Proceeding skeptically

Roger Penske was as right as ham-on-rye, when he said what he did last month. The Indianapolis 500 without the usual Sea O' Humanity is not the Indianapolis 500 at all.

The fans are an integral part of the whole Greatest Spectacle in Racing, because it's not a Spectacle without them. They are wedded to the event unlike any other sporting event in the world. Run the race without them, and it's just a pile of shrieking exotic machines going really fast in a circle for three hours.

So Penske announced there would be no 500 without the fans. And he was right.

I'm not so sure about what he announced yesterday.

Which is, the race will go off on August 23 as scheduled, and, yes, there will be fans in the stands. As a concession to the Bastard Plague and public safety, however, the Speedway will only allow its storied grounds to be filled to 50 percent capacity.

The obvious mean thing to say here is "Oh, so it'll basically be the NASCAR race, then."

Which isn't exactly true, mind you. What it actually will be is the NASCAR race times about two.

But put aside for now the Brickyard 400, which was social distancing before social distancing was cool. This is about the 500. This is about as many as 175,000 humans occupying the same place on August 23, and the advisability of that.

Because here's the thing, see: The Bastard Plague isn't going anywhere.

Yes, we're two months out from August 23, and, yes, a lot can happen between now and then. But no rational person can look at what's happening in the country right now and think the Bastard Plague is going to be anything but an even more widespread pandemic than it already is.

The Speedway's announcement, after all, played out in a nation that seems largely to have decided the Plague is over and so it's back to doing whatever you want, whenever you want, because "Freedom!" It is bulwarked in this by an administration that has largely decided the Plague is over, too. Its complete divorce from reality, and that of a good bit of the nation's, seems irrevocable.

Our leaders, such as they are, insist the Plague is under control and the nation is on the rebound, even as the number of cases mushroom again and rock-ribbed conservative governors shut down their states once more. But, hey, no worries!

And don't tell me I have to wear some damn mask, because God and Bill Gates and 5G and Fake Media and sex traffickers and the Democrats.

Meanwhile, the European Union, not noticeably afflicted with our madness, is contemplating severe travel restrictions on those crazy Americans. And the 500 will go on, if not like always then something resembling it.

What the Speedway has going for it in this venture is its very size, which so massive and sprawling 175,000 possibly infected souls will not be like 175,000 souls anywhere else. Social distancing should not be a problem when it takes you a good 20 minutes to hike from the hinterlands out in turn three to Gasoline Alley. And the Speedway will hand out masks and sanitizer to everyone who enters the grounds.

But use of the masks will only be recommended, which means most of them likely won't get used. Social distancing might be observed, but it's hard to see -- again, given how sprawling the place is -- how the Speedway will be able to keep people from congregating. And, well ...

And, well, the Blob is compelled to be Debbie Downer again.

I don't think August 23 is going to happen. I don't think the Plague will have abated enough, if at all, for it to be feasible for 175,000 to gather in one place, albeit a really, really big place.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope the country regains its sanity before then. But I'm not holding my breath.

Though that's probably a good idea right now.