EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsFor the most part, the fun outran the fighting. Thank goodness.There was a lesson for us all to learn by the end of IndyCar's Freedom 250 weekend that had missiles with men in them speeding up and down the most famous streets of Washington, D.C. A message to be received whether you are one who spends all year watching America's top open-wheel racing series or you don't know a wicker bill from a duck bill.Politics don't have to ruin everything.They sure can and do. Politics ruined social media. They ruined Thanksgiving dinner. It's even managed to ruin small talk with strangers, in the school carpool line or at the airport gate or sitting in the lobby of the Jiffy Lube. Everything we do is a philosophical measuring stick. What we wear, what we say, where we live, it's all immediately framed up to try to draw an instantaneous picture of who we are and what we believe before the person doing that judging even knows our name.There are a lot of people who work very hard around the clock to keep us collectively perched on that edge, training us to do that constant measuring and then lighting the fuses that keep us perpetually arguing. Many of those antagonists work in the buildings that those IndyCars were racing around on Sunday, plenty to be found on both sides of the aisle.But here's my brilliant theory: The overwhelming majority of people don't want to engage in that stuff. We want to live our lives, love our families, pay our bills and punctuate all of the above with some occasional good times.Sunday's race was one of those good times. Was is it a thrill-a-minute show? No. Street races rarely are. It's not race winner Kyle Kirkwood's job to slow down and give us one. The street racing ace led nearly 90% of the event.But was it a spectacle? Absolutely. The world's fastest non-dragster machines, driven by a global roster of steely eyed badasses who also happen to be the nicest, most accessible bunch of immortals you'd ever hope to meet, wheeling the same race cars they use to electrify the month of May at Indianapolis, but this time with the backdrop of the United States Capitol.No matter how dysfunctional it might be inside that building, no matter how much wedge-driving noise might be generated from within it, for a little while on Sunday, that was drowned out by the noise of 700-horsepower engines and thousands of people cheering, cups in hand.The days -- heck, the minutes -- leading up to the start of that race were a barrage of political sparring. No driver, team or media member could post even the most innocuous "isn't this awesome?" photo without a torrent of divisive comments. Visits to the White House, shaking hands with the people who live in that house, it was all met with "Why the hell are you there?!" followed by "Why in the hell wouldn't they be there?!"It's no secret that Roger Penske, owner of both IndyCar as well as the series' greatest-ever team, is friends with the current administration. It's also no secret that there was concern in the ranks within his offices about voluntarily and very expensively stepping into the minefield that is D.C. However, even those who arrived in town worried ended up enjoying themselves. They especially enjoyed the amount of coverage that the race received -- good and bad -- for a series that has long struggled to get its sizable Indy 500 audience to check in for its other 17 events.And don't misunderstand the image I am making here. This wasn't a holding-hands, kumbaya session. The sense of tension and controversy was everywhere. It was there in that prerace timeline brawl. It was there in very vocal concerns from locals about shutting down streets of a city already notorious for traffic snarls. It was there in the questions about who was footing the bill (spoiler alert: This was most likely a one-time event because it cost IndyCar a reported $35 million to organize). There were racing fans who didn't watch because they disagree with the city and nation's current ruling political party. There were also some folks who watched, that wouldn't normally, because they do agree with that party.Tension has existed afterward, too. Driver Graham Rahal responded to social media criticism of the event from a U.S. Senator and a Congressman from Wisconsin, where IndyCar races three times a year, who incorrectly referred to the series as Formula 1. And conspiracy theorists have implied the race was fixed because Kirkwood is American.I've been at this long enough that I have seen politicians, be they blue or red, both cheered and booed at racetracks, from sitting U.S. Presidents and First Ladies that we all know, to state-level lawmakers you've never heard of unless you lived there. So, this is nothing new. It's just louder than it's ever been.But at every single one of those events, once the green flag was waved, all of that other stuff vanished. The event takes over. Fun wins. In the grandstands, once the racing starts, the only judging that takes place is around the racer you root for.For the 147 laps in Washington on Sunday, it was pretty fun. And compared to all the early predictable racket before and after, the race itself was socially serene.As that flag was waved by the POTUS from his seat in the street-side suites, I threw out a question to both X and Instagram: "I'm curious. Can you watch today's IndyCar event in D.C. and just enjoy the race for the race?" On both platforms, "Yes" won over "No" by a 2-to-1 margin.You know what? These days, I'll take that.Proof that when we want to, when we are given something as cool as race cars to occupy our minds and time, we can indeed all get along just fine for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Now let's work on the rest of it.
