Quote:
Originally Posted by Brickyard
I know this is not going to be popular, especially with this being my first post. However, as a historian, I can't allow some of this to slide as "fact"....
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First off, Brickyard.... welcome to the forum! Your first topic to comment on shows you are truly a historian and whether the members agree, or disagree with you, we need/welcome fans like you here.
For the others on this thread, on the first page I opened it up to the gallery that I felt the IRL destroyed the 500. I still do, and always will stick to my guns on that. One has told me I am wrong. No. I am not wrong. I have a different opinion than you. I can be told all day long I am wrong, but it goes in one ear and out the other. In my mind, I am right.
And please don't get me started on 25/8 and/or Gene Simmons. We'll leave that for another day.
However, this IRL opinion of mine has somewhat hijacked the thread, that being Fernando Alonso entering the Indianapolis 500. I apologize for that.
Brickyard, you speak very well and represent all on the CART/Champ Car side of the split.
Now, as for the topic at hand, it was mentioned that guys like Rico, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and even one of the Busch brothers would be great for the 500. To us, yes it would. But thinking on a GLOBAL basis (i.e. outside and beyond of us dirt track junkies), Alonso coming here to race makes everything else very small. This is world racing news.
Do you realize with him in the race, the networks pretty much just picked up the entire country of Spain, where Alonso is a national hero? That's like..... 47 million people. Now, if only HALF of them have TVs, 23.5 million more viewers? Not to mention the attention that IndyCar will get by having an F1 driver, a two-time world champion by the way, spend his time here than there? This isn't a back-of-the-pack career F1 jobber we are talking about. If given the right tools, and not a current McLaren Honda, this guy would still be knocking them off one after another. You do not become a two time world champion without a God-given talent.
And furthermore, throughout the Monaco GP broadcast earlier in that day, the reminder that Alonso will be in the 500 will be thrown out on the table in every language, multiple times, and in every corner of the motorsports world. Once the post race interviews are done, the fans will go straight from Monaco to Indy.
Rico, Bell, Larson.... if they get there, no one across the globe, unfortunately, is going to write how these guys entered the 500 - except for us guys and girls here.
No... this is, by far, the biggest news in motorsports right now. And it is nothing but good news.
Keep swinging away, Brickyard. Keep swinging away.
