Carb Day 2011

May 29, 2011







Carb Day 2011

The lead-up to the Indy 500 was even more packed than usual this year with all the additional things that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had planned to honor the centennial celebration. I tried to take in as much as possible, beginning with the final practice session prior to the race, what has been known for years as Carb Day in spite of the fact that none of the cars running in the race have had carburetors for decades.





Carb Day is actually a number of events held at the speedway on the final Friday before the race. The final one hour practice for the Indy Cars, the Freedom 100 race for the Indy Lights cars, the pit stop completion, the infamous Miller Lite Carb Day Party in the infield and the huge Carb Day Concert are all held during the day. The crowds at carb day are huge, with almost as many showing up for the concert as for any of the racing activities. In fact there are almost two distinct crowds, those that arrive early to take in the racing related stuff and those who show up later for the concert.

Staind



Rookie Drivers; Hildebrand,Hinchcliffe, Kimball, Howard & Mann

We always arrive early and sometimes stay late, though I really have little tolerance these days for the drunken, hard rock crowd that arrives for the concert. It can be and generally is a crazy drunken scene. I thought I had avoided it this year, but after leaving mid afternoon, I had to return for the Last Row Party, and the concert was still raging so I snuck over and watched it from backstage.





The race stuff was great- the weather was cooperative and the practice and Indy Lights race went off without a hitch. The Indy Lights race was crazy as 15 of the 18 starters were rookies who had never raced at the Speedway. The race thus produced a number of crazy crashes as many of the rookies crashed out. Josef Newgarden survived the chaos to win the race, under caution of course. It was still pretty exciting.



Chase Austin

The festivities also included a few practice runs for the Hot Wheels attempt at making a world record jump in a four wheel vehicle, which was accomplished on race day. Watching the practices was pretty cool and I have included this video of the actual jump.







After taking the afternoon off, I was back at the Speedway for the Last Row Party that was held at the Brickyard Crossing clubhouse. Before heading in, I walked over and caught a portion of the concert, which featured Staind and Papa Roach. I watched from back stage and thus avoided the crazy scene other than to see a parade of drunken arrestees being taken away by the massive police presence.



Hunter-Reay, Mann & Beatriz

The last row party was fun as last row starters Ana Beatriz, Pippa Mann and Ryan Hunter-Reay received cash awards of 31, 32 and 33 cents from the Press Club of Indianapolis who sponsored the event.

Ana Beatriz

Perhaps the coolest pre-race activity was held on Saturday before the race as the Speedway hosted the Indy 500 Breakfast which featured Jack Arute interviewing the likes of Roger Penske, Johnny Rutherford and moving interviews with Sam Schmidt and Al Unser Jr. while the assembled crowd enjoyed breakfast.

Jack Arute

Al Unser, Jr.

Mike Hiss

Next was the world’s largest autograph session that featured the vast majority of drivers who had ever competed in the Indy 500. Hundreds of former drivers as well as the current starters were available for autographs and even cooler, they all posed for a huge group photo Seeing many of the drivers who I have watched compete over the past 39 years was pretty cool.

Mario Andretti, Arie Lyendyk & Dario Franchitti





Teo Fabi & Dan