Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!

Today is race day! 1,100 miles of turning left; drafting; bumping; spinning out; hitting the walls; tire wear; gas consumption; pit stops; and green, yellow, black, white and checkered flags. It’s a day for men to flex their Y chromosomes and for women to get in touch with their masculine side. It’s a day to put away all the ales, microbrews and foreign labels and chill down some Bud, Coors or Miller Genuine Draft. Fire up the grill; showering and shaving are optional; just sit back, join the hundreds of thousands of people at the track, and enjoy the roaring madness.

“Gentlemen, and Danica, start your engines!”

Auto racing, whether in its Indy, NASCAR, Formula 1 or other forms, is a sport that lives on the hair-raising edge almost every minute it’s going on. It’s a carefully choreographed order that rubs against chaos and invites mayhem. Is it any wonder why guys love this stuff?! It’s damn near primal.

I love the Indy 500 in particular. When I was in grade school I would listen to the race on radio because there was no TV broadcast. Part of my initial attraction was due to Arizona natives, Jimmy Bryan and Roger McCluskey, being stars in the Indy firmament. Bryan won the 500 in 1958. When TV coverage finally arrived it wasn’t broadcast until the weekend after the race, so I listened on the radio and then watched it on TV. The advantage of that combo is that I knew when chaos and mayhem were going to break through.

In May 1960, while living in Williams, Arizona, my 6th grade classmate, Joel, and I decided to take my transistor radio and listen to the Indy 500 in a wooded area a few hundred yards behind his home. There were some small caves in the area where we liked to hang out and a pond where we built and floated around on a raft (which was both gutsy and stupid because I didn’t know how to swim at the time). Our Arizona hero, Bryan, wasn’t a front runner that day so we lost a little focus during the race. For reasons known only in the reptilian mind of 11-year old boys, we decided to gather some leaves and pine needles and light them on fire. No problem, until a little gust of wind blew some of the burning leaves a few feet away – into another bunch of dry leaves and needles. They ignited and our little fire began to spread. I believe the technical description for this fire is “out of control”. We tried stomping it out but that didn’t work. Panic began to set in as we envisioned having touched off a full-fledged forest fire. Finally, we each torn off our shirts and began flailing away at a surrounding area to clear the leaves and needles, and then we flailed at the flames, trying either to smother them or literally beat them down. Somehow, it worked. We then spent the rest of the race soaking those shirts in pond water and wringing them out over an area about five times the size of the fire, just to make sure there were no embers left behind. Meanwhile, Jim Rathmann beat our next-best favorite, Rodger Ward, to the finish line at the Brickyard. Having just dodged a bullet traveling much faster than an Indy race car, we didn’t particularly care.

My dad fueled my interest by taking me to see Indy cars race in the Bobby Ball 200 in Phoenix a couple of times when I was a kid. A.J. Foyt, Rodger Ward and Parnelli Jones were there, wheel to wheel. I loved the ear-piercing sound of the engines and the constant movement from the green to the checkered.

Today, I’m back into remembrance about Danny. He was a blossoming sports fan. He liked playing baseball, watching football and he had an emerging interest in car racing, particularly the Indy 500. He watched it with me each year after his mom and I got married, and each year he stayed with it longer. The first year he watched only the first 50 laps, but by May 2001 he was in it for the duration. Nice memory.

Oh, yeah, I mentioned 1,100 miles but I’ve only talked about 500 of them. NASCAR runs this little 600-mile race in Charlotte, North Carolina, later today. It’s not Indy, but it’s not a bad show, either. I’ll be in virtual attendance.

I also pause on this Memorial Day weekend to salute every man and woman in uniform and to remember all who have given their lives in the service our country. God bless them.

It’s time for some green flag racing!