Many of
my memorable childhood experiences took place with me sitting on the living
room floor watching TV with my family. Many significant and impactful events
marked the late 60s. Space launches (to include the first moon landing), the assassination
of MLK and RFK, Woodstock, Prague Spring, Viet Nam, and of course sporting
events. My dad was a big football fan, so on Sundays the TV was tuned into
whichever game he had an interest in the day. But one Memorial Day weekend in
1969, the TV was showing something I had never seen before––automobile racing.
Not just any kind of racing, Indy car racing.
I was nine years old when I plopped down in front of the TV after the singing of the national anthem and Back Home in Indiana when I first heard the command “Gentlemen start your engines.” Then, 33 cars took off and spent the next three hours turning to the left. It was exciting to me, and even though I was aware of what a race looked like I had never seen one quite like this. The cars looked like the ones that came with the racetrack that I got for Christmas a few months before. My toys had come to life.
As the race went on, I got used to hearing the announcer blurting out a play-by-play using vocabulary I was unfamiliar with and intermixing that play-by-play with facts and figures from today’s race and those in the past. I vividly remember the pit-stop problems AJ Foyt, the predicted winner, had. Those problems led to Mario Andretti winning his first Indy 500 after leading 116 of the race’s 200 laps.
I found things to get excited about in the race, pit-stops, almost crashes and the conversions with the crew chiefs during lulls in the action. The announcers explained about the wings on the front and their function. Before the race was over, I’d learned a layman’s lesson about speed and racing–and I found it interesting.
I’ve mentioned before that I have zero athletic talent and as a result, watching sports never held my interest. Looking back, this was probably because my ego demanded I win those things I took part in, but winning was rare so my attention quickly waned before I got better. Not sure if practice would’ve helped, but maybe. Of course, I’ve always enjoyed the Olympics, but never as a fan of a single sport. It was just a chance to root for the home team. But on the Sunday before Memorial Day in 1969, I found something that was called a sport that I liked.
One of my grandfathers was a big baseball fan. Specifically, the Atlanta Braves. He could quote stats on all the players, games, and who won what game going back eons. I always thought that was kinda cool, and it became one of those things that I saw as being a fan of the sport. Because the end of May is not the season for much else, most sports news turns to the event about seven days before the race. This includes a lot of history, as well as all the new rules and improvements to the cars since the last time the race was run. This made being a trivia maven for the race easy. By the time the race whirled around 1970, when Al Unser, Sr won, I was equipped with the knowledge to truly enjoy the race for the challenge of man and machine that it was.
Along
with all the race science and safety information, I also learned about the traditions.
From the quart of milk at the finish line, to kissing the track’s Brick Yard
after winning, and of course the victory lap with the hand up and out of the
cockpit raised in victory. I also learned about the importance of a good pit
crew and why 1969’s race should never have ended the way it did.
From
that first race, I’ve watched almost every Indy 500. Sometimes in the US,
sometimes overseas, I’ve even listened when I couldn’t watch the race. The 109th
race was viewed at my local American Legion with some other veterans. Mostly,
watching the race has been an almost solitary endeavor, so it was different
being with a group of folks.
Alex
Palou was this year’s winner. He made a pass 14 laps before the end of the race
that allowed him to dominate the final scramble for the finish. As usual, I felt
bad for the guys who wrecked early on, including Scott McLaughlin who crashed
before the race even got the green flag. I didn’t hear of any injuries and
that’s always a good thing.
For now, I'll tuck away all of my racing knowledge into the back part of my brain where it'll remain unused until next May when I prepare to watch the greatest spectacle in racing, that starts with those words Drivers, start your engines.
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