When I started attending races regularly in person I started understanding this. Any US driver really gets the fans pumped. Weirdly the more mid they are they stronger the response. Conor Daly blows out the curve because he's a local kid at IMS but seeing people lose their shit over Rossi and Rahal makes you wonder what they're on.
JFC I haven't booked a room for this yet. I need to get on that. It's going to be a weird summer for me race schedule-wise.
And yeah. I don't actually doubt... Like Roger's an orange man fan to some extent, that's actually true. But the inability to decouple from how it's the country's 250th birthday and there is just no saying no to this opportunity boggles me, even the commentators are sketchy about it. Whatever, if it gets me more fans with money at the stands and makes Reddit go off to endure watching nuF1 this year, I'll be cool.