Dicks, Picks and Tricks
plus Scottie Mac screaming around the brickyard early Monday morning in the Indy 500 and who at One News fired up the Crusaders? I'd like to speak to the manager.
Scott McLaughlin went very fast for the Indy 500 qualifying.
Around 377kms is pretty fast when you’re on a 4km long track and you’re fighting forces of over 5 g’s while seemingly constantly turning left.
Once, when we spoke to the Bathurst winner on The Morning Rumble about oval racing, he admitted to his mind wandering. He said he tried remembering whether he had let his dog out of his trailer and hoped it hadn’t soiled it.
This time, he said he couldn’t even remember the laps in qualifying. He was in the zone so much (four laps to qualify for the Indy 500).
“I was in a trance, but you have some weird thoughts go through your mind at certain times, but not this one; I was pretty locked in for this one”
He’s also dreamt of draping the Kiwi flag over his shoulders if he hopefully wins this year’s race.
“I was infatuated with Bathurst before I won it, and all I wanted to do was win it, and I dreamt about it, and when I won, it was the next, and it was the Indy 500". This would be just a huge moment in my career”
I visited the Indianapolis 500 in 2003 for 3 Sport’s primetime show ‘Sportzah’. I got to go because everyone else on the show (Nathan Rarere, Oscar Kightley, Frank Bunce, Kelly Swanson Roe, Dion Nash, Mandy Smith) were all famous and too busy, and the show needed international stories about Kiwis killing it overseas. Scott Dixon was a prime example. Having an amazing rookie season and a real chance to finish in the top ten before he spun out under a yellow trying to keep his tires (tyres?) warm.
I was sent. I had never been to the US, let alone roughly the upper midwest of it, and after we did a story on Kirk Penney at the famous Chicago NBA predraft camp where I was turned down by Patrick Ewing for an interview but interviewed the ‘Czar of the telestrator’, Mike Fratello, both my cameraperson/director, Nigel Carpenter and I drove to Indiana.
Along the way, I had Wendy’s in the middle of nowhere, where my accent confounded the counter staff so much that they got everyone from out the back to listen to me re-read my order so they could hear it again and thought I was from Maine. We eventually made it to Indianapolis. We stayed at a Motel 6, where I heard things I could never unhear, and ate at the Taco Bell, where Scott Dixon was held up.
Here are some pretty daming 2003 photos of me at Indy that haven’t aged particularly well.
Call the Internet cops.
In my defence, the TVNZ sports reporter that day made me take this photo, and quite frankly, I don’t think I should be sharing it, but apparently, when the TVNZ team got back (they had the rights and had more than just two people in their crew unlike just myself and Nige) they allegedly had a meeting as to why our story was better than what they cranked out. Whether that happened or not, I’ve held on to that morsel of feedback to this day, given it was my first real primetime sports show experience. Sorry. Bit self saucing, sorry. Speaking of saucing…here’s a photo of Bill Clinton on the track that I took.
Nigel and I showed up two days beforehand, applied, and were granted media passes on the spot.
WE HADN’T EVEN BEEN ACCREDITED FOR THE INDY 500 BEFORE WE LEFT NU ZILIND.
I had emailed and rang, and they assured me that I could, but this was 2003, and I remember checking my Hotmail account for correspondence at least 500 times a day. We rolled the dice, and it worked, thankfully.
Scott Dixon and his parents were great that day. He even agreed to do an interview after his disappointing finish to the race. As we know, he would eventually win the Indy 500 race five years later, in 2008.
Hopefully, Scotty Mac can get his first win at the brickyard in this year’s edition, kiss the bricks, and drink the milk like winners get to do.
Dicks
Whoever at One News decided that Thomas Mead, an excellent, award-winning news journalist, should be the one to troll Rob Penney hard during the week because now we have a situation where the Crusaders will probably make the quarterfinals.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but someone definitely has the oil that something is up in the Crusaders playing group or has read between the lines somewhere, so they thought, ‘let’s get Mead to ask the gnarlier questions instead of a Crusaders beat reporter and see how that goes’ (DISCLAIMER: Mead might be a regular at Crusaders training but Rob Penney’s ‘C’ bomb suggests that he’s not).
Well, if you’re a Blues fan, it went pretty badly. So, as far as this Hurricanes fan is concerned, One News's sports department can get in the sea. You went and ruined it for everyone.
Picks
I think the key is if I don't post any multis, then they’re more likely to win. like this four-leg parlay from the weekend, which was paying $16.73. I’ll be better with my timing of the posts this coming week so I can have one for us for the upcoming sporting action.
Tricks
I’m heading to the Hurricanes training base at the impressive NZCIS in Trentham, Upper Hutt, to see what tricks the Hurricanes have ahead of their final regular season game against the Highlanders and what their postseason plans are. I can’t wait. They’re going to run out of their retro jersey for the game, too.