i do believe NASCAR got Green-White-Checkered from your local saturday night race track. Sprint cars were doing that well before NASCAR began running it in their programs.

Among the very best if not the BEST Indianapolis 500. As a native Hoosier now displaced in Dakota I still miss my home state when 'Back Home Again In Indiana' is sung. I wish Bob Jenkins was at work with a microphone at the 500.

Ahhh... not to argue a point, Beercloud buddy, it's just my opinion on it.

There are certain things I don't like, and I can put them all under the heading of gimmicks. They are:

Green-white-checkered
The Lucky Dog
The Wave Around
Restrictor plates
Double file restarts
Debris cautions
Lapped cars to the rear on restarts

The best way a green-white-checkered finish was ever explained was to think of it as a marathon running race. A marathon is 26 miles, 385 yards. To me, that is like going 26 miles and stopping (caution) and then lining everyone back up, after a breather, and having a 385 yard sprint for the win. The race is a MARATHON, not a sprint.

You have to keep the overall perspective of the race clear.

Here is a good example for this past 500: The Penske team with Allmendinger got out of synch with the pitstops due to his belts coming undone. The networks were playing it up. Anyone who can count backwards from 200 laps in 28-30 laps chunks knew the whole rest of the field had to make the same number of pitstops as A.J. he was essentially out nothing. Now, his only problem would have been had it gone G-W-C, for he only had enough fuel until about Lap 201. Now you have teams having to deal with some outside influence such as that vice dealing with what the race is billed as - The Indianapolis 500. I never read anywhere where it was called the Indianapolis 505.

And on a sidebar, as far as I can recall, no short tracks/weekly shows count caution laps. Hence every finish where a caution comes into play late will be a G-W-C, for the caution laps do not count, thus CANNOT count for the last lap. Sprint cars in every category used this method. It was never a USAC thing. It was a product of short track weekly racing. Long races, like Champ Cars, count the caution laps, and always have, for they run long races. Short races at your local tracks cannot, or never really did. It would ruin the 30 lap features (make them 10 lap features at times).

In the mid 80s, ARCA started using the G-W-C for their races. They (ARCA) are longer races than your weekly shows wherein the caution laps are counted. NASCAR copied this idea after the Talladega beer can throwing incident back in the early 00s when Gordon won under caution. Richard Petty, a long time advocate of not drinking, chastised NASCAR for giving in to the beer drinkers. But, unfortunately Richard Petty has been long forgotten by many for what he achieved.

Don't even get me started on the Chase where NASCAR copied that from the USAR Hooters Pro Cup Series.

Bottom line: I understand and respect your view. Honest. I just like an advertised 500 miler being just that - a 500 miler. It''s not the fastest car that wins races. It's the first car to take the checkered flag.

And I don't like gimmicks.

That was a great race, a church in town was offered the opportunity to display the flag for the race (since the military couldn't do it) as a fundraiser for a mission trip. I personally do not go to this church but did take them up on chance to do it. They bused us up there and among other things, gave us a ticket to the race. Here is the neat thing to me. The guys in charge of the flag needed 33 people to do something else flag wise. When they said that we would be holding flags next to the cars as the drivers were introduced, I got over in that group. When it came time to do the flag stuff, I went to my row (row 4) and waited. In the back of my mind I thought it would be neat if the driver of the car I held the flag for won. I ended up holding the flag for Tony Kanaan's car.


The race itself was pretty awesome (wish it could have finished under green), but the lead changes and relatively clean race was nice. I walked away from the brickyard 400 a few years ago with no desire to go back ever again, I have every intention on going back to the 500 again. The funny part I laugh about today was when Mario Andretti was in a golf cart behind the pit row stands, he floored it and went about 50' to the Honda racing trailer and slammed on the brakes. I thought to myself, once a racer, always a racer.

Another observation I made was that at Indy, I would venture to say 90-95% of the seats were filled. I was watching a video from the NASCAR race and they put a giant American flag over part of the stands (guess they couldn't sell enough tickets) to make it look like they are losing fans in the stands.

Yes!!! It may well be the only thing NASCAR has done for the fans that's actually right!! There is never a good reason to end a race under yellow!! NEVER!!!! The race was a good one to be sure but ending it under yellow took a lot away from the show! Oh please don't use USAC and their rules when trying to make your point..my god there is just to many rule failures to use them as a justification not to have or to have a certain rule.... It was a sad ending to pretty darn good race!!

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I heard DW on the the pre race show say "Indycar should take a lesson from NASCAR on green, white, checker finish."The 500 had 68 lead changes, 45 were on track, and not in the pits. I think NASCAR could take a lesson from that.

Dumbest thing ever said.

Exactly!! Record number of cars finished all 500 miles w/ 2 cars only 1 lap back and another only 2 laps. All of this w/ very few cautions including one segment going ~120 laps without a caution. Best part is NO LUCKY DOG rule. I'm willing to bet DW left that stat out because MASSCAR couldn't accomplish that in their wildest dreams.

Quite honestly I find this GWC conversation happening so quickly to be utterly ridiculous considering how action packed the entire race was. That somehow a yellow finish overrides anything that happened laps 1-199. But if you feel that strongly in GWC, there will be a series come through later this summer where fans get excitement the first 2 laps and the last 5. Plenty of time to visit w neighbors, grab concessions and souvenirs. When you hear a caution though check the scoring boards. Dramatic increase in chance of a new leader...

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It was a great race, wouldn't change a thing.

I don't like G-W-C, most of the time it ends up with a bunch of damaged equipment.