Well, I went down to the Indy 500 this weekend, thanks to my friend Kassie who used to be in radio in Indy -- so she had connections for us all weekend. I paid for nothing other than gas to Indy, and a cheap stinky hotel room for one night. Free tickets, pits passes, and VIP tickets to all the celebrity parties with free food and drink. We were at three parties with random celebrities and athletes who had come as part of some PR thing for the racing team. Many of the drivers were there, along with Chip Foose, Ludacris, Patrick Dempsey, Kato Katlin, Gene Simmons of KISS, Jim Caviezel, Kim Coates, William Fichtner, Robert Knepper, Sean Salisbury from ESPN, Carmelo Anthony, Shannon Sharpe, Javon Walker, Darren Sharper, Gary Baxter, Jason Baker, Derrick McKey, Gerome Sapp and most of the Colts, etc. Our police escort into the Speedway, riding with the Indianapolis Colts players, saved us about four hours of time spent sitting in traffic.

Anyway, it was a great time. There is nothing like seeing the cars roar past you at 225 MPH, when you are about 40-50 feet away. TV cannot compare. The sound alone is worth going. Here is a video clip I shot from the stands...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEWr5TsiNB4

Another interesting thing was that the entire field of cars in the Indy 500 this year were 3.5 liter Honda V8 engines... Now if we could only swap those into our RLs to replace our 3.5 liter V6s...

Ok, now to the point of all this...there was an article in the Chicago Tribune, the day of the race, about what the IRL drivers drive, OFF the track...
Dan Wheldon, who won the Indy 500 in 2005, drives a Acura RL A-SPEC in black. "The RL is a luxury car that sensibly priced, and I love all the gadgets, like the real-time traffic information and the all-wheel drive." There is a photo of him between his IRL car and his Acura RL. Pretty cool that an Indy 500 winner would choose the Acura RL, with the income he has made from racing... I Googled his name with Acura RL, and found this as well:

Last paragraph of this article:
http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews.../interior.html

http://pressroom.target.com/pr/news/...eldon-bio.aspx

Randy

 

Now why Honda doesn't publicize this more, I do not understand. How much better of an endorsement can a sport sedan have than to have a race winning race car driver drive it as a daily driver?

 

If ACURA would put this guy with his RL in some advertising- it would be absolutely fantastic.
You cant buy better ads than an indy winner who chooses to BUY his car, and its your car.
Shows you how lame Acura advertising in USA is, although I do like the ad they do for the RL with tech I see lately

 

That's reassuring to know a professional race car driver has voluntarily chosen the RL as his off-track car of choice. Honda might put it in their magazine but any ads with Dan Wheldon endorsing the RL will cost the company dearly -- not Honda's style. The ideal medium is in car enthusiast magazines. Great news overall.

 

Great Post. Good info to know. The film clip is great too.

 

o'rly?

I'm certainly sure that Honda will use this to their advantage...at some point in the future.

 

Okay, I've gotta go to the Indy 500 next year. And the U.S. Grand Prix as well. That vid was the final straw!!!

 

"My Street car is… Acura RL with the A-spec Package"

My uncle says the same thing, haha. Except my uncle doesn't race...although i know when i tell him this, he'll DEFFINETLY get a kick out of it. Pretty sick. Many race car drivers drive Acura's...NSX's especially, very weird.

 

I think that it is because they don't want the public to think that the RL can only turn left.

 

No, that ad campaign is already running. But I'll be darned if I can remember the brand being advertised...

 

I read that article too and was very suprised by that fact, but its awsome to know.