A general view of Scott Dixon leading the pack at the 2008 Indianapolis 500. Photo / Getty Images
A general view of Scott Dixon leading the pack at the 2008 Indianapolis 500. Photo / Getty Images
Sky TV and more specifically MySky has a lot to answer for.
Without it I might have time to indulge in mountain climbing, training to be an astronaut, possibly even ultra marathon running or maybe ten pin bowling.
I would certainly spend a whole lot more time out fishing.
Instead I will be glued to the TV, and possibly the couch, yet again while watching both live and recorded motorsport (and a bit of rugby it has to be said) as this weekend is one of those marathon weekends of motorsport with two famous 'jewel in the crown' iconic events taking place.
We have the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500, the self styled 'Greatest Spectacle in Racing' at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 'The Motor Racing Capital of the World', with Scott Dixon starting from pole position.
We also have the, so called, 75th running of the Monaco Grand Prix, which is far too classy to even think about the sort of self-promotion that it's American cousin espouses, and a comparative youngster with a race first run in 1929 but continuously since 1955 with the world championship status only regularly attached since that date.
With Dixon starting as the fastest qualifying driver and Fernando Alonso not so very far behind him on the second row, the Indy 500 will surely be compulsive viewing for anybody in New Zealand remotely interested in motorsport.
Each event has it's own following and after multiple visits, both in a working capacity and as a fan, I can honestly say that the Indy experience comes out on top, by a distance.
Perhaps my opinion is tainted by my early years when the paddock area was so far from the pits that most of each day was spent lugging equipment from one place to the other as there was nowhere in the pit lane for the mass of stuff needed to run the cars to be left overnight.
The area became public property as soon as the practice sessions, qualifying and race were over. Fair to say that chaos ensued almost with the drop of the chequered flag. The haughty Monegasque Gendarmerie added nothing to any good experience.
That was the Jekyll about it but the Hyde part - wow! A heck of a place to have fun. Ostentatious in the extreme and expensive beyond the normal budget. Except, strangely enough the famous Casino de Monte-Carlo where anyone can play the tables as long as they pay the ten euros entry, anyone who is not a Monegasque that is, they are banned from gambling.
I never did break the bank there.
There is a glamour at Monaco that the small mid-west city of Indianapolis could never match but that city does have the world's biggest one day sporting event in terms of crowds and some of the world's biggest celebrities dragging the glamour in with them.
The two events attract crowds as diverse as the nations in which they are held with the social divide most apparent at the millionaires playground of Monaco, with the 'haves' and the brash 'corporates' - white shoes and gold neck chains glinting as they escort their long legged 'lovelies' onto the huge overpriced yachts - staying in the Principality's hotels (all with a five day minimum stay clause to further squeeze money out of those expense accounts) and the 'have nots' being the tourists flooding in from the comparatively cheap hotels and campsites in Italy and France on a daily basis.
As a Grand Prix destination it is an event that every F1 fan really should visit, if only once.
Business is done at Monaco, racing is done at Indy.
The Monaco Grand Prix is a jewel in the crown of F1. Photo / Getty Images
In 1961 the Indy 500 was dropped from the Formula 1 world championship series then in 1987 the date of the race at Monaco was changed from the traditional Ascension Day weekend to clash directly with the well established Indy tradition of holding the 500 event on the US Federal holiday of Memorial Day weekend.
This was done, popular opinion has it, because then ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone desperately wanted to make it impossible for Formula 1 drivers to also drive at Indy and therefore keeping the focus on Monaco.
One Bernard Charles Ecclestone himself entered the race at Monaco in 1958 driving a Connaught Alta but along with 14 others, failed to qualify.
The Indy 500 used to be part of 'The Month of May', an extravaganza of daylong practice sessions, qualifying and the famous 'Bump Day' when those who had not qualified for the race had the chance to bump their way onto the grid by going faster than the last qualifier.
Since those days when over 40 cars were entered costs and a decline in the popularity of IndyCar racing as a whole have trimmed the entry numbers but never less than the maximum and traditional minimum number of 33 cars to line up for the start.
The American obsession with tradition, a word that comes up in almost every fact and sentence regarding the event, runs deep at Indy. The yellow shirted marshals, some 2000 of them and called officially the 'IMS Safety Patrol', are more than a tradition, more like an institution with positions handed down from parents to children, generation upon generation.
From the drinking of the milk to the release of the balloons, from the traditional songs repeated year on year, the huge pre race festival parade through the city to the massive Borg Warner Trophy and the precise second by second scripted, four hour long, lead up to the race, the Indy 500 has a class all of it's own.
In the true American way there is little in the way of a class divide with the drivers often mingling with fans and awareness that it is those fans that make the sport what it is.
There is also true, ever present, danger at the Speedway, amply illustrated most recently by the accident that befell French driver Sebastien Bourdais in the qualifying runs.
Not a tradition but perhaps an anomaly, the most popular surname in the English speaking world is 'Smith' yet strangely no person with that name has ever entered either the 500 or any Formula 1 Grand Prix.
For some it was a surprise that two time World Champion and McLaren Formula 1 driver Alonso chose to drive at the 500 over the Monaco GP. Alonso has proved that he is a true 'racer' so it should be no surprise that he chose to attend a race where he could do just that, over what may well turn into a glamorous parade and he demonstrated just how good he is consistently in all his track runs.
It is also a fact that Dixon is rated as being one of the best ever IndyCar drivers (apart from being both a Kiwi and a really nice guy) so a Dixon first, Alonso second result would be another tradition that I would be happy to see established come Monday morning with perhaps even the Alonso 'stand in' at the Grand Prix de Monaco, in the form of Jenson Button, on the podium there.
