Jason Whitlock Gets It

[chop456]

The Indy 500 didn’t recapture any of its luster on Sunday for the same reason it lost it 11 years ago: Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George’s Indy Racing League can’t recover from its split with CART.

The amateur, talent-deficient drivers filling up the back of Indy’s 33-car starting grid, the drivers who wouldn’t stand a chance of qualifying if Champ Car drivers participated in George’s event, kept slamming into the speedway’s walls for absolutely no good reason, repeatedly slowing the race to a crawl.

Of the race’s last seven qualifiers, the boys and girls holding down starting spots 27 through 33, only Richie Hearn avoided trouble.

Jon Herb, Jaques Lazier, Milka “Airbags” Duno, Marty Roth, Roberto Moreno and Phil Giebler all rammed the wall with virtually no provocation. The constant, prolonged yellow flags for unforced errors destroyed the flow of the race and opened the door for Mother Nature to cut the competition short.

It was truly embarrassing. As a lifelong Indy fan, I can’t remember a race that featured seven, single-car wrecks. We’re not talking about side-by-side dueling or tires touching or NASCARlike bumping and rubbing.

More here. (http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/125488.html)

I'm sure the avalanche of negative press this year isn't bothering the idiot grandson one bit. Keep up the good work, genius. :thumbup:

[jcollins28]

Jason is great! I love reading his stuff and love! Plus he never misses a chance to slam ESPN.

[Ed_Severson]

I'm not sure I would call what Whitlock wrote "getting it." He "gets it" by stick and ball standards, but he's pretty far off the mark on a few points, most notably his insistence on blaming the drivers at the back of the grid for the state of the sport in general. Rather than holding them up as an exhibit of what is wrong, he seems determined to blame them for ruining yesterday's race and prolonging the decline of open-wheel.

And to call Moreno and John Andretti "amateurs" who "slammed into the speedway’s walls for absolutely no good reason" illustrates that while he obviously considers himself an expert because he's from the Indianapolis area, he doesn't really understand the sport. Those two guys got out in the dirty part of the track and could do nothing to prevent the inevitable slide out to the wall -- that **** happens all the time on ovals, and did even in the good old days, and to guys far more capable than either Moreno or Andretti, neither of which deserves to be called an amateur or talent-deficient.

In addition to that, he is obviously convinced that Danica Patrick is the next coming of Senna and could save the world if only people could overlook the small detail that she is almost totally incapable of winning a race in the best equipment available.

But yeah, other than that, he "gets it." :\

[STD]

LOL opinion piece, Jason has said far worse about CART/CC and not that long ago!

And he just has the big hots for Danica, Ed. Jason is a big man and when he has the hots for ya good or bad watch out.

The Indy 500 is a lost cause, caught in a family of gomers that will not change that fact in our lifetime.

[Andrew Longman]

Without any intent of defending the IRL, he might want to go back and look at a tape the 92 race. I'd have to check the stats to be sure but IIRC that field had greats AJ Foyt and Al Unser at the back of the field and top drivers, including Guerreo (sp?), Mario Andretti, Jeff Andretti and several others made unforced errors to wreck their cars on cold tire restarts.

Yesterday's race for me was diminished by breathless hyperventilating by Rusty and crew about drama, history and traditions that hadn't really happened there in 12 years and history that in fact wasn't being made yesterday.

It is a great and challenging track that a lot of people care about but second rate cars and too few first rate teams conducting a crude approximation of what Indy used to be.

[STD]

^ understand your point well, also without intent of being supportive to FTG and his joke.

Some today think 92 was a great race...
Pole sitter crashes before the start
For those like Jeff, Piquet, others, the overdue fix in the rules for the foot box area cost them great injury and long rehabs. Those changes should have come a year or two earlier.

A slow pos Galmer won, or better, survived the carnage.

[RacinM3]

Really, if he "got it", would he have even written about the I500 at all?

[DagoFast]

The Indy 500 is a lost cause, caught in a family of gomers that will not change that fact in our lifetime.


That's a great sig line. Makes a fitting epitaph too.

[Jervis Tetch 1]

There's a meltdown at another place. They are freaking out. :laugh:

[oddlycalm]

Really, if he "got it", would he have even written about the I500 at all? My thoughts exactly.

oc

[Ankf00]

Jason Whitlock always has been, and always will be, a morbidly obese excuse for a hack.

There's a reason he's been fired from every print journo job he's ever had. He's the black Skip Bayless, only not 1/2 as outrageous and full of it.