, the wide shot of cars screaming past the pool, the overhead angle on the Fairmont Hairpin Curve, and of course the sound-amplifying tunnel. It is one of, if not the jewel in the crown of F1.

And for the past ten years at least, the racing has been terrible.

The word “processional” was practically invented for Monaco. All those narrow streets and tight turns combined with the ever-lengthening wheelbase of the modern F1 car make actual racing impossible. From that overhead shot of the hairpin, the cars look like tractor trailers that got lost off the motorway and are now trying to find the next on-ramp since they can’t turn around or back up. There are few overtakes, and the ones that do occur are rarely on the track but in the pits. (The chaos of lap one turn one does not count.)

Critics say that Monaco hasn’t been competitive for many years, decades even. I’m not disagreeing. Some Monaco defenders point out that it’s all about qualifying, that the interesting part is Saturday. Ok. And you could make a similar case that while Monaco is unique (in good ways and bad) in its processional-ness, other races are to varying degrees processional too. And you’d be largely correct. But it’s the visual that makes ignoring Monaco’s unraciness so unavoidable. The cars are just too big for ancient streets.

Monaco as an idea is what Formula One loves about itself — money, fancy things, celebrities, history, and a trophy presented by Monaco’s royal family. But when made concrete, His Serene Highness has no clothes. Set the DVR and save it for the dead air between Indy and Charlotte.

* * *

The track at the corner of 16th and Georgetown has even more history going for it than Monaco. Everybody knows the details — 2.5 miles long, first 500-mile race in 1911, the famous yard of bricks…Formula One raced there, MotoGP raced there, IMSA/Grand Am races/raced there, and NASCAR still races there. But it’s the Indianapolis 500 obviously that is the reason for its existence and place in popular culture.

I suspect that if you didn’t live through the post-war years, you can’t appreciate how big the 500 was. See right there — I typed “500” and you almost certainly knew which race I meant. Between the love affair with the automobile and the monoculture of the time, the stars of that era were nearly as well-known as those in other major sports. (Or maybe it just seems that way — I wasn’t alive in the 1960s.)

The 500 was a big deal for a long time, even during The Split years. Like the Kentucky Derby, the 500 transcends its sport. You may not know where IndyCar (or horses) was (were) the race before or where they’re going next, but you know when the 500 is. And over one hundred thousand people show up to watch. (Indy, not the Derby.)

Now, was every race an edge-of-your-seat thriller? Eh. Rick Mears won in 1984 by two laps over Roberto Guerrero; Emerson Fittipaldi beat Al Unser Jr. by the same margin five years later. But in the last ten years, there have been multiple finishes measured in tenths of a second, and not just because of late cautions.

Critics of IndyCar might attribute all those close finishes to the fact that the Dallara DW12 is used by every team, that there’s little engineering advantage to be gained from a chassis that debuted in 2012. I. Don’t. Care. If engineering exercises are your thing, you’ve got Formula One. But as the last few years at Red Bull have demonstrated, when one team gets it right, really right, the racing is kind of boring. If you like close racing with multiple cars in contention, then IndyCar is right up your (Gasoline) alley.

* * *

And that’s why the Indianapolis 500 stands alone as the most entertaining event of the three, worthy of its Crown Jewel status. Compelling racing and strong finishes — what’s not to like?

* * *

Epilogue — As I said, there are other “super” race weekend sprinkled throughout the season now. But pour one out for this original “best” day in racing — you may have seen that for 2026, Monaco is being moved off that date.

Share Button