Ladies and Gentlemen - Start Your Engines!

Yesterday when I said it would be a madhouse at the race, I had no idea just how crazy it would be.

We turned on the TV while we were getting ready this morning, and the news was full of interviews with race fans who had gotten to the racetrack as early as 5:00 AM! Some of the people being interviewed said they have been coming to the race for years, and they always go really early, park at least a mile away, and then walk in to avoid the traffic congestion before and after the race. That scared us, so we left our room about 8:30 and headed to the racetrack.

Even after our trial run yesterday, we still managed to take a wrong turn and ended up driving quite a bit out of the way before we realized it. But it turned out to be a good mistake, because I think we missed a lot of the traffic. Eventually though, we caught up with everyone else, and joined the very very slowly moving parade toward the speedway. And I do mean slow!

Soon we started seeing hand-made signs for parking spaces in people's front yards. All along the streets surrounding the speedway and for a couple miles out in all directions, people offer parking on their lawns - like the photo I showed you yesterday. We decided to take a chance and pulled up on someone's lawn to park. We paid the lady $10.00, locked our car and started following the stream of humanity slowing snaking their way along the sidewalk. As we walked, we realized we had gotten a bargain - the closer we got to the speedway, the more they were charging for parking spaces. The highest price we saw was $20.00.

This is how it looked as we walked the mile or so to the speedway.

All along the street, people were selling water, soda, ear plugs, etc. in their front yards. As we got closer, the congestion increased. Soon there were the "professional" vendors lining the streets selling more water and sodas, as well as race souvenirs such as T-shirts, programs, and all kinds of food. There was even someone preaching loudly into an electronic megaphone. People were really friendly, everyone was talking to everyone else as we walked around. Definitely it was party time! Crazy!

A couple samples of the crowd

Finally we made it into the stands and found our seats. We had pretty good seats - coming out of the fourth turn, and we could see the cars as they went into the pits.

Here we are at the Indy 500

Before the race started, they had about 35 pick up trucks loaded with service men and women from all branches of the Armed Forces, and they took a lap around the track. Everyone was on their feet, clapping and cheering. That was great!

This is how it looked from our seats.

Miss American sang "America the Beautiful", Florence Henderson sang "God Bless America", and someone sang "The Star Spangled Banner". Then there was a fly-over with two World War II B-25's - the plane that Jimmy Doolittle flew on his raid over Tokyo. Side note - when I was in elementary school, I read the book "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" which told of that raid. I always remember that book - it was great. Anyway, back to today -

Here are the planes as they flew overhead

There was a rifle volley and "Taps" to honor our servicemen again, followed by Jim Nabors singing "Back Home Again in Indiana" - an Indy tradition.

They released a gazillion balloons into the sky and then . . .

Finally, we heard "Ladies and Gentlemen Start Your Engines", and the race was on.

This is the lap just before the beginning of the race.

And this is how it looked and sounded from our seats coming out of turn 4

If you watched the race, you know that Helio Castroneves was the winner - he also had the pole position at the start, and my girl Danica came in third. Not bad!!! There were several crashes - all but one were single car accidents and the drivers were OK - thankfully! And most of the crashes happened right in front of us!

I have never seen so many people all in one place. They didn't announce the attendance, but it had to be at least 100,000 people - probably more - John says maybe 3 times that many! The day was very hot and humid, and most of the time we were wringing wet. Occasionally there was a breeze, which saved us from totally dying! It was a crazy, fun day and a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us. I'm glad we went!

I