I brought a three-day-old cold to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway yesterday, mere hours before the green flag would drop and the 92nd running of the Indianapolis 500 would begin.  The track is no place for a congested nose or throbbing head, and my fears were compounded when I found out that my seats were just six rows back from the Start/Finish line.  

But let me make one thing clear: Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going to ruin my first trip to the Indianapolis 500.  I’d been waiting for this for two and a half years, when my dad promised tickets to the “500” as my college graduation present.  The day was finally here and my adrenaline was more potent than any sickness.

The seats were great, better than I was expecting, about 100 yards past the fabled yard of bricks and just six rows from the track.  Nestled nicely between the famous pagoda and the standings tower, my dad and I had a perfect view of the field coming out of Turn 4, screaming down the backstretch, past the starting line and into Turn 1.  The race itself was all I could have asked for, but the weekend itself was so much more.

In such a short space, it really is near-impossible to describe the race weekend.  However, I think that math may be the easiest way to break it down into Layman’s terms.  Basically, beginning with the atmosphere at the Long Beach Grad Prix, America’s longest running street race and 2nd most popular event, the numbers equal out to about:

LBGP x (Infinity + 1) = Indianapolis 500.

This is true in many facets: sheer numbers, fan knowledge, fan and community spirit, event friendliness, level of competition and more.  One of the interesting things is that the track is located in a tiny central Indiana town called Speedway (yes, it’s called Speedway) about ten miles from the actual city of Indianapolis.  Now, holding such a mammoth event in a small town would seem disastrous, especially with the sheer amount of complaining and grumbling that goes on when the Long Beach Grand Prix comes to town (a much smaller event in a much larger city).  On the contrary, though, as the numbers show us that:

Speedway [small town] embracement of Indy 500 [huge event] > Long Beach [large town] embracement of Long Beach Grand Prix [large event]

It was so much, in fact, that it would be impossible to do it all justice in one column.  Over the next few days, I’ll be writing about a different part of my experience: The community, the track, the drivers, and the race.  In that order.

As an added bonus, my stories will be accompanied by brilliant (read: poor) illustrations like the one of the speedway entrance that you see above.  This has more to do with my artistic talent and great memory than the fact that I forgot to bring a camera.

So I hope you all enjoyed the race!  It was filled with hype and definitely lived up to the action it promised, even if Scott Dixon’s month of domination surprised and disappointed a whole lot of race fans.  It was a joy to watch, so check back here over the next few days for my emotional description of the greatest sporting spectacle in the world (Don’t agree?  Prove it!).