Monday, August 15, 2011

Stupid Indy car finish includes Will Power's salute to officials...

((ht: boston.com))

Say this for the Indy car folks, they sure know how keep themselves thought of as "Minor League". The reason we say that is the way the end of Sunday's "MoveThatBlock.com" Indy 225 finished.

The boys...and girl, were racing at the rainy New Hampshire speedway and because of that, they had to finish the race a few laps early.
Oriol Servia

Apparently, Indy car races sometimes have problems at the finish. And in this case was the winner of the "MoveThatBlock.com" 225 at the New Hampshire Speedway, the actual winner?

Ryan Hunter-Reay had the lead when the race was slowed on lap 215 for moisture on the track. Officials, desperate to finish under a "Green Flag" tried to bunch up the cars and do a double-file restart on Lap 217.

After the green flag dropped, Oriol Servia, passed race leader Reay and had the lead when cars started skidding all over the wet track. The race was summarily "Red Flagged" and the same officials decided to revert back to the standings on lap 215 and declared Reay the winner.

Servia was....shall we say, less than thrilled.

As was driver Will Power, who apparently made a "less-than-polite", somewhat obscene gesture to the official (Brian Barnhart) who made the decision to restart.

Read the entire play-by-play of what happened from Boston.com RIGHT HERE

Interesting way to finish a race here. We don't dispute Indy Car's attempt at finishing the race, but we do question the time frame here. Was it something they could have waited out before trying the restart?

What ended up happening is confusion. Chaos even. We aren't sure exactly how, if you completed a green flag lap, that you can revert back to the order before the flag dropped. But then again, we aren't race officials.

Either way, it cements Indy Car's reputation as a bit of a side show. And arguably a "minor-league" circuit that draws drivers with bigger aspirations. It's really kind of sad because for those of us old-enough to remember the days before NASCAR was the auto-racing king, Indy Car truly ruled the roost.

Here is video of Mr. Power's salute:



And video of the attempted restart/finish, featuring an agitated Michael Andretti:

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