Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 67 of Contemplating Life.

Before I got interrupted by health issues last month, I had planned to do three episodes about my life as a fan of auto racing especially the Indy 500. It was all scheduled to finish up right before this year’s race on Memorial Day weekend. That didn’t work out. So this week we pick up where we left off talking about racing.

By the way, the YouTube version of this episode contains video I shot with a home video camera at the Speedway so you might want to watch this one on YouTube.

After writing our previous episode on the topic, I’ve refreshed my memory about some of the events at the Speedway. I mean we’re talking about things 40 or 50 years ago. My memory isn’t that good. I wasn’t certain how much time I spent at the track during my high school years because I was in school throughout the week. While it was common practice for kids to cut school during May to go to the track, I didn’t have that option. Mom put me on the school bus in the morning and transported me from Roberts special education school to Northwest High School in the middle of the day. So, it wasn’t like I could sneak away and was mom was going to sneak away with me.

I finally recalled definitively that I spent some qualifying weekends at the Speedway. Mom would drop me off at gate 7 early in the afternoon and pick me up around 5 or 6 PM. The track closed at 6. One day as I was going through the tunnel under the main stretch at Gate 7, my right rear tire came off the rim. This had to be the power chair I had gotten from the school starting in fifth grade. I used it from then until halfway through my senior year. We knew that I would have to return the chair once I graduated so we got my dad’s insurance to buy me a new one sometime in December of 1972.

The day the tire fell off had to take place while I still had the power chair that belonged to the school because my new chair had different kinds of tires that didn’t come off the rim so easily. The old chair from the school had solid rubber tires about an inch wide on a rim that was probably 24 inches or so. In the center of the rubber core was a steel cable. When replacing the tire, you would tighten the cable to keep the rubber on the rim. But as the tire wore down, that steel cable started cutting into the rubber. The tire would no longer fit as tightly as it should have. If you turned the chair sharply or hit a bump funny, sometimes it would twist that rubber tire off the rim.

So I was going through the Gate 7 tunnel down the steep hill on one side and starting to drive up the steep hill on the other side. This put a lot of strain on that worn-out tire. It twisted off the rim. If it had fallen outwards onto the ground, I could have limped along on the rim and gotten up the hill to meet my mom. Unfortunately, it fell towards the inside. As I rolled along on the rim, the tire got tangled up in the clutch lever. There was a lever on each rear wheel that you could disengage. It would loosen the belt drive so you could push the chair by hand. When the tire flipped the clutch lever, I was stranded at the lowest point of the tunnel.

I could see my mom pull up on the outside of the tunnel. She looked down the tunnel to try to see me. She was in the bright sunlight and I was in the darkest part of the tunnel. Even though there were lights, she couldn’t see me.

I tried yelling at her, but with racecars going over the top of the tunnel at speeds approaching 180 mph, she couldn’t hear me.

After a few minutes, a stranger walked by and I recruited him to go get my mom. She twisted the tire back on the rim easily because it was so loose and reengaged my clutch. I thanked the stranger profusely.

Years later I told that story to my friend Kathy Breen who served with me on St. Gabriel Church’s Finance Committee. She said, “Yeah, I know that story. The man who helped you was my father. He was a sports journalist covering the race.” I had no idea he was someone connected to the church.

As comedian Stephen Wright says, “It’s a small world… but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.”

Apart from that story, I later remembered that my second power chair did not have spoked front wheels but the school’s wheelchair did. Therefore the times I got stuck in the mud in “The Snake Pit” had to be in that earlier wheelchair during my high school days.

I also recalled that sometime in my high school years I purchased a mechanical stopwatch to time the cars. I know for a fact I had it during high school because I offered to assist my high school science teacher Mr. Irwin doing time trials for our Little 500 Bicycle Race. He was concerned I might not be very accurate which I suppose was a legitimate concern.

To push the button, I would hold the watch up to my chin. I would brace my elbow on the armrest of my wheelchair and then sharply nod my head down to trigger the watch. I think I was reasonably accurate.

It probably wasn’t until I was in college that I purchased a new stopwatch. One day while in the gift shop at the Speedway, I saw an electronic stopwatch with an LCD display. It would allow you to time 4 consecutive laps. The problem with a mechanical stopwatch is that you need two of them to time consecutive laps. The pit crews would mount two stopwatches on top of a clipboard. When the car came by on the first laugh you would start the first watch. On the next lap, you would stop the first one and start the second one simultaneously. Then you would write down the time from the first watch, and then repeat the process in reverse.

This electronic watch would do that for you. Rather than hitting a “Stop” button, you would press a “Split” button. It would freeze the first lap time but continue timing the next lap. You could see the lap time frozen but continued counting in the background. You would then press a “Continue” button to see the next lap. After 4 laps it would give you your total time. You could also configure it for the size of the track. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is 2.5 miles. This stopwatch automatically converts the time into mph for each lap and the four-lap average.

It cost $75 which was probably about the equivalent of $150 or more in today’s money. But I absolutely had to have it. The guy in the gift shop let me try it out before I purchased it. It had 4 buttons and they were slightly recessed in the front surface of the device. I couldn’t get my finger to poke down into the hole. But I trusted in my ingenuity and the mechanical skills of my dad. I bought the watch, brought it home, and told Dad we were going to take it apart and wire in some pushbuttons that I could use. There was every possibility that the process would totally destroy my brand-new stopwatch. But I was willing to take the risk.

We did it! We soldered in a small ribbon cable about 18 inches long and on the other end connected 4 micro switches. It worked beautifully.

That wasn’t the only electronic gamble that my dad and I took to enhance my race-watching experience. We performed the same kind of electronic surgery on a video camera.

We had a VHS VCR that was “convertible”. It would convert from a tabletop VCR with a tuner and timer into a portable recorder to which you could connect a camera. It was an RCA Selectavision VFP-170. It was in 2 pieces. One of the pieces was the tuner, power supply, timer, etc. The other piece detached and was the recording mechanism where you put the tape. It had battery power so you could use it on the go with a video camera. This was in the early days of VCRs and home video cameras. It wasn’t a camcorder the likes of which you might’ve been familiar with. It was a camera and recorder separate. I don’t recall exactly when I purchased it but some Google searches reveal it was released in 1981 and I’m certain I got it before the next model came out. So it had to be right around then.

The VCR had cost me about $1200. I purchased that particular model VCR in anticipation of eventually purchasing a camera. The camera cost $650. Again this was in the early 1980s so you can probably double that in today’s dollars.

Most people had to carry the recorder in a shoulder bag or backpack and then hold the camera with a cable connecting to it. I simply put the camera bag on the back of my wheelchair. We mounted the camera on a homemade gimbal on my armrest that would allow me to pan left and right or tilt up and down. The problem was, how do I press the pause/record button and work the zoom?

The trigger mechanism was in the handle of the camera. We took it apart, wired in 3 micro switches on the end of the cable, and it all worked. With the recorder in the bag on the back of my wheelchair my mom would hit the record and pause buttons. Then I could use my remote pause button to start and stop the camera as well as zoom in and out..

I’ve included some video I shot with that camera in the YouTube version of this podcast. You can also see photos I found of the equipment as well as a similar VCR my uncle Keith had. One time I used both VCRs to edit tape. It’s so much easier to edit video now on a computer. I would have had a lot more than editing footage if I had such a PC in those days.

My goal each year was to get at least one brief shot or still frame of every car that qualified in a particular year. I think I only accomplish that one time. But I was very obsessive about it.

I mentioned previously that I purchased a season pass which will allow you entry to the Speedway every day except race day. It also included a garage pass.

One day I was in the Gasoline Alley garage area watching mechanics work on a car owned by Roger Penske. If you ask who my favorite driver is, most of the time I will say, “Whoever is driving for Penske.” Cars owned by Penske have won the Indy 500 a record 20 times with the 20th win coming this year by Josef Newgarden.

One of Penske’s mechanics was admiring my camera setup. I told him how we had to take it apart, rewire it, and put it back together so that I could use it. I also showed him my stopwatch similarly modified. I said, “I like buying high-tech toys and then gambling that I can modify them to do what I want them to do.”

He replied, “That sounds like my job here. But in my case, Roger is footing the bill.” That is Roger Penske.

Maybe that’s why I’m such a huge Roger Penske fan. We aren’t afraid to gamble with money to get the enjoyment we want.

In November 2019, Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the rights to the Indy 500 race itself, and ownership of the IndyCar series from the Hulman Family for an undisclosed amount.

When I heard about the purchase I was very happy knowing that the facility was in good hands. I was never a big fan of the management of the Hulman Family who had owned the Speedway since 1945.

Penske put millions of dollars into upgrading the fan experience including new restrooms, new video screens, better concession stands, and other amenities. Unfortunately, Covid hit and the 2020 race was postponed from May to August and was run without fans in attendance. The fans would not get to use those new improvements until the following year. I sort of felt sorry for Roger Penske who put all that money into upgrading the fan experience and there was no one there to enjoy it.

Back in the day, touring the garage area with my video camera gave me great opportunities to talk to mechanics and some very famous race drivers. My most memorable encounter was the day I got to talk to raising legend Mario Andretti. Although he only won the Indy 500 once in 1964, he has amassed massive accomplishments not only in IndyCar but NASCAR, Formula One, and sports car endurance racing at Le Mans.

He was in front of his garage sitting in a golf cart with his feet propped up. He was waiting for the crew to make some changes to his car. There was no one around so I rolled up and said, “Hi.”

We had a very friendly conversation. Along the way, I asked, “I heard on the radio you’re going to go to Formula One for return next year and will not be back here.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” he replied.

Maybe I should have been a sports journalist. It sounds like I had a scoop straight from the source himself. Although he was very gracious and I didn’t feel like I was intruding, I didn’t want to bother him for long so I moved along and said goodbye.

A day or two later, I was watching some Penske mechanics work on a car and someone worked up behind me and started leaning on my wheelchair. The person said, “How ya doin’ pal?”

My reaction was who the hell is calling me “pal” and why the fuck are they leaning on my wheelchair? That’s a big invasion of my space. My wheelchair is part of me and I’m not a piece of furniture you can lean on. I thought about just taking off hoping they would fall flat on their face. That would teach and not to lean on wheelchairs. Instead, I just mumbled, “I’m okay”.

After maybe 20 seconds, I could feel them let go and walk away. I turned around quickly to see who it was. It was Mario Andretti! Suddenly I was elated. Mario called me his pal. Mario called me his pal. Wow! If I could have jumped up and down I would have. Mario can lean on my wheelchair anytime.

By the way, my cousin Nancy who is also disabled and in a wheelchair was also a huge fan of Mario and we have many photos and videos of her with the famous driver. He was always very gracious towards her.

Anyway, fast-forward to 2006. I’m at the movies watching the Disney/Pixar feature “Cars” because of course I’m a fan of not only racing but CGI computer graphics. It was a movie seemingly made just for me.

The film stars voice talent from Paul Newman who was an accomplished race driver himself as well as a substantial part for seven-time NASCAR champ Richard Petty playing essentially himself even though in the film they just referred to him as “The King.” Additionally, there are cameos by Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Schumacher, and none other than my pal–Mario Andretti.

Mario’s brief scene is 95 minutes into the film. A minor character named “Fred” is trying to get into the race track to watch his friend Lightning McQueen in the final race. Andretti is there and greets him saying, “Good morning to you… Fred.” The Andretti car character is looking down at Fred’s bumper and sees his name on the license plate. That’s the only reason he knew the character’s name was Fred.

Fred is delighted and amazed that Mario knows his name. He jumps up and down joyously shouting, “Mario knows who I am. Mario knows who I am!” I started laughing hysterically in the theater because he was exuding the same enthusiasm I got when the real Mario called me “pal.” People in the theater looked at me like, “Okay, it was funny but not that funny.”

It was doubly funny for me because when I was about six years old all of the kids at Roberts school got to go to the Shine Circus for a free matinee. Before the show began, a bunch of clowns came around to entertain all of us young handicapped kids. I’ve never been afraid of clowns nor am I impressed by clowns. Even at a young age, I thought a clown was just some schmuck with goofy makeup on doing cheap magic tricks and pratfalls. One clown came up to me and did some sort of bad sleight-of-hand but he called me by my name. That freaked me out. When I got home I asked my mom, “How could he have known my name?”

Mom said, “You idjit… You have a name tag on.”

So that’s what really happened. But I have a confession to make. That’s not the story I’ve been telling for the past 18 years. The way I’ve been telling the story for years was that in the movie, Mario was talking to one of those little tire-changing forklift characters and said, “How ya doin’ pal.” I thought in the next sentence he referred to the character by name after reading his license plate with the name on it. I then went on to tell the story about the clown and my name tag. When recounting the tale I added, “My guess is that Mario calls everyone ‘pal’ and that’s why they wrote that into the story.”

In preparing this podcast, I logged into DisneyPlus, found the film “Cars”, and looked for the scene. Much to my surprise, Mario never calls the guy “pal”. The story I’ve been telling for years isn’t true.

I seriously thought about telling my legendary version rather than the true version. However, I decided that for once I would tell the true story first instead of using the old adage, “When the legend becomes fact… Print the legend.” Then I would explain that I’ve been telling an embellished version all these years. I would have bet good money that the Mario character in the film used the word “pal” but I would have lost.

Next week we will tell more stories about my history as a race fan including the first time I ever attended the race in person. I will share with you a magazine article I wrote about the experience – my second published article in Indianapolis Monthly Magazine.

As I mentioned in a previous episode, I’m cutting back on my weekly schedule of podcasts. So I can’t say for certain when I next episode will be. I’m going to try to go every other week but I can’t guarantee that My life is pretty complicated right now.

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I will see you next week as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.