A few IndyCar thoughts

Binged the latest season of Netflix' "Formula One: Drive to Survive" over the weekend, and then I watched the IndyCar season opener from St. Pete (or as I call it, "The start of real racing in America"). And it got me thinking.

What if Netflix or Hulu or Paramount or HBO were to do a "Drive to Survive" series on IndyCar?

Look, it'll probably never happen, because IndyCar doesn't draw enough eyeballs (outside of the Indianapolis 500) to make it anything but a loss leader. But the IndyCar storylines and the driver lineup and the competition are as compelling as they've ever been. If not now, when?

Let's take St. Pete for instance.

It opened yesterday with a huge crash in the back of the field on Lap 1, which got the race (and season) red-flagged right from the jump. Then you had surprise polesitter Romain Grosjean and Penske rising star Scott McLaughlin battling it out until McLaughlin failed to lift going into a tight right-hander as Grosjean edged ahead.

Both of them wound up crashing into the tire barrier. Grosjean was so furious he pounded his fists on the tires.

Who wouldn't have wanted to hear him on the in-car at that moment, vis-a-vis "Drive to Survive"?

Ditto Pato O'Ward when his engine almost literally hiccupped as he was trying to hold off Marcus Ericsson with  three laps to run. Ericsson flew by for the win.  

Wouldn't you have loved to have heard Pato's in-car at that moment? Wouldn't you have love to seen the "Drive to Survive" cameras follow Andretti Autosport through a frustrating day?

Started one-two on the grid; wound up with only Kyle Kirkwood among their four entries still running. Kirkwood finished 15th, three laps down, after he, too, was involved in a crash.

Meanwhile, old head Scott Dixon quietly finished third. And another old head, defending series champ Will Power, quietly finished seventh.

Lotta storylines there. Unfortunately ...

Unfortunately, if a streaming service were to give the "Drive to Survive" treatment (and fandom boost) to an American racing series, it undoubtedly would be NASCAR.

Ah, well.