Friday, May 28, 2010

Indy 500 Day 1

I'm in Indianapolis this weekend for the Indy 500. I'm working on an article that will be published later this summer in Desktop Engineering magazine.

It's been a pretty interesting trip so far. I was seated on my fligh from Salt Lake City to Indianapolis with members of the band Rival Sons, who played on pit row yesterday during the Pit Stop Challenge.



The challenge competition was won by Helio Castroneves, who is seen here accepting the $50,000 winner's check.



I had a chance to get down and kiss the most famous bricks in the world, the strip of bricks at the start/finish line, the last ones remaining from the original "Brickyard."



Danica Patrick was also entered in the Pit Stop Challenge. And yes, that is fellow CAD journalist Bill Fane. He's also here this weekend.



The 35-lap Indy Lites race was a nice tight competition after a crash on lap 3 took out the pole sitter.



Here's the HP-sponsored car of Raphael Matos. HP is responsible for getting me to Indy. I'll be talking with team engineers today in preparation for the article.



Here Raphael discusses results of today's final practice run with team owner Gils de Feran.



A high point for me was a party last night at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Outside in the sculpture garden, some people were passing around an Olympic gold medal. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a medal from the Vancouver Games and a few seconds later I realized that I was standing next to Steve Holcomb, the driver of USA 4-man bobsled #1, who I watched win that gold medal up at the Whistler Sliding Center back in February.


What a thrill to meet Steve and actually hold the medal.



There were lots of other interesting people at the party, including Mario Andretti, NFL hall of famer Lynn Swann, and Bruce Jenner.



Oh, and did I mention that the entertainment at the track after the practice and Indy Lites race was ZZ Top? Not a bad start to what should continue to be a very interesting weekend.

As always, there are lots more photos on my Flickr site.

2 comments:

  1. Dave, your post represents my fantasy race fan experience perfectly. Thus far it has existed only in my dreams however. Looking forward to more tales of your adventures at Indy...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome David! I attended the Indy 500 several years ago when Helio won his first 500. It is a spectacle. I'll see the Indy drivers next weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

    ReplyDelete