1100 Miles of Racing Today

If you're a fan of motorsports, this is great day for you. First you have the Indy 500 and the boys and girl in their glorified go-karts, and later in the day, the Coke 600 featuring the NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers from Charlotte, NC. Some of the NASCAR guys used to do the "double" and compete in both races on the same day, but Indy moved their race back an hour and that has made it almost impossible to complete Indy and still get to Charlotte in time for the 600.

One of the more controversial NASCAR drivers, Robby Gordon, is creating a little controversy in the IRL with his comments about female phenom Danica Patrick. Robby has done the double more than once, and he has competed quite a bit in IRL cars. If it wasn't for the schedule problem, I'm sure he'd still be trying to do both races.

Much of the media exposure for this year's Indy 500 has focused on Patrick. Is is because she's the first woman to make the field? No, she's just the cutest female to make the race, and if she were to win, she'd be a huge media personality. I'm sure the IRL and their sponsors are secretly rooting for her, since Indy is the only race that draws a sell-out crowd. At most IRL races you could shoot off a cannon at the grandstands and probably not come within 100 feet of a fan.

The current conflict has to do with her size. She weighs about 100 pounds, 105 pounds less than pole sitter Tony Kanaan. Since the cars in the IRL have to weigh the same and they don't take into consideration the driver's weight, some are complaining that she has an unfair advantage since she will be carrying 105 pounds less weight which should make her car perform a little better. Robby puts it this way:

"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier.

"I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."

The Indy Racing League does not consider the weight of the driver in its race specifications. The car has to weigh at least 1,525 pounds before the fuel and driver are added, and teams in Indy have estimated that Patrick will gain close to 1 mph in speed because of her small stature.

You might say, what's the big deal about 1 mph? Well, in a three hour race a car with a 1 mph advantage will lap the field. That's a pretty big winning margin.

NASCAR does it a little different. If the driver weighs less than 200 pounds, the teams are required to add weight to the car equal to the difference between the driver's weight and 200 pounds. This rule was added a few years ago to allow the teams to hire bigger drivers without suffering a weight disadvantage. NASCAR didn't want its driver lineup to look like a bunch of jockeys.

With this change you can have big guys like Michael Waltrip and Dale Jarrett compete with little guys like Mark Martin without an advantage going to the stature-impaired.

Both races should be interesting. This is NASCAR's longest race and that extra 100 miles is pretty tough on both the drivers and the cars. Look for some otherwise strong cars to have problems in that last 100 miles.

Now it's time to sit back, relax, and fire up the TiVO.