Saturday, May 12, 2012

The "Campers" Have Arrived – A Day at Indy Speedway

(Cicero, IN) Hi 77 Lo 57 – When we got home last night we noticed the campground was filling up for the weekend. When we got up this morning we found out just how much! There was a family right next to us with four kids, including a toddler that kept running toward the river. One of his big sisters would chase him down. They were fun to watch, but I'm sure glad I don’t have to try to keep track of them. (Click on pictures to enlarge)

DSCF0261

DSCF0263

Today was opening  day of practice for the Indianapolis 500, which is in two weeks. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is about 40 miles from our RV park, and we headed out around 9:30. The trip took about an hour. About half the trip was town driving with stop lights. Our Garmin Nuvi GPS kept trying to route us through downtown. Fortunately Jim was watching the Google Maps on his smart phone and he made corrections to the route.

When we got to the track the line going into the tunnel to the infield was long, and headed toward us. So we had to drive about a half mile past the track and do a u-turn to get in line. We’re so glad to have my little car. Things like that are a challenge in a dually pickup truck.

My goodness the infield of this track is huge! We drove past the Indy 500 Museum, past a golf course (a golf course!!), and finally made it to the parking area just inside turn 3. I took this panorama from our parking spot with my new Fujifilm digital camera.

DSCF0268

This scoreboard was our "marker" to find our car at the end of the day.
DSCF0266

Along with being the first day of practice, there was also a big car show in the plaza behind the pit area. So we jumped on a shuttle and rode waaay over to the homestretch area and spent a leisurely hour walking among some of the most beautiful cars we've ever seen. There were cars from the 20's to the 60's. Here's a sampling of what we saw.


A Bugatti. You don't see many Bugattis; some like this are worth millions. There were four of them in a row from the 20's and 30's.
DSCF0304

This one's easy, a Corvette.
DSC_6920

I believe this is a Bentley.
DSC_6925

This is more our style... a '67 Hemi Charger

A sweet '64 GTO
It's amazing that all of these cars were just sitting out in the open, with no ropes or anything to keep the crowds away.

This is the Pagoda (media center) that towers over the start-finish line. This is the back side of it, the track is on the other side.
DSC_6924

We had the run of the whole speedway. The only place we couldn't go was inside the garage area or inside the actual pits. However, you could lean on the 4-ft high chain link fence that separated the pits from the grandstand.













As noon approached we decided to take a seat in the Tower Terrace grandstand behind the pits, in the shadow of the Pagoda.

Our view of the homestretch.
DSC_6947

DSC_6949

Some cars finally took to the track. The went around one at a time, and they were probably being pretty careful since this was the first day of a week of practice.














After watching practice for awhile we walked around some more.  This is the famous "yard of bricks" that parallels the start/finish line on the track. As you can see it stretches from the track, across the pits, and goes through the plaza behind the Pagoda. This is looking through the gate into the pits, and the track is just beyond the guy in the red shirt way in the background.


















We had lunch at an outside picnic area and had a nice conversation with a couple who live here in Indianapolis. They were very fascinated with our full timing lifestyle. They're into scuba diving, which interested Jim since he did an orientation dive once on a cruise years ago. We gave them one of our business cards and, if you're reading this Chris and Cindy, it was nice meeting you!

After lunch we walked through the tunnel under the track, to see what it was like in the main grandstand on the outside of the track.
DSC_6976

It’s LOUD under here when the race cars go over!
DSCF0287

We first went to the lower grandstand. Nice view... you can see all of the homestretch and the pits. Here's a car coming by at around 220 mph.












But the best view was up top in the second deck in the "Paddock" stand. You can see all of the homestretch and most of turns one and two, and part of the backstretch. And also a great view of all of the pits.
DSCF0289

DSCF0291

You can see the Indianapolis skyline in the distance beyond turn two.
DSCF0293

The flag stand and start/finish line. Notice the yard of bricks? (There's that guy in the red shirt from the previous photo.)
DSC_6996


Coming out of the pits for some hot laps.
DSC_6998


We weren't allowed in the garage area, but Gasoline Alley is the lane that goes from the garage area out onto the track.












They stopped pedestrian traffic when a car was towed in or out. This is how close they were when they came by.













We made our way back to the car, but before leaving we had to walk over to the short stretch between turns three and four to watch the action from the mound just inside the track fence.



































All in all, an awesome time! We wish we could be here to see the race. But Jim will have to settle for watching it on TV. Memorial Day is his favorite holiday because he gets to watch the Formula One race from Monaco, the Indy 500, and the Charlotte 600 all in one day. That's about 10 hours of racing!

On the way home we met our friend Marian at Culver's for dinner. When we got back to the RV there were several campfires smoking up the whole park. It started bothering my breathing so we turned on the air conditioner.










We watched the NASCAR race from Darlington and just relaxed the rest of the evening. The weather was perfect - no rain, warm (but not hot), and no humidity. A wonderful day at the track!

5 comments:

KarenInTheWoods said...

It looks like you guys were in your glory!!!!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Karen and Steve
(Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

Bob and Jo said...

When we started out we thought we would like camp fires, now we close up if it gets too bad.

Joe and Carolyn said...

cars looked great. That is a 64 GTO. 65 had stacked headlights. Just missed you guys at Scott AFB. Went through about noon and decided to keep going. In Sioux Falls now.

Mike and Terri said...

Looks like you had a great day at the track. Sorry I wasn't there with you.

LakeConroePenny,TX said...

You both had a great time, at a great place. Thanks for all the pictures.
My late DH always looked forward to all the races on Memorial Day, too. He had worked in the pits in his youth, and had oil racing through his veins instead of blood!
Happy Trails, Penny, TX

St. Patrick's Day - Council Meeting - Concert

 Shalimar, FL   (Hi  63  Lo 47)    I'VE BEEN ASKED THAT THE FONT IT TOO SMALL. JUST DO A CONTROL +  AND IT WILL ENLARGE. CONTROL   -(min...