When I tell people I enjoy watching sports, I usually list off hockey and baseball as the two biggies, adding in that I played tennis in high school. Then there's the one that usually gets the raised-brow reaction: I'm a fan of IndyCar racing.
A couple people have said to me that they just don't picture me being a race fan. Well, I am.
I've been a fan of auto racing for a good chunk of my life. Mostly because I was around it so much. I grew up going to CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) races and watching them on television. It's all thanks to my dad, really. He's been a lifelong racing fan, back in the days before the Indianapolis 500 was televised and he listened to the laps on the radio.
Good ol' RA
We started making annual trips to the great road course Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis. It's a great four-mile track that was always on IndyCar's schedule, because drivers and fans alike loved it. We didn't have family camping trips or fishing trips; that just wasn't our thing. We went to the races.
There's even video evidence of my dedication. It was 1990, so I was just about 4 years old, and we were over at Road America for the IndyCar festivities. I guess I was paying attention even then, because when Emerson Fittipaldi drove by, I called out his nickname: "Emmo!" My dad just informed me that was my first race.
We visited other tracks throughout the years as well: The converted-airport track in Cleveland, Mid-Ohio, Long Beach, Iowa and of course, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We've also visited Daytona, even seeing the large memorial there after Dale Earnhardt was killed in 2001. But open-wheel racing tops NASCAR for us, definitely.
I also wrote for Examiner.com in 2010, focusing on Marco Andretti. It was fun to keep up with the races and then write about them. Too bad I didn't get to attend the entire season of races. Now that would've been fun.
What sticks out for me
Some memories are more vivid than others. We learned after a soggy and constantly-rainy weekend at Road America in '98, I believe, to always bring along ponchos and extra shoes. I remember watching the Fontana race in 1999 when Greg Moore was killed, then seeing my dad's head drop when I told him what happened after he got home that day.
We've seen many drivers while walking around the paddock areas over the years. I met Memo Gidley a couple times; we share a birthday. Dad snapped a photo with me and driver Katherine Legge in Cleveland, and I got her autograph on that photo just as sprinkles started falling at Road America.
I also met a IndyCar support series driver in a hotel hot tub during the 2010 Mid-Ohio weekend. True story.
We attended the 2011 Indy 500 as a family and saw an exciting finish that turned out to be the late Dan Wheldon's final win of his career. Then I remember watching the horrible crash that killed him later that season.
A great father-daughter bond
My dad has so many great memories from racing over the years, too. It's fun to hear about this win or that horrific crash. I'll read something, or stumble across some crash videos in the middle of a YouTube binge from way back that I didn't know about. Ask dad, and he remembers.
I just finished reading a book my dad has, written by Dr. Steve Olvey, longtime medical director for CART, called, "Rapid Response: My Inside Story As A Motor Racing Life-Saver." It detailed many crashes he responded to over the years, and I learned a lot about how the sport and its safety evolved. It was an interesting read. (And if someone tries to tell you NASCAR was the first in many of the safety measures used, it's not true. CART led the way.)
But anyway, now you have a few highlights that might explain my love for open-wheel auto racing a little bit better. I'd recommend tuning in to a race sometime. Although, one of the race fan lessons is that television just doesn't do the sport justice.
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