Indianapolis

May 9, 2009

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Brugge

Indianapolis

Tony Kanaan & Marco Andretti

Throughout the year, I make any number of trips to my hometown, Indianapolis, where I meet with friends and associates and try to keep up with all that is going on around the old neighborhood. I have been fortunate to maintain many, many friends who still call Indianapolis home and I always enjoy heading up to see them all. I try to coordinate my visits with fun events that are happening in the city and in May that means one thing- The Indianapolis 500.

Helio Castoneves

Gasoline Alley

I also still have family living there, so I can see my sister Michele and whichever of her family members happen to be present. They own a fishing lodge in Canada (see link to the right – Chaudiere Lodge) that has them away much of the summer and 3 of my 4 nephews are away at school. I did manage to squeeze in dinner at Brugge with Michele and my nephew Will.

Shannon

Melanie & Shannon

Speaking of Brugge, it is another reason I come back so often to Indianapolis. Without question my favorite restaurant, and not just because so many of my friends either own or work at the place. The food quality is as awesome as ever and the recently opened upstairs bar section has doubled the size of the place. It is the handcrafted brew that draws much of the crowd and owner/brewmaster Ted Miller creates some of the best award-winning Belgium beer anywhere.

Matt

The new bar

Once again this year, Brugge is an associate sponsor for one of the race teams competing in the Indy 500. This year it is Conquest racing and their driver Alex Tagliani. So Ted is spending mucho time at the track, keeping beer flowing at the Team hospitality chalet and in the luxury suite as well.



Jody, Kristi, Amanda, Michael, Stephanie & Tim

This trip, I also managed to arrange a dinner meeting with a group of old friends that may not have been all together in over 20 years. The beauty of the new internet age as it was thanks to facebook that we were all able to reconnect and arrange a dinner at a wonderful little restaurant in Broad Ripple called the Canal Bistro. The dinner just happened to coincide with the monthly Broad Ripple Gallery Walk and allowed us the opportunity to watch our friend Jody’s daughter Joely perform some street theatre. It was a pretty cool evening all around- which ended up (as many nights do) at the bar at Brugge.

Joely

Kristi, Ted, Amanda, hidden guy, Shannon, Tim & Jody

Of course, I also had time to head to the speedway to watch the last few hours of “Fast Friday” the final practice before qualifying for the Indy 500. I have all the requisite passes that enable me to get up close to the drivers and cars and even to run into even more old friends at the track. My buddy Jason was hard at work for Andretti Green racing, trying to prep Marco Andretti for his qualifying run.

Jason