[Zeke]

I will hand it to you........you have facts to back up your opinion. Frankly, I agree with slowing the cars down. You, of course, remember the Texas deal with CART. And CART has taken to adding the areo device at Michigan and CA to bunch the cars. (I don't know what the schedule is this year, so I'm speaking of past events.)

If you want to see real roadsters racing with real men in them, go back to my thread about wingless cars.

One thing I still don't agree on is that the cars are TOO easy to drive as you implied with your AU jr. and 45 year old remark. While I have not driven any open wheeler with anything over 150 hp, I have driven a Busch stock car at Petty. The analogy here is that unless you drive these cars, you don't know. It's not all about what the fans want. It's about racing. People criticize NASCAR, but unless you get in one and see what it takes to run down the track inches apart, stay in the stands and keep quiet. To run consistantly at 215 mph at Indy, which is damn near the qualifying speed, and to run nose to tail as much as the air will let them, is close racing to me. And I know damn well it is close racing to them. As I said, I can count Ritchie and Alex and their parents as my friends, we go back to the 80's when they were sub teens.

I won't say I can count Parnelli as a friend, hes's a jerk and sent his son to race with a mechanic. PJ is also a jerk IMO and I have incidents with him to prove it. I digress. The point is, I respect what even PJ can do. I was at Talladega one test day with Kenny Schrader and Bret Bodine. PJ showed up for a test to see about entering the upcoming race in 1993. He hopped in that Winston car, legged it out of the pits and never let up. He'd never seen the place before. This is a race car driver.

They all are regardless of what you think about the state of the cars, the series, Tony George or any of that. I focus on the drivers and ignore, by and large, the politics. And I still say these guy drove their guts out Sunday, to them it was no farce. I was in the car with them in spirit. No farce for me either.