May’s a busy month. Early on we honor our mothers. Students — and teachers — get antsy for their upcoming summer break. On Memorial Day we honor departed family members and military heroes. Swimming pools open for business. And the month of May is topped off in the Hoosier State with “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” the Indianapolis 500.
The pandemic has put a damper on the 500 for two years, and I keep wondering if new track owner, Roger Penske, is having buyer’s remorse.
My earliest memory of the 500 is a story told about my late father, Herman Drach. Born in 1900 in Indianapolis to German immigrants, Daddy was 10 when the first 500 was held. He was a born entrepreneur and hired on at the track as a flag boy. He and other boys waved flags to advise drivers before electric warning lights existed. The racing bug bit him hard. He told my Grossmutter he wanted to be a race car driver. She put the kibosh on that idea, but until his untimely death in 1955, he loved cars, speed and the 500.
In my early teens, I pored over the Indianapolis newspapers in May, reading about the race, the drivers and all the events surrounding the 500. I didn’t follow other sports, but car racing intrigued me. My mother (who was 20 years younger than my father) couldn’t figure out my obsession. Maybe it was a way I subconsciously connected to my father, who died when I was four.
In years past, people gathered outside to picnic and listen to the race on the radio. There were burgers off the charcoal grill to eat and bottles of soda and beer to drink. The 500 was an all-day affair then, lasting until late afternoon. Today it’s safer and faster and is over before you can eat your second hotdog.
My sister Peg’s high school boyfriend invited her to the 500 in 1964. She was excited to get to go. Back then it was a rite of passage for teens to attend qualification weekends, but few could afford tickets to the actual race. It was my sister’s first and last 500. Drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave McDonald were killed in a fiery crash, and my sister, sickened by the carnage, said she’d never go again.
In 1969, my mother and I attended the race — my first in-person 500 — and were thrilled to watch Mario Andretti take the checkered flag. His one and only Indy win.
My in-laws invited my husband and me to attend the 500 with them several times during the years they were treated to tickets and first-class race-day amenities through corporate friends. Ah yes, the good old days when “entertaining customers” was a tax write-off.
I was startled earlier this month to read that renowned driver Bobby Unser passed away at 87. In my mind’s eye, he’s still young … and so am I. I hardly know names of drivers today, but the names of the great ones of an earlier era, like Parnelli Jones, Rodger Ward, Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, the Unser boys … and those exotic foreign drivers — like Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart — are forever etched in my memory. Most of them are gone now, victims of time or racing accidents.
Like everything in life, the only constant about the 500 is change. The “Month of May” has given way to a few short days. Drivers no longer spend weeks in Indianapolis, and there are fewer social events. But 110 years down the road, for thousands of fans from around the world, the race at the brickyard remains a thrill. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines … let’s go racing!
