as a participant.
The Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, as it is officially known, and in the past as "The International Speepstakes" and still called "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" is an American icon with few peers.
Now I know there are many of my fellow DU'rs who don't give a rats ass about this race and I also know there are many who are watched today's race and do so religiously.
Indulge me and allow me to give you some perspective from the point of view of a guy who was paid to be there for 6 years straight during it's true heyday - the early 1990's. What it was like, the things I hated and the things I loved about the place and the race.
The race and the track have an extraordinary history and one that is easily available by a simple Google search. I won't bore you with those details.
The first time I set foot on the grounds was in 1988, when I was working for a company owned by Drag Racer Kenny Bernstein. It was my first gig working in motor racing and in those days, the Buick Motor Division was heavily involved in every major racing series in the US. They had the Buick Regal in NASCAR, built a V-6 for the "Indy Lights" series (which was called the "American Racing Series" then), built a turbo-charged engine for Indy and a turbo-charged, intercooled engine which ran in the IMSA Prototype class in road racing. They had a big presence.
In 1989 I went to work for Ilmor Engineering, who in those days was the builder of the "Chevrolet Indy V8", a 2.65 liter, 32 valve engine that produced in excess of 650 horsepower, and spun up to better than 12,000 RPM's. As it turns out, the company I once worked for is now the exclusive re-builder of all the Honda engines used in today's race, so they get to add one more to the win category today. Congratulations to all my old friends at Ilmor in Canton, Michigan.
Back then, as it had been for decades, the race meeting lasted for 3 entire weeks - the longest race meeting of any in motorsports and likely in all sport worldwide. The next closest is probably for the 24 hours of Le Mans.
The schedule has been dramatically shortened since then, down to a mere(!) 16 days, so what follows refers to how it used to be, during the years I attended as a participant/badge holder from 1990 thru '95.
If you count backward from Memorial day weekend, race day is and always had been the Sunday before Memorial day.
The 90 days of MayIt had been referred to as such for quite a long time, as it seemed when one spent the entire month of May at the Speedway, it never ended. As a truck driver for my company, I got there the Thursday before opening weekend and when you go to the track every day at 6 or 7 AM and leave at 6 or 7 PM, day in and day out for almost an entire month, you get to the point where you want to be almost ANYWHERE else. The month just seemed to drag on, as after the excitement of Opening day and Pole Day were over, you looked at two more weeks of tedium, getting ready for the race. The Speedway property includes a golf course and in those days, 9 of the holes were inside the oval itself. I played several rounds during practice sessions, teeing off while cars roared down the back stretch. Addressing a golf ball while AJ Foyt, Rick Mears, Al Unser JR and many other famous names whizzed by at 200 MPH only a hundred yards away was quite an experience, let me tell you.
Opening DayThe Saturday 3 weeks before Memorial Day Weekend.
A big event for the Speedway and the city. Big crowd, and by that I mean a quarter million people. The place still looked almost empty as most of those were either in the infield or walking around, so the stands weren't full all the time. Still, the front stretch had a big crowd and the stands looked well populated. Back in the 90's, one tradition that popped up was the attempt by a driver for "
Dick Simon Racing to be the first on the track when the gun sounded. In all the years I attended, a Simon Racing car was indeed, the first on the track. They never won the race, however. I got to know Mr. Simon personally and he was a great personality, widely loved in the garage area. He had many rumors that followed him, including that one that suggested he was
"DB Cooper", as Dick had essentially come out of nowhere with a large sum of money and entered into racing and that coupled with the fact that he was known to be a sky diver perpetuated the myth. It was said he had been a movie stuntman in his earlier days and was tasked with jumping out of a plane to
chase a parachute, put it on in mid-free fall and float to the ground. When the director didn't get the shot quite right, Dick said he would do it again! Indy had its share of characters over the years, to be sure.
The First week of Practice After Opening weekend, the real business of prepping for Pole Day began. Teams are busy making the small changes necessary during practice to get the most out of their cars for a simple, 10 mile run. Keep in mind that qualifying for Indy is a series of 4 timed laps and a lap around Indy is 2.5 miles. So they are basically trying to get the car to run like a bat out of hell for 11 or 12 miles, including warmup and cool down laps. What goes into that process could fill a novel. There were many a Wednesday afternoon that would find 50,000 + at the Speedway watching practice sessions. I've listened in on conversations with the likes of 4 time winner Rick Mears talking about "Loaing" the suspension as he turns in to turn one, and how th front end wants to just let go and push the car toward the outside wall, called "Understeer" and how it becomes a game of riding on a knifes edge. Turning in to a 90 degree turn at 220 MPH and that turn looks like it is a HARD left hander at that speed (the turns at Indy are
exactly 1/4 mile long) ....feeling the front end wanting o let go...to push to the outside; Or hear him and others talk about how the rear end wants to come around as power is applied - called "oversteer" and how unsettling that sensation is, especially when traveling at that speed. Those drivers have my respect. Doing that would have the majority of us shitting our pants, I don't care HOW good you think you are.
Pole DayThe gates open early (6:00 AM) and the crowd is happy and enthusiastic. Back then, there was a lot of infield viewing areas and the inside of turns 3 and 1 became known over the years as the "Snake Pit" in which all sorts of debauchery took place. Literally. From prostitution to wild drunkenness, the Snake Pit was where you went if you wanted to go a bit crazy. Pole day was also the second heaviest day in the city of Indianapolis for hotel stays. Most hotels were booked years in advance and required a minimum of a 3 day stay. Many companies, both large and small brought big groups of their employees to Indy for Pole Day and the atmosphere in Indy for that weekend was electric. The rules stipulated that every entered car would be provided the
opportunity to qualify for the race. If you had your shit together and got your car inspected and certified, you could have a shot at the pole position on that Saturday. In 1993 I remember a crowd estimation on Pole day of over 300,000 people. There are major races the world around which don't get three hundred grand through the gates on RACE DAY! It was often said in those days that the largest single day gate take of any major racing event in the world was the Indy 500. The second largest was Pole Day at the speedway. Those were the days, my friends! I was in pit lane when Emerson Fittipaldi set 4 consecutive lap records during his qualifying attempt, each lap faster than the last and each a track record. Unbelievable.
The Second Week of PracticeAfter the excitement of Pole Weekend and now that the polesitter is known, the real work of setting the car up for the race begins. Teams spent hours and hours working on their cars, tweaking this and altering that, then sending the driver out for a run of 20 or 30 or 100 laps to see how things go. Lots of work, repetition and ...well...tedium begins.
The second weekend of qualifyingSo now we've had an entire week of practice, a weekend of qualifying and another week of practice. Now comes the second weekend of time trials. Saturday is built around filling out the field. Sunday is "Bump Day" in which the teams and cars that have struggle all month are given a chance to secure a spot among the 33 starters. You may have heard the expression "On the Bubble" which referred to the current 33rd qualifier. He was in danger of being "bumped" from the field if someone else was able to run faster than his qualifying time on bump day. The way the qualifying rules worked back then (and they may be the same now, I don't know) it was actually possible for a car to have run a faster qualification run than the polesitter on the second weekend but have to start 22nd, for instance. Indy was the only motor race in the world in which it was possible for the fastest qualifier to not be the polesitter.
The Week before Race WeekendIn those days, the traditional race after Indy was Milwaukee and many teams that had qualified on Pole Weekend actually packed up and left town to go to Milwaukee to test for the next race! The place seemed to be deserted on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday asn there was no practice sessions and everyone waited for Carb Day. This is when the silliness began in a big way. There was, and still is, I'm sure, a security office at the entrance to the garage area from the truck parking lot. They would do public service announcements by request. "Mrs. Johnson, please meet your child near the South Gate"......"Jim Fredericks, please return to your garage"...etc. The tedium starts to take hold and guys from various garages would start to ask for really off the wall pages;
"Mr. Frank N. Stein, please report to the Dick Simon Garage" etc. It got really out of hand at times and the doofus at the mic never seemed to get it!
Carb DayA big day for the track. 150,000 thru the gates at least. Basically a 2 hour practice session but there was, and still is a Pit Crew challenge that takes place, among other events and special happenings. It's all over by 3:00 but still a fun day.
Race DayThe gates opened at 5:00 AM, signaled by a cannon shot! 500,000 people are waiting to get in the gates and will all be in and have taken their places in a mere 5 hours. The race started at 11:00 AM Central time in those days and it always amazed me that the facility was able to get so many people in and arranged in that space of time. There is a parking lot at the north end of the track and a 4 lane tunnel under the north short chute, between turns 3 & 4 that is a major entrance to the infield. Back then, when the cannon would go off, they would open the gates and it was a mad rush of cars and pickups into the infield for the best spot. I was there one year when it was reported that a drunken fan, overwhelmed by the thrill, stood up in the back of the pickup he was riding in as it went under the 8' clearance tunnel. He was decapitated. Something macabre seemed to happen every year.
I was charged with providing breakfast for the team and guests. I found that staying inside the track and staying up all night preparing, putting out the breakfast and getting the coffee ready was easier than trying to get out of the speedway on Saturday night and then trying to wake up and get back in at 3:00 AM on Sunday. So that's what I did. For 5 years in a row, I was awake from Saturday morning of race weekend until late Sunday night after the race. The busiest year I fed over 125 guests and VIP's, starting at 5:30 Race morning.
Many in the crowd are already drunk and hammered by 6:00 AM, as they have been up all night partying outside the track. The crowd steadily increases as the morning drags on to the point that the stands are full and there are still tens of thousands milling around the infield. The pageantry is going on and things get ready until......
The RaceThe cannons go off, the balloons are released and the race begins. The Greatest Spectacle In Racing is on! I've been there when the fastest 500 in history happened - Arie Luyendyk in 1990, averaging 185.981 MPH over 500 miles and two years later saw one of the slowest in the modern era when Al Unser JR. won with an average speed of 134.477 which also included the closest finish in race history. I tried as often as I could to stand as near the fence in turn one as the race started. Seeing 33 open wheel cars turn in to that corner after getting the green flag is a thrill on has to experience to describe. Breathtaking, to say the least.
I loved my time in the business, truly. I had the opportunity to walk and talk, one on one with AJ Foyt in Surfers Paradise, as we both walked to the pitlane from our hotel. I rode my Harley with Rick Mears and Johnny Rutherford. I've danced with Al Unser Jr's wife! I've had the chance to meet many celebrities and famous persons.
But the Indy 500 is special.
Why?
Because it is what it is. And if you don't get it, you never will.
Edited, as usual, for spelling
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