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Before I say anything else, I did not go to Terre Haute Sunday. I have seen some of the best races of my life at The Action Track, and in all three open wheel divisions. Memories are many, and I have only attended races there since I moved to Indiana in 1995. 'Wide World of Sports' made hallowed ground of the facility in my imagination when I was a youth and it was straight-out-of-a-fairytale-goosebumps the first time I looked down that sacred frontstretch from the covered grandstand (even more so from the turn one tower)
With that said, I barely even considered going to the Silver Crown event. There was a time when NOT going to the Sumar was unthinkable if I wasn't in a hospital or out of state. But all the signs pointed to "debacle". One of the things that race fans have simply had to accept in the last decade is that too many tracks have too many dusty races. Some prioritize those tracks where they least expect to see dust, others prioritize the on-track action despite dust, and some prioritize based on a personal criteria I can't guess, other than perhaps "loyalty".
But "loyalty" to what? To a facility? To a management group/promoter? To a division? To a favorite driver, no matter where he pushes off? To a distant memory? To.....a sanctioning body? When I heard that Terre Haute was a 100-lap race on a July afternoon at a half-mile that is notoriously difficult to condition properly, I thought "bad formula" right away. When I heard that it was a "USAC-promoted event" I wrote it off entirely, for one simple reason: USAC will have to extend maximum possible effort to ever again receive the benefit of my doubt. Until that effort is forthcoming, all the company will receive is my doubt.
A 50-mile day race at Terre Haute? Anyone could tell you that it was going to take an absolute Maximum Effort to make that a fan-friendly experience. When was the last time "maximum effort" applied to that sanctioning body? When the torrential rains I read about hitting Vigo County were reported, it didn't create one notion of "Well, that might be JUST the thing the track needed"-consideration. Frankly, if the O'Conners (who aren't my favorite folks, but who I respect for their effort and professionalism with regards to this type of thing) had the reins on this afternoon, I most certainly WOULD have reconsidered due to the heavy rains, even though disappointment would still have been a 50-50 proposition.
But USAC? If extra effort and expertise are required to pull a rabbit out of the hat at a track, and it is USAC charged with providing the "Abracadabra", you'd have a better chance at seeing that rabbit on a moonless night in a full wheat field with no street lights for miles. The odds against this event being a satisfying one wouldn't have been on any board in Vegas. The "No Refund" kick in the groin at the end is simply unconscionable. And it is really all anyone has to know about the mindset that created this calamity, and for which we can all be thankful that Thomas Meseraull (and everyone else) is still standing and making perfect sense in his post-race interview.
If USAC is actually putting itself out there and promoting the event, with all it's built-in difficulties that will require both creativity and due diligence to overcome, it is on the sanctioning body to go the extra mile everywhere it is needed to make a memory worth having. Until evidence of that effort is on display, I can't imagine why anyone would expect it.
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