If you’re going to watch one football game a year, it’s probably going to be the Super Bowl. And if you watch one car race, it’s going to be the Indy 500.

The Super Bowl is better on TV than in person: You can’t see the field well from the stands, and you miss all the commercials. The Indy 500 is better in person. It’s loud – so loud that vibrations from the speeding cars shake you in the stands. It’s constantly thrilling: Even under a yellow flag (which means a hazard on the track), competitors are still driving and strategizing rather than standing around scratching themselves. And its opening ceremony is more stirring than Alicia Keys on piano, as grown men drinking Coors Lights before noon sniffle after Jim Nabors belts out “Back Home Again in Indiana.” (Congrats to Jim and new lawfully wedded husband, Stan.)

The race has more history than the Super Bowl does (103 years vs. 46); a greater concentration of all-star families (the Bettenhausens, Unsers, Andrettis, Mears, etc.); and its characters are every bit as colorful as football’s: I’ll take A.J. Foyt, the crabbiest person in pro sports, drunk Al Unser Jr., and wall-climber Helio Castroneves over Ray Lewis any day.