99th Running of the Indianapolis 500

May 26, 2015

David Letterman

Patrick Dempsey 

Perry Farrell

99^th Running of the Indianapolis 500

The Indianapolis 500 is in my DNA, I literally grew up on it, first going to the track at age 4 with my grandfather and father, there is still a grainy 8 mm home movie taken that day somewhere that shows me holding my grandfather’s hand wondering through the original museum at 16^th & Georgetown, walking past the old wooden garage area, looking in at those classic 1960s cars and then sitting in the stands gleefully watching cars take practice laps on the historic oval.

Rick Mears

 

Jason

I have returned to the Speedway every year since and have attended every Indianapolis 500 since 1973, when my father & I sat in the tower terrace through three days of rain & wreckage in what most agree was the worst race ever. It didn’t deter me at all, I was hooked and every Memorial Day weekend since has found me sitting in the stands watching 43 straight Indy 500s.  I was back again this year as usual, under beautiful May skies to attend what is the 99^th running of the race.

Arie Lyendyk

Johnny & Betty Rutherford

Danny Sullivan

Colts' Robert Mathis

Since this is one of Kathy’s off years, (she is an every other year attendee), my friend Dakota had other commitments and my sister and her boys were all out of town, I found myself not having the usual crowd that go with me around. Rather than be disappointed, though of course I was a little, I had the freedom to go to the race with my friend Kevin who also has pre-race credentials that get him in the garage, pits and track prior to the start.

Al Unser

Michael & Ryan Briscoe

 

Ryan Hunter-Reay

This enabled us to mingle about freely for all the pre-race hoopla and activity as the teams, drivers, officials and “celebrities” all did their pre-race rituals in advance of the start. There is nothing quite like being on the grid as they line the cars up for the start of the race. The place is packed yet there are still celebrities milling around with the common folk and the teams struggle to get the cars last minute preparations complete amongst the chaos.

 

Paul George

The pre-race rituals are traditional at the Indy 500 and include such things as a parade of celebrities, former Indy 500 winners, a tribute to our armed forces, pre-race prayer, the playing of Taps, the singing of America the Beautiful, Back Home Again in Indiana and the balloon release, the National Anthem and Military fly-over and of course the most famous words in Motorsports, “Gentlemen (Drivers) Start Your Engines”.

Kevin

 

Kevin & I had a great morning, arriving early to check out all the pre-race fun. In the garage area we ran into the stars of the TV series, The Deadliest Catch. The long-time fishing show featuring boat crews fishing in Alaska. It was cool to hang out with them and they were nice and interesting as well and seemingly having a great time.

 

Kid Rock

Andrew Luck

Other celebrities that I spotted included recently retired David Letterman, Olympian Nastia Lukin, Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Ferrell, Kid Rock, Fuzzy Zoeller, Indiana Pacer all-star Paul George, Colts QB Andrew Luck and actor Patrick Dempsey. Of course Florence Henderson was on hand to sing again, though sadly Jim Nabors was gone, betwereplaced by acapella singing group Straight No Chaser, who could not in my opinion do justice to Back Home Again in Indiana.

Nastia Lukin 

Dario Franchitti

Florence Henderson

Fuzzy Zoeller

The race itself was spectacular, close racing from the drop of the green flag when pole-sitter Scott Dixon charged in to the lead. Dixon would lead the most laps and have something of a dominant car early on.  Penske teammates Simon Pagenaud and Will Power both had strong runs, leading many laps as did Tony Kanaan who was in contention when he crashed out in turn four late in the race.

Juan Pablo Montoya had early wing damage when Simona De Sivestro hit him on lap 7, dropping him to last place. He spent the rest of the race steadily battling back in to contention and when the race was restarted after a caution with 16 laps to go, he was part of an epic shoot-out between Power, Dixon and Montoya that may have been the best three car battle in Indy 500 history. With four laps remaining, Montoya was able to slip past Power and then hold him off the final laps for his second Indy 500 victory (in three races), he last won in the year 2000, before heading off to F1 and NASCAR.

It was a thrilling wonderful Indy 500 and after all the concern about cars flying around, nothing like that materialized. The only sad part was that the Honda teams were down on power or else we might have had even more cars in the crazy final battle. I cannot wait until next year when the Speedway will host the 100^th running of the race.