IndyCar's Freedom 250 sparked debate ahead of Sunday's race in Washington, D. C., but for the three hours of racing, the sport was the big winner. For the most part, the fun outran the fighting.

Thank goodness. There was a lesson for us all to learn by the end of Indy Car's Freedom 250 weekend that had missiles with men in them speeding up and down the most famous streets of Washington, D. C.

A message to be received whether you are one who spends all year watching America's top open-wheel racing series or you don't know a wicker bill from a duck bill. Politics don't have to ruin everything. They sure can and do.

Politics ruined social media. They ruined Thanksgiving dinner. It's even managed to ruin small talk with strangers, in the school carpool line or at the airport gate or sitting in the lobby of the Jiffy Lube.

Everything we do is a philosophical measuring stick. What we wear, what we say, where we live, it's all immediately framed up to try to draw an instantaneous picture of who we are and what we believe before the person doing that judging even knows our name. There are a lot of people who work very hard around the clock to keep us collectively perched on that edge, training us to do that constant measuring and then lighting the fuses that keep us perpetually arguing.

Many of those antagonists work in the buildings that those Indy Cars were racing around on Sunday, plenty to be found on both sides of the aisle. But here's my brilliant theory: The overwhelming majority of people don't want to engage in that stuff. We want to live our lives, love our families, pay our bills and punctuate all of the above with some occasional good times.

Sunday's race was one of those good times. Was is it a thrill-a-minute show? No. Street races rarely are. It's not race winner Kyle Kirkwood's job to slow down and give us one.

The street racing ace led nearly 90% of the event. But was it a spectacle? Absolutely. The world's fastest non-dragster machines, driven by a global roster of steely eyed badasses who also happen to be the nicest, most accessible bunch of immortals you would ever hope to meet, wheeling the same race cars they use to electrify the month of May at Indianapolis, but this time with the backdrop of the United States Capitol.

No matter how dysfunctional it might be inside that building, no matter how much wedge-driving noise might be generated from within it, for a little while on Sunday, that was drowned out by the noise of 700-horsepower engines and thousands of people cheering, cups in hand. The days -- heck, the minutes -- leading up to the start of that race were a barrage of political sparring. No driver, team or media member could post even the most innocuous "isn't this awesome?" photo without a torrent of divisive comments.

Visits to the White House, shaking hands with the people who live in that house, it was all met with "Why the hell are you there?!".