SPORTRITE - Dixon roar quells little voice of conscience

With Tim Eves
APART from being well impressed as Scott Dixon hurtled at the front of the field around the speedway at Indianapolis, a dark and most inappropriate thought flashed into the subconscious.
Don't get too wound up, this mindstorm had nothing at all to do with the `pit-girls' or Danica Patrick, that new face of racing that seems to flash into our television screens no matter what the issue about Indy-car racing is.
Fans go wild at the Indy? Crikey, best we have a picture of Danica Patrick posing in/on or somewhere near a race car then.
No, the wicked little voice piped up and asked this one: Just how much benzine did Scott Dixon use to drive his state-of-the-art wagon around the tarmac at Indianapolis 200 times?
Honestly, until motor racing sports are either seriously curtailed or banished altogether, it is very difficult to believe that the planet is in such a perilous state that we need to trade our youngest born to a well-heeled sultan just to get our hands on a barrell of oil.
Just what is the "global footprint" of the Indianapolis 500? There must be a few carbon credits left owing after that little gathering of the petrolled-ones.
Not that global footprints are restricted to motorsports. Consider the costs - in carbon credit terms - for the return flights of Super 14 rugby players and their entourages between Auckland and South Africa. That's about 50,000 tonnes of carbon. To offset this somebody has to start planting trees. Furiously.
An area of tropical rainforest about the equivalent of 550 Eden Parks should do the trick.
Not that we took any notice of the little voice, you understand. The suspicion is the little voice originates from a bloke who has sniffed far too many exhaust fumes to make sense.
Anyway, we can't be thinking along such heathenish lines just seven days before the NAC Insurance Hella International Rally of Whangarei rumbles into town. Some of the best exponents of driving extremely fast on roads you should drive very slowly on will be in town next weekend - and their petrol tankers.
So best to stick to the more popular story of this year's Indianapolis 500, a feelgood tale of a kid from Manurewa who, in true Kiwi-battler style, only managed to kick-start his motor-racing career by strapping a pillow to his buttocks - so he could see over the steering wheel, you understand.
For the real Indy 500 fans - the millions who follow the sport with a dangerously maniacal fervour - Monday's race marked the end of a decade-long civil war that split the sport into rival leagues, almost ? la that "Superleague versus ARL rugby league" spat.
Any event attracting a walk-up crowd of 200,000 is a sign that any war is effectively over.
But then the Indianapolis 500 this year, just like almost every Formula One race me and my little voice have watched, and almost every World Rally Championship (WRC) leg, seems to be decided not so much by what happens on the race track, but more commonly determined by what happens off it.
Sorry, but Dixon's win in the 92nd running of what was once called "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" seemed to be a bit sloppy.
The best manoeuvre of the afternoon was the one that Dixon pulled to beat then-leader Vitor Meira - in pit lane. With the yellow caution flag flying and 29 of the 200 laps left to go. The New Zealander never faced a serious challenge after that. The yellow flag was flying after one of 10 crashes during the race.
But that might just be that little voice again. The voice obviously needs to be doused in petrol or turned into fertiliser for a tree.