As IndyCar Season Ends, Time To Revisit 'The Offseason'
Today is the first Sunday without an IndyCar race, but IndyCar’s offseason is better than most. Three years ago, ‘The Offseason’ happened and was glorious.
If you’re disappointed that there isn’t an IndyCar race today, allow us to direct you toward “The Offseason.”
No, we’re not referring to the downtime that IndyCar teams are currently enjoying. Three years ago the league came up with the brilliant idea to put together a parody of the hit TV comedy The Office, featuring a quartet of IndyCar drivers as seasonal employees working for the league when not in their cars.
Working might be a loose term because every episode generally consisted of them trying to one-up or get back at each other.
But back when Josef Newgarden drove for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, James Hinchcliffe was still with Andretti, Charlie Kimball repped that glorious orange and blue paint scheme and Will Power had fluffier hair, we had “The Offseason.” And it was hands-down some of the best videos that IndyCar has ever produced. Watch the first episode below:
Later installments featured scenes like Hinch’s inability to figure out the office copier, a conference room meeting that got way off track, and the obligatory round of rolling chair racing. Everything that you’d expect from a regular day at the office was somewhere in here.
But the ninth episode, in which Hinchcliffe and Power get into a heated exchange in the IndyCar break room with Kimball as a deadpan bystander, was hilarious enough that it was worthy of a comedic Emmy. If they gave them out for sports-related web videos.
Sadly, there were only ten episodes of “The Offseason” made. IndyCar moved on to trying other types of videos to keep fans interested between seasons, most recently having stand-up comedian Damien Power conduct awkward interviews with his brother’s colleagues. There have been a few creative ideas, but nothing has ever come close to the entertainment value of “The Offseason.”
The series allowed the personalities of the four featured drivers to shine, and they delivered their lines with some pretty good timing for people who aren’t actors. And the material they were working with was actually legitimately funny. You could really imagine Hinchcliffe keeping Power locked out of the building just for his own amusement.
We think it’s time for the series to make a comeback. Could you imagine a 2016 edition with Helio Castroneves doing anything? Mikhail Aleshin being the new guy sent in from the international office? Or Conor Daly catching something in the microwave on fire? Make it happen, IndyCar. The offseason just isn’t the same without “The Offseason.”
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