Qualifications. Which, to be honest has lost it's fanatical appeal of bygone days. The split between the IRL and and CART in the mid '90s left the race with quite a bit of fall out. Most of the recognizable names were no longer racing at Indy. Only A.J. Foyt was loyal to the organization that made racing.
Arrogantly, Mario Andretti, splitting with CART had the nerve to say that the Indy 500 was world renown because of HIM.
Although the organizations have long ago reunited, Indy will not forget Mario's traitorious comments. Indy made household names of these racers, not the other way around.
Also flying overhead this weekend are the best of the best.
These guys are amazing. The sound of the jets as they fly mere inches from wingtip to wingtip will make your heart stop. Don't worry about your little ol' heart though, because the electrical shock to make it restart will happen when you get a quick glimpse of them flying at breakneck speeds and so low that if you stand on your tiptoes you could swear you could touch them. But do it quick, because they are flying so fast you'll miss them if you blink.
Nothing beats the thrill of hearing them just before they appear. I run out of the front door at the first sound and watch them from my front yard. There have been dozens of times that they have flown so low over our house that if the pilots could take their eyes off their instruments, they could wave at me when I'm out front waving my arms like I'm trying to flag them down to stop in for a cup of tea. Or a beer after their done flying.
It never gets old.
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We too have had the Blue Angels fly right over our house. I've got pictures that you can see the pilots names on the fuselage and almost read the tire size.
We scheduled our two oldest boys graduation parties the weekend of the Air Show and nobody would leave.
Yep. You want to just put up the lawn chairs and stay for the show.
And I stand corrected about qualifications. It's practice weekend. Qualifications used to span two weekends. Cutting back to one weekend also hurt attendance, IMHO.
Thanks for that info Rita.
I searched in vain for the normal "Pole Day" coverage on ABC this afternoon and figured they must have been rained out since I could find nothing.
I too mourn the old days of the entire month of May being devoted to the track, but I'm not sure the market would bear that today. There's just too much else going on.
And the shame of it is, I think that's gonna get worse, not better.
We are dinosaurs, aren't we?
So true GB. Bob and I were just talking about how we've heard nothing about the "Month of May", which was always how it used to be referred to in the local news. Really sad to see such an event just not have the same feel as it used to.
The "youngins" don't know what they've missed.
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