Indy 500

Though the Indianapolis 500 mile race can no longer claim to be a premier event in motorsports, it's claim of being the “greatest spectacle in racing” is probably legitimate. As a kid, I got to go to the “time trials” (qualifying) and I remember it fondly 40 years later. I went again this year. Former tennis great and Indy neophyte Billy Jean King said it right: the speed and the noise are amazing and they are simply lost on the television.

This race track is huge. At 2.5 miles around, it is about 15 times longer and wider than the biggest football stadium. You can only see about a third of the track at any one time and the cars cover this third in less than 15 seconds, which boggles the mind when you see it (the arrow in the picture points to a race car in corner 4). The amazing noise as the cars pass by communicates the enormous physical forces at work. (I recommend earplugs.) And the people – fellow spectators and workers – were great. I don't know if I could tolerate the crowd of 400,000 people that attend the race on the Memorial Day weekend, but maybe so, maybe so.

TV is just fine for the great traditions of the race. My favorites are Jim Neighbors singing“Back Home Again, in Indiana” before the start and, at the end, the winning driver being offered a bottle of milk to drink. None of that silly spraying around and wasting great Champaign.