When I See Something Horrible, I Put My Foot Down. Hard! Because I Know That Everyone Else Is Lifting His.
Yves Montand as Jean-Pierre Sarti in Grand Prix
This morning warm-up starts differently from all the rest with a personal admission that I am flawed individual and I should have made that known long ago. We start with the good news that Mikhail Aleshin is stable after his accident last night during final practice sustaining a concussion, fractured ribs, broken right clavicle and chest injuries.
My prayers go out to Mikhail Aleshin on a speedy recovery.
The same way my prayers were with him immediately after the accident but I am flawed. The quote at the top perfectly defines how I reacted after seeing an accident such as Aleshin. I saw something horrible, mentally put my foot down hard and immediately thought, who can replace Aleshin tomorrow should he be unable to go? It's just who I am with my show must go on approach. Outside of a quiet prayer, what else can I do? I can't go to the car and try to assist. I wouldn't be much use and I would be more of a obstacle for the qualified IndyCar safety team to work around.
Remember I am flawed. I believe when you get into motorsports and start following on a regular basis you have to realize that if you stay around long enough you are going to watch someone die. There is no way around. All the safety innovations in the world will not make a driver or rider immortal, if it is their time to go, it is their time to go. The safety innovations have protected those men and women who are fortunate enough to compete on a regular basis better than previous generations and that is greatly appreciated but don't hold your breath on the day where it is guaranteed no one will die in a motorsports accident. That day is never going to come.
I am flawed. As much as I want to see the turbo boost turned up and laps closer to the 230 MPH range than 220 MPH, I know that had Aleshin been going faster, it would have been worse, much worse. There is a lot that has to be fixed. Catchfences need to be improved, aprons should be widened and these aren't issues just for IndyCar or just for Auto Club Speedway or just for engineer students at any given university around the country, these are issues for all parties who decide to participate in motorsports. Catchfence improvement is an Auto Club Speedway and IndyCar and NASCAR and Texas Motor Speedway and USAC and Iowa Speedway and Eldora Raceway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Daytona International Speedway issue. Catchfences should not be one party taking the baton all by themselves and trying to be a superstar. This should be a collective effort to find a solution for the better of all involved.
This shouldn't be a case where the expense gets in the way of driver and spectator safety. NASCAR is making $8.2 billion over the next 10 years. You'd think they could budget some for further research and development in the safety department. Speedway Motorsports, Inc. made $260.4 million in the first half of 2014. International Speedway Corporation made $131.8 million in the first quarter of 2014 while Indianapolis Motor Speedway just received $100 million loan from the state of Indiana. There is plenty of money that can be used to improvement catchfences, now the individuals who make six-seven figures salaries have to take the initiative and actually do something.
After watching Aleshin's accident I wonder what would have happened had their been no catchfence and in it's places was just a continuation of the concrete wall. The car wouldn't have been shredded to pieces but would he have sustained fewer injuries? I think he would of hit the wall and just continued to slide down, he may have even walked away under his own power but we will never know. As I went to bed last night after hearing Aleshin was awake and stable I thought of what the coverage would have been had he perished. All of sudden everyone would have become a motorsports expert, oval racing for open-wheel cars would get this misconception of reckless endangerment but what bothered me the most is someone who some media outlets never mentioned before and never considered giving him the time of day was now going to give him recognition only after he had passed on. Something about that strikes me the wrong way. It tells me that the only way some media outlets will acknowledge you is if you die. Average people would know how he died and nothing else. They would not know who he was or what he had accomplished and realized this was someone doing what he loved.
Yesterday afternoon I was looking through past Fontana races and came across the 1999 race and Greg Moore's fatal accident. It is approaching 15 years since his death and I wondered, 15 years later, if a driver were to be fatally injured would the race continue? We all remember Las Vegas 2011 but that accident caused extensive damage to the catchfence. Moore's accident didn't cause nearly as much structural damage to the track. Deep down, I always want the race to go on. Why? Cause as I said before what else can I do? If it is a driver's time to go, it is their time to go. I'd like to say the fallen driver would want the race to go on but we never know. Maybe drivers should write down at the start of a season and hand to the race officials a slip saying if they are fatally injured in a race, whether or not they would want the race to continue that way we truly know. I see nothing wrong with that but once again, I am flawed.
There is plenty of things that need to be worked on but the race should go on today because though there is the possibility of death we cannot let it cripple us from enjoying what we love and we should continue to ensure ourselves it is not going to happen, even though we can't guarantee it won't.
Hélio Castroneves starts on pole position as the Brazilian looks to take the championship fight to his Penske teammate Will Power. This is Castroneves' 41st career pole position, good enough for fourth all-time. To have any shot at the title, Castroneves has to finish at least fourth but his best Fontana finish entering today is fifth. Starting second will be Castroneves' Team Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya. The Colombian finished fourth and tenth in his previous two IndyCar starts at Fontana. Josef Newgarden rounds out the first row. This is Newgarden's fourth front row start of the 2014 season.
On the inside of row two will be Takuma Sato. His previous best starting position at Fontana was twenty-first. Scott Dixon will be in the middle of row two. Dixon has finished in the top ten in all but one of his previous seven Fontana starts. Charlie Kimball is on the outside of row two. Kimball has finished tenth in each of his two Fontana appearances.
Tony Kanaan will start seventh. Kanaan has never won a season finale in his seventeen year career. Mikhail Aleshin was scheduled to start eighth. He was the highest starting rookie. Ryan Hunter-Reay should move up to eighth position after Aleshin's accident. Hunter-Reay has finished in the top ten in each of his two Fontana starts. This is his best career Fontana start. Moving to the outside of row three will be Graham Rahal. This is the National Guard's final race as an IndyCar sponsor and final chance at victory as they have yet to be on a race winning car since entering the series in 2007.
James Hinchcliffe will start tenth. He is twelfth in the championship and starting eleventh and eleventh in the championship is Ryan Briscoe. Briscoe was fastest in the abbreviated final practice last night and has finished in the top ten in four of five ovals to date in 2014. Simon Pagenaud starts on the outside of row four and is the final driver mathematically eligible for the championship. The Frenchman must win to have any shot at the title and his best Fontana finish entering today is thirteenth.
In thirteenth position will be Ed Carpenter. The furthest back on the grid a Fontana winner has come from is thirteenth when Adrián Fernández won in 1999. Sébastien Bourdais will be in the middle of row five. He started third and finished twelfth last year in his Fontana debut. Outside of his seventh place finish at Indianapolis, Bourdais' best oval finish in 2014 is twelfth at Milwaukee. Justin Wilson will start fifteenth. His average finish on ovals this season is 17.4 after averaging a 10.833 on ovals in 2013.
Jack Hawksworth will be on the inside of row six. He missed the Pocono race after an accident but he scored his first career oval top ten at Milwaukee a fortnight ago when finishing tenth. He finished ninth out of a nine-car field last year in Indy Lights at Fontana. Marco Andretti starts in the middle of row six with his Andretti Autosport teammate Carlos Muñoz to his outside. With Aleshin unable to participate in tonight's race, Muñoz has clinched the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year honor. Marco Andretti was the 2006 IndyCar Rookie of the Year.
The seventh row will feature two Colombians and the championship leader, Australian Will Power. Sebastián Saavedra will start on the inside while Power will start in the middle and rookie Carlos Huertas will be on the outside.
Power entered the weekend with a 51-point lead over Castroneves and an 81-point over Pagenaud. Castroneves took the bonus point for pole position and when the green flag waves, Castroneves will hold a 30-point lead over his teammate with Pagenaud trailing by 95 points.
In the unluckily case the #7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda is repaired and the team runs a substitute driver, the car will start twenty-second.
NBCSN's coverage of the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season finale, MAVTV 500 from Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California will begin at 9:00 p.m. ET with green flag at 10:20 p.m. ET.
