Indy 500: The buzz is gone

A splendid week of weather, topped with a perfect pole day, wasn’t enough. The anticipated buzz of artificial bumping had little, if any, affect. Three women, two Andrettis, a Foyt and an Unser failed to generate anything in the way of a crowd.

It was another dose of reality Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, another reminder of how this day, this month and this race are crying out for an extreme makeover.

The 2-for-1 coupons in the local paper, the rock bands and the chance to watch Marty Roth practice wasn’t enough to bring back anything resembling a crowd.

Optimistically, no more than 10,000 turned out to watch the Battle of Brazil for the pole position. If there are 250,000 permanent seats, there had to be one body in every 25 seats and that was a stretch. More at SPEEDTV.com