This week we take a break from reminiscing about my college days to talk about my lifelong obsession with motorsports.

Hi, this is Chris Young. Welcome to episode 65 of Contemplating Life.

This week we take a break from reminiscing about my college days to talk about my lifelong obsession with motorsports. In May 1959, just two months short of my fourth birthday, my family moved into a newly built house in the Eagledale neighborhood on the northwest side of Indianapolis. 65 years later I still live in the same house located about a quarter-mile northwest of the fourth turn of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. IMS is the site of the annual Indianapolis 500 race. You can hear the cars practicing throughout the month of May in preparation for the big race. My parents are natives of Indianapolis and have been race fans for most of their life and living so close to the track it’s only natural that I caught the bug as well.

The title of this episode is “30 Days in May” which may seem strange because obviously there are 31. But in Indianapolis, we talk about 30 days in May and that is often the title of several TV shows about the Indy 500. That’s because traditionally, practice for the Indy 500 opened on May 1 and culminated on May 30 with the race. When I was growing up, May 30 was the fixed date to celebrate Memorial Day. In 1971, Memorial Day and other federal holidays were made into Monday holidays. Practice sessions for the race still began on May 1 but the race was moved to the Sunday before Memorial Day giving Monday as a potential rain date. Practice for the race now starts even later in May but people still talk about racing in Indianapolis as occupying “the month of May” as if it was still taking up 30 of the 31 days of the month.

As I mentioned before, my parents were both lifelong race fans. I heard many stories about their visits to the track when they were young. My dad’s favorite story was from his teenage years. He and a bunch of his buddies got in a car and lined up extremely early in the morning to get a good parking spot in the infield. It was probably at the north end of the track inside the third or fourth turns. He was designated to walk the entire length of the infield to Gate 2 on 16th St. at the south end of the track to meet my mom and the other gals. This was before they were married. He then escorted them to where the guys had already been hitting the beer pretty heavily. As he walked the length of the infield escorting a half dozen attractive women, other guys kept calling to him saying, “Hey buddy… That’s not fair! You got to share some of that with us.” Dad said he just kept smiling and walking and enjoying all the attention being surrounded by all these pretty women.

In May 1961, my parents took me to the track for the first time. I was a couple of months short of my sixth birthday. There are photos of me that day in the YouTube version of this podcast.

It was on a Saturday or Sunday when qualifications were underway. Only the fastest 33 qualifiers would make the race and in those days there were many more than 33 entries so you’re not guaranteed a spot unless you were in the top 33 speeds. According to Wikipedia, 26 drivers failed to qualify for the 1961 race. Qualifications consisted of running four consecutive fast laps. Your average speed for those four laps was your qualifying time. Qualifying took place on the two weekends prior to the race. I don’t know which of the four qualifying days we attended back in ‘61.

We sat in the grandstands on the outside of the main straight. My dad carried me and my wheelchair up a few steps, removed a folding chair, and put my wheelchair in its place. I had been hearing racecars from my house since I was three years old and had seen them on TV but seeing it in person and hearing the roar of the engines up close was a phenomenal experience.

On the other side of the track were the pits where the cars were serviced. There was another grandstand beyond that facing us. I could see people in the top row of that far grandstand turning around to look at the cars as they went down the backstretch. I thought that the backstretch was just beyond those grandstands. I didn’t realize that they were almost a quarter mile away but with something to block the view, you could see the cars going down the backstretch from high atop the stands.

Later in the day, my dad took me through the Gate 7 tunnel under the track into the infield. As we walked along a paved walkway behind the infield grandstands, I thought we were walking on the backstretch of the track itself. I kept saying to my dad, “Don’t we need to get out of the way?” He explained the backstretch was way over that way as he pointed east.

While we had been sitting in the front stretch grandstands, driver Norm Hall spun out in the first turn beyond where I could see. The PA announcer said, “Norm Hall hit the wall.”

I said, “Hey, that rhymes.” And I begin singing, “Norm Hall hit the wall. Norm Hall hit the wall.” Although the driver wasn’t injured, Dad stopped me and explained that hitting a wall at over 140 mph was not something to sing about.

When we went into the infield, Dad took me to the fence around the famous Gasoline Alley garage area. Looking through the fence I could see the damaged car that had been driven by Norm Hall. I realized how right my dad was.

I’ve told that story many times over the years but as I was looking up details about that era while preparing this episode, I just learned something new about the 1961 Indianapolis 500 season. According to Wikipedia, Tony Bettenhausen, Sr. was killed in a crash during a practice run on May 12, 1961. That was the Friday before the first weekend of qualifying. Wikipedia says, “He was testing a car for Paul Russo. It was determined that an anchor bolt fell off the front radius rod support, permitting the front axle to twist and misalign the front wheels when the brakes were applied. The car plunged into the outside wall, then rode along the top, snapping fence poles and tearing segments of the catch fence. The car came to rest upside-down on top of the outside wall, and Bettenhausen was killed instantly. Before the time trials Bettenhausen had been the favorite to become the first driver to break the 150 mph barrier at the Speedway.”

I’m certain that my dad must’ve known the driver had been killed just a few days before. Although he didn’t tell me about that fatal crash, I’m sure that’s why he made sure I understood that racing is a dangerous sport.

The following year, driver Parnelli Jones became the first to break the 150 mph barrier at the track during qualifying. His first lap speed was a track record at 150.729 mph. All four laps of his qualifying attempt were above 150 with a four-lap average of 150.370 mph. I have vague recollections of this milestone. They made a big deal about breaking the 150 barrier

As I researched the 1962 race to see when the 150 barrier was broken, I also read that Norm Hall crashed twice in 1962. He was uninjured the first time but he had another crash in a backup car. He hit the first turn wall backwards and was severely injured, including a fractured left leg and possible skull fracture. He eventually recovered and went on to race in the 1964 and 1965 raising seasons. He died in 1992 at the age of 66.

I don’t recall returning to the track for many years but I remained a race fan. There was extensive news coverage of the race each year. The three major TV stations had film crews at the track every day and there would be a 15-minute segment of the local evening news dedicated to track coverage. If you had occurred there was an accident that day, you were always anxious to see if they had film of it. There would be driver interviews and each station had their own driver expert to comment on the day’s events.

The race itself typically was not televised in those days. According to an article in the Indianapolis Star from August 2020, the race was first televised in 1949 in an attempt to sell televisions. TVs first went on sale in Indianapolis early that year. The Speedway permitted local station WFBM Channel 6 to televise the race live locally. They had three cameras along the front stretch and covered the entire race. It’s estimated that 3000 households tuned in. The race was televised again locally in 1950 and there was talk of a nationally syndicated broadcast but the Speedway decided it would hurt ticket sales and refused to let the race be televised for many years.

Since 1951, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network has provided live coverage of the race each year and that was my primary way of following the event for many years. We would typically have some sort of cookout or other festivities for Memorial Day and we would sit and wasn’t to the radio intently. My mom would take notes as they would give a rundown of the position of each car about every 20 laps so. She wanted to see where her favorite drivers were. I took up the practice for a while myself.

The 1964 race was memorable for all the wrong reasons. My dad and I were in the backyard listening to the race on the radio. My mom went with some friends to see the race. They had good seats in the infield grandstand of the main stretch. My next-door neighbor Mike Tillery who would’ve been around 11 years old by my estimate had climbed up onto a storage shed in his backyard. Each year at the start of the race, they would release thousands of helium balloons from a tent and he wanted to see the balloons flying through the air. Just a couple laps into the race he shouted, “There must’ve been a big wreck! I can see black smoke.”

Indeed, reports came over the radio that there had been a massive fiery crash in the fourth turn which was the turn closest to my house. The race was stopped while the track was cleaned. We eventually got word that popular veteran driver Eddie Sachs and rookie driver Dave MacDonald were killed in the incident.

My mom could not see the wreck clearly from where she was sitting but she could see the flames and the plume of black smoke. It sickened her when she realized that there had to be drivers burning alive in those flames. She said that when the PA announcer revealed to the crowd that two drivers had been fatally injured, a creepy silence came over the crowd. All you could hear was transistor radios that people had that were listening to the race coverage while they were there. The radios were still on the air because they did not release the news until it was released to the crowd at the Speedway.

My mom did not return to the Speedway for many years. She had been a big fan of Eddie Sachs who was one of the most personable and popular drivers of that era.

I’ve linked a Wikipedia article about the incident. There was controversy because MacDonald’s car was a radical new design. Other drivers had refused to drive it and some drivers who saw it race in practice and in the opening wraps felt that it was a dangerous design and should not have been on the track.

Normally when I talk about historical events, I try to put YouTube clips into my YouTube version of this podcast but I will not be doing that for these fatal crashes. They are quite gruesome. I will provide links to such videos but viewer discretion is highly recommended.

I have a few more stories of fatal accidents at the Speedway that occurred when I was present but I will save those stories for later.

I believe that my next visit to the Speedway must’ve been when I was eight or nine years old and my mom was the den mother of my Boy Scout troop. It was a troop consisting of all handicapped kids from my Roberts School. I don’t remember many details of the visit but I know she or one of the other troop leaders persuaded a few drivers to come over and sign autographs for us.

As I mentioned previously, practice for the race typically opened May 1 and there was qualifying during the two weekends prior to the race itself. In the week between the last day of qualifying and race day, there was only one short day of practice on Thursday. Traditionally this has been called “Carburetion Day”. It was a day in which drivers could have a final practice session to adjust their carburetors. Although IndyCars have not had carburetors for decades, the name Carb Day still persists. It was a great tradition in Indianapolis for kids to cut school that day. That is kids of all ages. Adults are also known to take a personal day off on the Thursday before race day.

I don’t recall specifically any other trips to the Speedway although I might have gone to qualifying days when I was a teenager.

After graduating high school and entering college, my final exams were always the first week of May. I was on summer vacation the entire rest of the month and until late August. In high school, school was not let out until the first week of June. When I realized I was going to be free for much of May, I was ecstatic. I would have my mom drop me off in the early afternoon and I would roam around the infield all day. She would then pick me around dinner time perhaps a little before 5 PM. The track would close at 6 PM.

We discovered that there was something called a “season pass” available. It would give you admission to the grounds for all the practice and qualifying days but not for race day itself. You need a separate ticket for that. Included with the package was a garage pass that would give you access to the Gasoline Alley garage area. Technically you’re supposed to be age 21. However, at age 18 if I had a garage pass no one was going to question me for further ID.

I had a Kodak model 20 Pocket Instamatic camera that I could use to take still pictures. Together my dad and I designed a gadget that was attached to the camera. It included a lever about 3 inches long that would help me to push the shutter button. I had to hold the camera upside down but that was no problem. I recently discovered a large stack of old photos in a box and I have scanned many of them and included them in the YouTube version of this podcast.

In many ways, I enjoyed hanging out in Gasoline Alley watching them work on the cars more than I enjoyed watching the cars themselves. Part of that was because there was not a good place to see the track in a wheelchair. You could roam up and down the fence along the pits but it was difficult to see the track itself from ground level.

The infield area of the first turn was a fun place to hang out. Somehow it was given the nickname “The Snake Pit”. Young people would gather there to party and drink. The girl-watching opportunities were phenomenal. Lots of women would run around in bikini bathing suits or skimpy halter tops. If they were drunk enough, sometimes the guys would persuade them to flash their tits. Now that I think about it, I think that was the first place I ever saw bare breasts in real life that wasn’t in a magazine.

Sometimes, the Snake Pit was a treacherous place for a wheelchair because it was often quite muddy. I recall one time venturing there after a heavy rain and the front wheels of my wheelchair sank into the mud all the way up to my footrests. I had to rely on help from strangers to get out of the mess. My front wheels were about 6 inches in diameter, very narrow, and had spoked wheels. I came home with them caked solid with mud as well as a considerable amount of mud on my real wheels. My mother was not very happy. We had to turn the hose on the wheelchair before I went in the house.

I remember one rainy qualifying day that I spent at the track with my cousin J.R. I was probably 18 or 19 and he would’ve been about 12 or 13. My Aunt Jody was volunteering at a concessions stand as a fundraiser for some organization. She was counting on me to keep J.R. out of trouble. Naturally, we went straight to the Snake Pit to party. I don’t believe we saw any naked women there that day but unfortunately, we did see a naked man. This was the time when the practice of “streaking” had become popular. Someone stripped down, ran across the track which was closed because it was still drying out from a rainstorm, and tried to climb over the fence. He got various tender parts of his body hung up on the wire along the top of the fence. He was arrested after he managed to get entangled and down off of the fence.

I mentioned that during my first visit to the track, the cars were going over 140 mph. The following year the track record broke 150 mph. Throughout my years growing up as a race fan, the records fell on a regular basis. The first day of qualifying each year is known as “pole day” because it establishes the pole position for the start of the race – that is the number one position. Massive crowds would attend pole day qualifying in anticipation of seeing track records fall.

Famous track announcer Tom Carnegie had a unique way of announcing it. He would say “It’s a new track record!.” The crowd would cheer wildly.

I was in attendance on May 14, 1977, when driver Tom Sneva was the first to turn an official lap at over 200 mph. I don’t recall if I was there for earlier track records but I know I was there for many more after that. Some of them were in attendance with my friends Rich and Kathy Logan.

I know for a fact that I was there on May 11, 1996, when the track record fell 4 times. When it was all over with, the record was held by Arie Luyendyk with a single-lap speed of 237.489 mph and a 4-lap average of 236.986 mph. Those records still stand today because the following year rule changes to slow the cars down. Last year’s 4-lap average speed for the pole position was 233.947 mph. I don’t think we will ever see a new track record again because if the cars go much faster, they will make additional rule changes for the sake of safety. They have tried to modify the qualifying procedures to make pole day more exciting but they will never recapture the excitement of seeing those records fall. And it just wouldn’t be the same without the late Tom Carnegie announcing… “It’s a new track record!”

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.

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