Wednesday, May 28, 2008

In-Die Weekend

Sad to report, but Indy the Indi-cator Fish has passed away. Just before this year's Indianapolis 500, I awoke to an empty bowl. Looking down, I saw that he had leaped from the bowl and aired* to death on a bistro chair. Was he like a faithful dog who knew his time was nigh and tried to go off quietly somewhere alone? I wonder how old he was. I purchased him around May of 2006, so he was with me awhile, but who knows how old he may have been when stolen from a shallow puddle in Asia for shipment overseas.

In other Indy news, I'm saddened by Danica Patrick's twenty-second place finish in this year's 500. I don't know the rules of racing to the extent of 'whose side' I would care to take on the Briscoe/Patrick contact that knocked both drivers out of the race, but I do think she was having car problems. As someone in spitting distance of a ten-million-dollar failure of Motorola's, I'd just like to point out perhaps she'd like to seek sponsorship with companies doing better in the stock market and able to produce cutting edge technology. Just a thought.




*Fish can't 'drown', so do they 'air' ?

2 comments:

Don said...

In pit row, there are three lanes: one for the cars to pull into their box for tires, fuel and adjustments, the middle lane or "lead-in" lane for cars to leave their pit box, and the "at-speed" lane for cars that are up to the 60mph pit speed limit. Danica was in the "at-speed" lane, and Briscoe went directly from the pit box over into the at-speed lane when he spun coming out of his box too fast. Danica swerved to avoid him, but she had no where to go. Completely Briscoe's fault.

Danica's problems with the car were due to the setup, which is the settings of wing, downforce, shocks, tire pressures and camber calculated by her engineer. Those settings are determined primarily by the track conditions, temperature and humidity. Those settings were not working for Danica's car, especially in traffic, when the airflow of other cars was not ideal for the handling characteristics set by the engineer. Conditions change throughout the course of the race, and constant adjustments are necessary. They just couldn't get the car dialed in properly. Motorola has nothing to do with that.

Get A Life! said...

Wow! Thanks for that great explanation, Don! I appreciate your visit.

I thought perhaps you were a Danica fan at first.

Now I realize you're a Motorola executive.

How's that working out?