While she does indeed suck the drippy goat wang, she is a small part of a much bigger problem with the "league".
"Groupthink" sucks! This whole thread started because of an IZOD model (who is SUPPOSED to be on camera).
Today at Iowa she almost took out Andretti. They black flagged her at about lap 50 because she is so slow. In fairness the should black flag Baguette also. They may. I'm still watching the race. Good for IRL to enforce that.
Good call by race control in removing her from the race. Baguette should have been flagged too. She made room on the lowside for the lead car to pass her. Yes, the movement was jerky...like it scared her and she paniced. I believe she thought both cars would pass her on the bottom. Andretti got greedy on trying to pass her. He should have tucked in behind the lead car to get past her, then when safe, use the draft to slingshot around for the pass. I think Marco gets tunnel vision when pushing it. he needs some self-control so he doesn't become his own worst nightmare.
Fantastic post. Hey bullrider savior man, are you listening?????!!!! I was in INDY all weekend and TRYING to get race news and could not get squat. Soccer, NASCAR and baseball were ahead of open wheel racing in the Indy Star. The Indycar.com web site sucks on a Blackberry too.
wow...I guess you were justing trying to add to your post count? I need one of those rolling eye emoticons right now. Huh? There was good race coverage on versus. Good coverage of the race and follow-up to Simona's crash & fire on all the local sports shows. As for soccer leading the sports news, there is little competition happening in South Africa. They call it the World Cup. Turns out to be kind of a big deal with the rest of the world. And you are a Hoosier, did you happen to notice NBA Finals happened and that jerk Artest got a ring? Yea, you can call me a smarta$$ next time you see me. LOL!
Sorry, but I don't have exact market share numbers. But let's see... Versus is owned by Comcast, which happens to be the largest cable company that has some 24.6 million cable customers in 39 states & DC (so don't worry that Obama can't keep up with IndyCar). Versus is also available via competing cable packages, such as: * DirecTV's 18 million customers (dispute resolved) * AT&T Broadband 20 million customers (owned by Comcast), * Dish Network's 14 million customers, So its there if people are interested in adding it to their channel selection.
For what it's worth, fanboi, I didn't know there was a race this weekend. Imagine, for just a moment, that the majority of human beings on this planet do not live in the United States of Obama. An oval in Iowa? Glad I missed it. Best thing I ever got in Iowa was a "Kum And Go" t-shirt. If you need emoticons to communicate how you really feel, go for it.
Since you didn't know there was a race, I owe you an apology. I assumed, incorrectly, that it was a dig at IndyCar in general. My bad. Yes, I am a fan of IndyCar and make no apologies for it. Not a fan of the track in Iowa, but at least its a race to watch. Next 5 races move back to street/road courses.
I won't say I hate her, because that's too strong a feeling to hold towards someone who is merely trying to do what they enjoy. I think my frustrations over Donuts stem more from what she represents. As long as she continues to "race" in the IRL, she will serve as the poster child for what ails the series. I would even feel better about it if this were a relatively new experiment, but she's been at the racing game for a dozen or more years and just isn't getting the gameplan. She serves merely as a liability to the other drivers and fans--I don't understand why she continues to hold a competitor's license. Seriously, what value does she bring to the IRL?
Fchat has some of the smartest and most diverse racing fans I've ever seen. Yet when the IRL is mentioned, it is either because of Danica or Milka (occasionally Helio's dancing ability/tax problems). So the value Milka brings is exposure. Like Dale Earnhardt used to say, "I don't care if they cheer or boo, as long as they make noise". it's up to the IRL if this is the kind of exposure they want...
I almost got into that point but cut myself off and instead went with a very abbreviated "What value does she bring?" nutshell. I agree that exposure of all kinds still adds up to exposure--provocative heroes & villains, T&A, whatever it is. But to me, I don't know how much she is being discussed beyond threads like this, by racing fans like us. I question whether she's even bringing any exposure to the series, since she is so far out of competition. Once upon a time she qualified as eye candy, but even that ship sailed a long time ago. Unless Citgo's sponsorship includes something for the IRL coffers, I really don't understand what value she brings to the series that isn't--at best--cancelled out if not completely negated by the compromise in credibility she creates. If they're going to exploit her for cheap publicity, then they should go all-in and exploit her. But competitively she only cheapens the product.
It was a dig at this series. I didn't know there was a race--and not only am I a fan, but I also race. So, if the series can't reach me, how the h3ll are they going to reach a relevant audience? By bringing in the rodeo, I suppose...
Well I don't race, but I am a fan....and I consider myself to be a relevant audience. I knew the race was on, because as a fan, I made it a point to know the schedule. I logged onto indycar.com at the beginning of the season and printed out the schedule so I would know when the races were scheduled. The schedule also tells me which channel will be airing the race. Pretty simple.
That sums it up exactly. As for always bringing up the rodeo, the only horse at an IRL race is horsepower and the only bull seem to come spewing from clowns on the internet. Sorry, but that one cracks me up. Seriously, people apply business principles. So what if he sold widgets before, if he has the ability to serve the company, in this vase IRL. If not, fire him and bring in someone new.
I agree I didn't know the race was on either. Yes, as a fan you made yourself aware of the schedule, but this is indicative of a series that is wallowing in relative anonymity from the mainstream public it is so desperately hoping to reach. But the problem is, this guy admittedly had never been to a car race before being hired. Racing is a business, but a business of passion. This guy is a business man who his entire life has never developed a passion for the sport he has just been hired to resurrect. My hope is that his untainted eye will see the pluses and zero in on those. But the skeptic in me can't help but ask if there wasn't someone a little more versed in the language of racing that could have been tapped? The rodeo references won't stop until he's able to show something, and to me it sounds a little odd to hear the way they trumpeted his bringing bull riding "into the big time". My personal feeling is, they're going to see how much rodeo and racing are apples to oranges.
I programmed the DVR to find "Indycar" on both Versus and ABC, and it didn't have any trouble finding the race and qualifying. I'm more inclined to watch an Indycar race live than F1, because of the PIP commercials ("non-stop") the Indycar uses in place of skipping away to commercials any time something interesting is about to happen like Speed's F1 coverage. But for Iowa, I had to fast-forward over all the PC-ism about Iowa corn ethanol. For some reason (Duno why ) but I thought Indycar ran on ethanol from Brazilian sugar beets, and not from Iowa corn flakes.
Personally, Milka's driving, or lack there of, scares me when she's on the track with others. Yes, at some point all drivers can and do end up as back markers for whatever reason, but when a driver is consistently a back marker, you have to wonder why the series doesn't pull their ability to compete in said series. e.g. Marty Roth. NASCAR has the villian/hero thing happening. Their cars are more forgiving to bump or punt someone into a wall. Do that in an open wheel car and you are taking yourself out too. Oddly, when there is a rift between IRL drivers, folks on this forum prefer to take negative views. e.g. Danica vs Brisco. Do you want drama or not? Not talking WWF type drama, but something better than friendly PC answers to interview questions. Its mentioned above about discussions about IRL always seem to involve back to Danica, Milka or Helio's tax issues. Sorry, but I don't see that outside of this forum where detractors of IRL like to get into bashing those drivers or the split between IRL and CART/CHAMP. In regards to the CART/CHAMP...its dead, gone, finished. Sorry, but they lost the fight. Actually lost twice after reforming and bankruptcy. If it was the greatest of the two, it would still be going strong, but it didn't. Time to put a fork in it and call it done. We have one open wheel series now. Living in the past of drivers like Unser, Andretti, et al isn't going to get you anywhere but the opportunity to travel down memory lane. Don't forget it was 1969 that Mario won the Indy 500. That was 40+ years ago. Times change and so does racing. We all need to change along with them or we get left behind. If you want US open wheel racing to succeed, you need to support it. Part of that is to actually show up. Some of you have mentioned that its lost its pagentry, yet you also say you haven't been in years. How do you know something is lacking if you don't pay attention to it? This confuses me. I'm not a fan of watching baseball, basketball, golf or F1. any advertsing they try misses me completely. I just don't care. Yes, I am a race fan, but I don't like Bernie and his F1 machine. I find it boring once the initial run for turn 1 is over. I never see advertising for it, zero support for the US market. It will be interesting to see if this new guy, Mr Rodeo as you guys prefer, can inject some new thinking. Since he's not a Hulman-George, they'll fire his butt if he doesn't produce. Let's see what happens. In the meantime, give the series and drivers a chance. ITs pretty fun stuff. Sorry this was a long post.
Agreed 100% I think fans prefer the drivers to be real, as you implied. The drama that typically develops between NASCAR drivers seems genuine, but when there's an IRL squabble, it seems weak and borderline concocted. I don't think anyone is bemoaning the loss of CART so much as the level of racing during those years. The IRL is a little too guilty of that change. The IRL in general and the Indy 500 specifically NEED that history behind them. You can't just throw out history, the legends of the sport that delivered into the modern era. All sports experience peaks and troughs, and it's only natural for fans to yearn for times when the product was more exciting. And it's a very real benchmark to which the series needs to match up. Like the old saying goes, you don't need to get shot to know you wouldn't like it. I live in Chicago, and have done more than my share of supporting open wheel racing. In addition to the many Indy races, I used to annually attend the Milwaukee Mile (gone--more history we don't have to worry about), Road America (gone) and the Cicero race (gone--thankfully). When they moved to Joliet, I attended the first three IRL races, and I ended up leaving the third early to beat traffic. I've never done that in my life! Since then, I have followed the IRL at arm's length on TV, which is where the big support dollars come from anyway. I hope you're right.
