Oilpressure

This week I have the opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do all my life, but was never able to do it until now. As most of you read this, I am on my way back to Indianapolis less than forty-eight hours after leaving there on Sunday. I am heading back up in order to attend every practice session leading up to Qualifying Weekend and I hope to be there by the time practice starts this morning at 11:00 EDT.

I’ve mentioned here before that a couple of years ago, my job was outsourced. Even though I am doing the same job and even stayed in the same office with the same phone number – I had a new employer. While there were many positives associated with that move, one of the negatives was that I lost all of my vacation time that I had built up (five weeks) with my old employer.

Over the past two years, I’ve built some vacation time back up; but guess what – it’s happened again. My current employer has lost the contract, effective July 1. Fortunately the new contractor has agreed to retain me (albeit with a sizable pay cut), but again I lose my vacation time. So since I have some time to burn before July 1, I’ve chosen to use it doing something I’ve always wanted to do – attend the week of practice.

Some of you will be very envious, while some will be perplexed at how I could spend four days of vacation at The Speedway just watching cars go by endlessly from 11:00 to 6:00 each and every day, Tuesday through Friday. To each his own, but I can’t think of a better way to spend four days. Even if it rains every day, I think I will still have the time of my life…but I’m hoping for sunny skies each day.

My wife, Susan, was with me this past weekend at the Grand Prix. But she is trying to save her own vacation time and not burn it, so I’ll be in Indianapolis alone all week. However, she was able to find an ultra-cheap flight to Indianapolis on Friday night so she will be back with me for qualifying and then we will both drive back to Nashville next Sunday night…until we come back Friday for the race. That’s the craziness that comes with the Month of May.

I started attending Pole Day as a kid starting in 1967, and attended every Pole Day thereafter through 1972. After the 1972 race, my father inexplicably lost interest in the Indianapolis 500. I went twenty years before returning for the frigid 1992 race. In 1993, I attended Pole Qualifying Weekend. My first wife’s father (who was a great guy) had a friend that worked for USAC and he got us into the garage area for the whole weekend. I was in absolute heaven. That’s when I learned how much I enjoyed just sitting in the stands watching practice.

We had planned to return for the first qualifying weekend the next year, but my father’s illness prevented that from happening. However, he insisted we attend the race two weeks later (which we did). After he passed away in December of 1994, I bought two bronze badges for 1995 so that we wouldn’t have to keep glomming on to my father-in-law’s friend. My wife went with me the first weekend, but my oldest brother joined me at the track the second weekend – the weekend that Team Penske failed to make the race.

By that time, I had realized just how addicted I had become to just being at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It didn’t matter if it was for the race, qualifying, practice or if there was snow on the ground in February – I just loved being inside that track.

When live streaming of practice for the Indianapolis 500 became a thing about twenty years ago, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I would sit at work sneaking peaks whenever I could, just to catch the feeling of being at the track. I made a promise to myself that someday, I would go and spend the whole first week of practice.

In those days, that required quite a commitment – of both time and money. Opening Day was on Saturday and they would practice all day every day until the next Saturday, which was Pole Day. So not only was that an entire week away from work, you were talking about a very extended and expensive stay in a hotel room – plus meals.

One silver lining to more and more practice days being lopped off of the IMS calendar is that in order to keep that promise to myself, I’m only talking three extra days of vacation time from what I normally do these days. Nowadays, most hotels offer a free hot breakfast and the IMS Media Center has a cafeteria for lunch. My out-of-pocket meals are limited to what I eat for dinner and however many classic jumbo tenderloins I want to eat at the track. Plus, with Susan’s job where she travels so much – she has points built up with practically every major hotel chain, so this extended stay at IMS will not cost me much at all.

I had mentioned to a few people back in April that I was thinking about doing this. Some that live in the Indianapolis area were even kind enough to offer me a place to stay. While that was greatly appreciated, I think my presence would get old after a day or so. Plus, after spending all day at the track – I’ll probably be ready for some alone time each night. But thanks to those that offered.

I will still be posting from here regularly – even more so. Some of the things I had planned for this week will still be here each morning, but there could also be updates from the track here each day. When I post updates depends on what is going on each day.

So follow along as I go on my great adventure. By Wednesday afternoon, I may be wondering what in the world I was thinking to do this – but I don’t think so. Even though I’m about to spend six full days in a row at the track, I think those days will fly by – but it will be good to have Susan rejoin me on Friday night.

By the end of the week, I’ll give an honest assessment if this is something I would recommend. I figure that there are others out there who have wondered about just hanging out at IMS for all of practice, but never acted on it. I figured with my job situation and the way my vacation time keeps getting reset to zero, this would be the only opportunity I would have to do this until I’m retired. And by then, I may be too old to do it…or enjoy it. So, I’ve pulled the trigger and taken advantage of this opportunity to experience something I never have at IMS. I can’t wait to see how I like it.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 14, 2019 at 4:04 am and is filed under Indianapolis 500. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.