Tag: Indy 500

Weekend Notes

May 28, 2024 / DB

A long holiday weekend filled with guests, rain, and fun.

L had a group of girl friends over Friday night. Storms curtailed their pool time but otherwise they kicked off their summer well. Since she spends so much time with basketball girls, it’s always good to get a confirmation that she hangs out with other freshman girls sometimes. Sorry, sophomore girls!

She took me to the gym Monday morning for a shooting workout. She shot the best I’ve ever seen her shoot…until the friendly maintenance guy came over and asked me if I thought the rim was crooked. She had already told me it felt off, but something about him asking got in her head and the second half of her trip around the 3-point arc wasn’t as good as the first 40 minutes of shooting.

M had three UC girls from Ohio stay with us Saturday and Sunday nights.[1] A few local UC kids linked up with them at various points. The group took over our pool Saturday evening. Seemed like good kids and everyone had fun. M enjoyed showing off her hometown. This was the first time I’ve ever bought alcohol for my kid and her friends, which was a little odd. I thought it was funny the Ohio girls all brought drinks of their own but didn’t bring them into the house until they realize we didn’t mind if they drank as long as they stayed at our house once they started.

C ran around with friends a few times over the weekend.

Friday night M, S, and I went to a grad party. Right when we showed up heavy rains made a right turn from the path they were taking and drenched the party for about 30 minutes. Worth noting this was a mostly outdoor party, so that was kind of a bummer. We huddled in the clubhouse during the actual stormy part of the rain, then escaped to squeeze under a tent when it switched to straight rain. I ran into the guy who coached L’s St. P’s team her 8th grade year and we caught up a bit. Also saw one of the people somewhat responsible for S and I meeting 24 years ago, who was down from Michigan for the party.

It being Memorial Day weekend in Indy, the Indianapolis 500 dominated events. For a week we knew the weather would be a problem. Sure enough, just before the race was scheduled to start severe storms blew through central Indiana. We knew a lot of people at the race and apparently it was a lot of fun to go sit in cars or squeeze into shelters for the 90 or so minutes it took the storms to pass through. The four-hour delay turned an already long day into a monumental investment in time. We know people who got to the track around 6:00 AM and didn’t get home until close to midnight. That sounds horrible to me, terrific race or not.

The bonus of the storms, and the window of clear weather that followed, was that the IMS decided to waive the local TV blackout. So when the green flag dropped at 4:45, we were able to watch live for only the third time since I moved here.[2]

What a great race! Or at least the last ten laps. The last lap specifically. Two passes between winner Josef Newgarden and runner up Pato O’Ward in the final trip around the track was a lot of fun. The UC visitors were watching with us, and the Ohio girls were enthralled by the finish.

Monday we had our family gathering, with most of the locals present. I had two grills going to feed everyone. It was also the 8th birthday for one of our nephews, so there was cake and presents. Another round of storms came through late Sunday/early Monday and made it a blustery and cooler day. I cranked up the pool heater and the nephews didn’t seem to mind, although none of the parents or our girls got into the pool with them.

I had a moment over the weekend when I had some longing for old school holiday weekends, when your favorite radio station had a Block Party Weekend, or some other gimmick to get people to tune in. I remember an All Eighties Weekend around July 4 in the late 90s, which seemed like such a crazy idea. Imagine playing nothing but 80s music!!! It seemed like everywhere we went that weekend, people our age had that station on and we talked about how great the selections were.

Anyway, I realized that The Bridge, the eclectic KC radio station I stream sometimes, was doing a block party deal, and the iHeart Radio AT40 station was playing a marathon of year-end countdowns. I’m sure other outlets had gimmicks, too. The problem is me, and how I just don’t listen to any radio feeds for more than when I’m making/eating lunch or dinner or otherwise hanging in the kitchen. Otherwise it is all streaming playlists I have made myself, or whatever new album I’m spinning on Spotify.

Pacers…man, what a disappointing week. They had game one locked up until Tyrese Haliburton made a horrible, unforced turnover, Rick Carlisle failed to call a timeout to advance the ball which led to an awful turnover which led to an unforgivable defensive lapse that led to Jaylon Brown sending the game to overtime with a corner three. And still the Pacers had a chance, until Haliburton again sucked in the final minute of OT.

Then in game two, they were hanging in there, battling, down just four in the second half. I left to help S do a few things to get ready for weekend guests. I was away from the TV for maybe five minutes. When I came back the Celtics were up 15, Haliburton was in the locker room injured, and Pascal Siakam, who had been torching the C’s, was on the bench with the rest of the starters.

Game three, again, was right in the Pacers’ hands. Even without Haliburton, who re-aggravated his hamstring injury that derailed the second half of his season, the Pacers built an 18-point second half lead. They blew the entire thing, losing by three. They became the first team in the last 25 years to lead two NBA playoff games by five in the last two minutes and lose each. They became the first NBA team to ever shoot over 51% in the first three games and lose them all.

Last night’s collapse to give the C’s the sweep was inevitable. The Pacers failed to score a point in the final 3:33 and again lost by three.

The Celtics are clearly the better team. The Pacers lost their best player seven quarters into the series. Yet they could have easily been up 3–1 this morning, headed back to Boston. This team is so flawed on the defensive end and on the boards, yet they are so good offensively they still almost make up for it against maybe the best team in the league. If I was a Boston fan, I’d be worried that my team couldn’t put away a team that was missing their star and plays defense like the entire team has five fouls and don’t want to pick up their sixth.

Great, fun season, though. If Haliburton hadn’t gotten hurt in January, maybe they are higher in the playoff seeding. But that would have robbed us of the dramatic wins over the Bucks and Knicks to get to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Fingers crossed they re-sign Siakam. There is a ton of talent on the wing. Is Ben Mathurin the perfect third cog with Haliburton and Siakam? Maybe they move a couple of those guys to both clear playing time and find another solid defender/rebounder. Maybe rookie Jarace Walker is ready to contribute next year, as he seems perfectly designed to fill that role. They really need another big body. They don’t have a first round pick but do have three second round picks to play with. Should be an interesting summer for a team on the rise.

One from outside Cleveland, one from Dayton, one from Cincinnati. ↩
The other two times were the 100th running, which was sold out months in advance, and the delayed 2020 race that had no one in the stands due to Covid. ↩

Racin’

August 24, 2020 / DB

I swore that I had written a detailed breakdown back in 2004 of my first Indianapolis 500 weekend living here, which until this year was the strangest Indy 500 day of that era. Alas, after checking the archives, I found I wrote way more about the crazy weather that day than about my experience on my first race day as an Indiana resident.

Yesterday was way stranger than 2004, which just featured tornado warnings as the race was ending. But, then again, everything is way stranger this year than any other year, right?

For starters it was super weird having the race in August. It just didn’t feel right. The entire month of May in Indianapolis revolves around the race. There is the Mini-Marathon, which includes a lap around the track, early in May. There’s the Grand Prix race, a recent addition but a nice warmup. Then there’s qualifying weekend, Carb Day, and the slow build up to race day itself. Once the calendar flips from April to May, the entire area has a different vibe that you can’t miss even if you don’t care about the race. Houses have checkered flags hanging from their porches, their mailboxes, or along their fences. You see people in certain industries associated with the race driving cars that are stamped with the race’s logo. The race is inescapable.

All of that was lost with the delay to August. I know I wasn’t the only person who, a week ago, said, “Oh, the race is next weekend?!?!” Even with qualifying and practice it still did not feel like the same buildup of energy and attention that comes in a normal year.

No spectators at the race was weird. I’ve only been to the race once, which was enough for me. But it is a normal part of life in Indy to know which of your friends are going, where they are sitting, if they have a “secret” route to the Speedway that cuts 15 minutes off their commute, etc.

And then the ending of the race was weird and disappointing. A single-car crash with five laps to go forced the race to end under yellow, robbing us of a potentially epic ending. Sure, the yellow finish could have happened in any other year, but it happening seemed extremely appropriate for 2020.

It was also strange for the race to be shown live in Indy. That only happened once, a couple years ago on the race’s 100th edition, when the Speedway was sold out weeks in advance. Normally Indy residents listen to the race on the radio – to what is a shockingly good broadcast – and then watch the replay in the evening if the race was exciting. But this year, with the stands shut, we were able to watch live on NBC with the rest of the country. I had the TV out by the pool on but had to duck inside soon after the race began to avoid the heat. It was funny to peek outside and get a five-second preview of what was about to happen thanks the to difference between getting the signal over the air versus via cable.

Normally the race-day flyover circles around the metro area as it times out its approach to the track properly. Last year a group of military planes of mixed vintages flew directly over our house twice before heading to the track. So I was very disappointed that the Thunderbirds didn’t come over our house. I could hear them once, as they veered away from Speedway and then back toward it, but could not actually see them.

As with every modified sporting event of this summer, I was thankful the race happened and hopeful that next May will bring a return to normalcy at the track and around our city.

With the exception of while we were away in Captiva, we have not eaten in a restaurant since early March. We finally broke that string Saturday, going out to lunch at a spot that we used to go regularly before we moved. We were hoping to sit outside but only two of the tables had umbrellas and those were both filled, so we took a booth inside. Which ended up being fine, as it was fairly early and there were only two other groups inside. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was weird. You want to support locally owned places that are struggling to stay afloat. But I’m also not super excited to make dining-in a regular activity again just yet.

“Hell is Real”

May 31, 2018 / DB

I’ve never checked out the infield portion of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the 500 mile race. I’m likely too old to do so. Or at least too old and with too low tolerances for drinking in the heat. But it’s good to know that even if tamer than in its glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, the Snake Pit is still a den of debauchery and mayhem on race day.

Hell Is Real, And It’s the Infield of the Indy 500

Ashley And Me

May 31, 2010 / DB

I’ve lived in Indiana for nearly seven years now. In that time, I’ve been to three Notre Dame football games, an Indiana basketball game, a Purdue football game, a Colts (preseason) game, and a Pacers game. I’ve also watched high school basketball players like Josh McRoberts, Eric Gordon, Michael Conley, and Greg Oden. My Indiana sports resume had two glaring omissions, however. I’ve yet to go to a Butler game at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and I’ve never been to an Indianapolis 500.

Notice I said had. I knocked a big one off the list by attending my first Indy 500 on Sunday.

Why did it take me seven years to get to a race? Well, I’m not a big race fan for starters. Sitting in the heat for hours watching cars go around the track over-and-over never appealed to me. Also, this is the first spring since we moved here that we’ve not either been pregnant or had a sub one-year-old in the house. Finally, I’ve heard the horror stories about people getting stuck in traffic for hours. I thought the smart move was just to take that option out of the equation by staying home and listening to the race and then watching the replay that night.

But my step-dad decided he wanted to go to the race this year,¹ so I bucked up and decided I should see what the fuss is all about.

I had two big goals for the day: make the commute as stress-free as possible and avoid a blistering sunburn.

We packed up and left the house at 8:00 a.m. In 45 minutes we came to a grinding halt, but we were a mile from the track. It took another 30 minutes to crawl closer and find a decent parking spot, followed by a 15-20 minute walk to the track. After picking up our tickets we were in our seats at 10:00. A totally acceptable commute when roughly 250,000² people are trying to get to do the same thing.

We walked around a bit, but without pit passes, we couldn’t see a whole lot of good stuff. So we returned to our seats and waited. And waited. And waited. The race didn’t start until 1:00 and there really wasn’t much going on until 11:30 or so, when they began towing the cars out to the starting grid. I slathered on sunscreen and did some people watching.

Oh, our seats were decent, but not great. We were in the main straightaway, across from the entrance to pit row. But we were very low, just five rows up, limiting our field of view. We could see down to turn four, then roughly half of the main straightaway before the cars disappeared from view. It would have been nicer to be higher up so we could see more of the front side of the track.

Also, we were right in the sun. As we sat and waited, we baked. My stepdad and his friend were smart enough to go up into the higher seats that were shaded. I chose to stay in our seats and guard the cooler. Luckily, the sunscreen came through and I did not get burned. I was drenched in sweat, though. Thankfully, just as the race started, the sun passed behind the overhang and we were in the shade.³

After all the pre-race festivities, it was finally race time. Three parade laps and then the green flag dropped. Everyone I’ve talked to who has been to a race, whether IRL or NASCAR, has said there’s nothing like the opening lap, when all the cars are bunched together and each throttle is floored. I can report those claims are accurate. It’s pretty amazing to have 33 cars come to speed right in front of you and blow past. Everyone stands and cheers and there’s a sense of relief that the waiting is over and the event is finally starting.

Once the cars pass, everyone shifts view to the many video boards that show the action. It took about 15 seconds before a collective “OOOOOOH!” went up and everyone pointed at the screens. A crash on lap one! By the time the cars came around again, the pace car was back in front and they were slowed down to caution speed.

A few laps of yellow, clean up, and we went back to green. That was the upside to our seats, each time there was a restart we got to see them shoot out of turn four and rocket towards the start-finish line. The sound is the same as you hear on TV, just a lot louder, obviously. But one difference is you hear the cars literally ripping through the air. It sounds a little like a flag whipping around in a heavy wind, times about 100. It’s odd because you hear that sound before the car passes.

A couple laps later, another yellow. Was it going to be one of those days?

Fortunately, things improved from there on. There were a few wrecks, but there were also long stretches of uninterrupted racing. In the early laps after a restart, it’s interesting to have 15-20 seconds of relative silence as the cars circle the opposite side of the track. You can’t hear the person next to you when the cars go by, so people try to squeeze in quick conversations during those breaks. They don’t last long, though. Within a few laps, the cars have stretched out and the stragglers are well behind the leaders. Also, a significant chunk of the fans wear some kind of hearing protection, either ear plugs or heavy headphones. It’s tough to hold a conversation when your ears are stopped up.

It was obvious early Dario Franchitti had the best car. He took the lead from the start, and once they had a long stretch without yellows, he blew the field away. At one point he would race by us and we would look to turn four and still not see the second place car. His lead was up to ten seconds at one point, which is nearly a third of a lap.

While a lot of the established drivers are very popular, there is an obvious fan-favorite at Indy: Tony Kanaan. He’s been close many times, but hasn’t been able to get a win at Indy. This year he had a horrible qualifying weekend and ended up squeezing into the field in the final position. But everyone knew if his car was right, he had a chance to get into the mix before the race was over.

That was the case. He quickly worked his way through the field. The announcers, recognizing his popularity, gave frequent updates on his position. “Race fans, Tony Kanaan is up to 12th place!” Cheers from all. When Kanaan jumped up to second, everyone jumped to their feet and tried to will him to catch Franchitti.

The big down-side to being at a race is you don’t get all the information that viewers at home get. While there are announcers over the PA, you can’t always hear them. So, after a final yellow with 20 laps to go, it was hard to know exactly what was going on. Franchitti had fallen to fifth, but two drivers in front of him still needed to pit. Helio Castroneves was in the mix, but he was right on the edge of needing to pit before the checkered flag. And Kanaan was lurking.

Franchitti suddenly looked slow. Was he conserving fuel, or had he lost whatever magic was in his car?

So we get to the final ten laps and it’s looking like a shootout to the finish. Helio takes the lead. But with eight laps to go he shoots into the pits for a splash of fuel. People in the stands look at each other in confusion. Three laps later, Kanaan does the same thing. There’s dismay in the crowd. What the hell is he doing?

From what we can hear over the PA, Franchitti may have just enough fuel to finish, but it’s going to be very close. Were Helio and Tony gambling that Dario wouldn’t make it to the finish and hope they can work their way through traffic back to the front? I guess.

The white flag comes out and Dario is going even slower. Is he on empty? Where are Helio and Tony? Can they pass him? Suddenly, a big gasp goes up in the crowd. The video boards show a massive wreck in turn three. A car is airborne, crashes into the fence, and disintegrates while sitting on top of another. The yellow comes out. Who is in the lead?

The video boards show Dario cruising along the interior lane on the back stretch. If he can muster another half lap out of his car, he’s the winner, as positions are locked because of the yellow. He makes it, with fuel to spare, and wins his second Indy 500 under caution. Dario may not be as popular as Kanaan, but he is well-liked in Indy, and now we had the added bonus of getting to see Ashley Judd celebrate! Helio finished ninth, Tony 11th. Danica Patrick, who had a rough month and was booed by the crowd both after qualifying and in Sunday’s introductions, took sixth.

Then came the mad dash to the parking lots. People arrive in waves, but after the race, most try like hell to get out fast. The streets are mobbed with people, some of whom have been drinking since early in the morning. I had a cute girl who maybe weighed 100 pounds slam into me and not even notice. She just kept walking forward, trying to stay upright.

We got to our car quickly, merged into traffic, and were back on the interstate moments later. We left our seats at about 4:20. We were home an hour later. If you park in the right spot and hustle out of the Speedway, you can make very good time.⁴

So my first visit to the Indianapolis 500 was a success. No sunburn, decent commute, fun race. My only real disappointment was that we only saw part of one wreck. It’s not that I had a morose desire to see drivers get maimed. I just wanted to see how a crash when you are mere feet away compares to seeing one on television. We saw a car that had run into the wall coming out of turn four bounce across and hit the wall that separates the main raceway from the pits. Nothing very spectacular.

Anyway, I can mark that off the old Indiana sports to do list. Now to get to a Butler game…

He went several years in the early 80s and has always been a fan of the race and its history. ↩
Allegedly. The IMS does not release official attendance statistics for races they host. So it was an estimated crowd. There were lots of empty seats, though, so while the crowd was massive, it still is a far cry from the race’s glory days. ↩
During the race we learned it was the hottest Indy 500 ever, with the air temperature reaching 96 and the track temperature going over 130. Thank goodness we weren’t in the sun the entire time. ↩
On a normal day, it’s a 20-30 minute drive from our house to the Speedway. ↩

A Day At The Races

May 19, 2007 / DB

It was a, how shall I put this, fast paced Saturday for us. First, I ran my second 5K of the year in the morning. The last race I ran was longer than 3.1 miles, and this one might have been shorter because I came in at less than 27 minutes, and I wasn’t running hard enough to clock that good of a time. Oh, and I’ve been running like once a week, so it’s not like I’m on some great training regimen that cut my time down. It was a fundraiser for a local middle school, so I think there were more kids running than adults, which ended up being mildly annoying. I had at least three kids stop right in front of me and turn around to see where their friends were. One girl did it four times, and if she hadn’t been like 4’4”, I thought about plowing her over to teach her a lesson the fourth time.

Then, in the big excitement of the day, I finally made it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. S.’s hospital had an event that they gave us tickets to, so we got a sitter and headed out to the track. I’ve been by the Speedway once or twice, but never actually in it. When we drove under the track and into the infield, I was amazed at how big the facility is. From watching the race, you know it’s about a mile from one end to the other, but when you’re actually in the middle of it and can sense the space, it’s pretty amazing. We got to the track just as it was opening for practice and qualifying, so right away we could hear a car zooming around us, taking 40-odd seconds to travel the same distance it took me about 20 minutes to run earlier in the morning.

When we got over to the pit area, this year’s Flavor of the Month, <a href=”http://www.sports-wired.com/women/Milka_Dunno.html”>Milka Dunno</a>, had just emerged to talk to the press after her qualifying run. She was all smiles and waved to everyone. We were probably 30 feet away from her, but behind two rails that kept the riff-raff out, and about 30 media people who were crowded around her. I got a couple poor pictures of her. A sister-in-law had gone to Friday’s practice session and said Milka was hugging people and taking pictures. I was really hoping for a hug.

We repaired to the suite were the hospital crew was set up, ate some lunch, and kept an eye on the TV to see when full practice, and a track full of cars, would start. Our suite was at track level, and behind pit row, so we couldn’t actually see any action from where we were. When 11 cars hit the track, we raced out (get it, raced out?!?!?) and grabbed some seats to watch. I’m no fan of auto racing, but I have to say it was very impressive both seeing and hearing the cars shoot by at 220 miles per hour. We were sitting just past the start-finish line, and from the time the cars got about one-third of the way down the front stretch, you couldn’t hear the person next to you. I can’t imagine how loud it is when NASCAR racing is going on. I tried to take some pics, but the cars are just too fast to capture with a basic Canon digital camera. Luckily, I got a few vids, low resolution which look pretty crappy when funneled through YouTube. But here’s one.

We watched for about 20 minutes, went back to the suite, then used our garage passes to wander around all the team garages. We timed it wrong, and hardly saw any cars out of the garages or drivers wandering around. There was a constant crowd around Danica Patrick’s garage, but no signs of her. I once heard a woman ask one of the crew members who was hanging around, in a whiny tone, “Is she in there?” And there was Danica gear everywhere. It’s pretty impressive how popular she’s become without ever winning a single IRL race. All day I kept thinking of last week’s The Office and wanting to put Kevin to work on a Danica vs. Milka list. Now there’s a productive use of time!

We headed back to our seats one more time to watch Al Unser Jr. wrap-up his qualifying run. The old timers are very popular, and he got a huge ovation when he qualified. On our way out we went down to track level, just behind pit row to watch from there. With all the people who have pit access, and the flat sight lines, you literally only see the cars for an instant as the shoot by.

It should go without saying that there was excellent people watching. Lots of silicone-filled racing groupies. Lots of women who were dressed like groupies but really should not have exposed any skin. Lots of folks who, well, just come from a different world than a suburban boy like me. Not saying they’re bad people, just very, very different. And everyone was very nice, regardless of how they looked or where they came from.

It was very cool, I will admit. However, I can’t imagine watching that for three hours. You can only see a portion of the track from your seats. I’m sure if you do it enough, you develop a system for figuring out what’s going on, but if something important happens on the half of the track you can’t see (and that’s if you have good seats), you have to rely on the TV screens to figure it out. It’s like only being able to see half the field in a football game. “What? There was a fumble?” Just a strange sensation. And on race day, with 33 cars spread out over the length of the track, I don’t think you could talk to anyone for the entire race, which would be maddening. I would like to go to a NASCAR practice, I’ve always said that, just to experience the sounds of that kind of racing. And I will happily accept if the hospital does this again next year. But I don’t see me sitting at the Speedway for an entire race. But another notch in my famous places in Indiana visited list.