Fans Were Split On Natalie Grant's Rendition Of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At The Indy 500

The Indianapolis 500 is a deep-fried slice of Americana, which is why getting the nod to sing the national anthem is a major honor, and this year that honor went to singer Natalie Grant.

And, unfortunately, fans weren't digging it.

Grant did her thing a bit longer than usual before the engines fired up because of rain.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is far from the worst rendition of the anthem we've ever heard.

Having said that, Grant definitely threw a little spice on that one, and that rarely goes over well with people, but others seemed to like it.

I always thought of singing the national anthem as being similar to kicking extra points. It's one of those things where if you just go do your thing successfully, most people won't remember.

However, if you mess up — or people feel as though you've messed up — everyone comes for your throat.

It's a high-risk, low-reward situation because you could sing the greatest rendition of the anthem ever, and you're never going to get anyone to stream it on Spotify.

But hey, if anyone was upset about Grant's rendition of the anthem — which is a weir thing to get upset about, but you do you — we got what is without question the most badass pace laps I think anyone has ever seen as a pair of Apache helicopters followed the field to celebrate 250 years of the United States Army.

How cool is that? Can we do that every week? I think we need this every single week.

Unfortunately, the start of the race got a little bit clunky thanks to a heartbreaking retirement for Team Penske's Scott McLaughlin and another for Marco Andretti, who crashed out of the race before even making it through the first turn.