Oilpressure

Today marks the beginning of my annual Thanksgiving break from here, although it won’t be that long – only one week. Susan and I, along with my daughter, will be making the usual trek to the home I grew up in – to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my mother. She is now 95, but she is still preparing all the side dishes. Susan will cook the turkey and I will be there, well…to eat.

There is so much to be thankful for this year – both personally and from an IndyCar fan’s perspective. I’m grateful to have another holiday season with my mother. She is in remarkably good health, both physically and mentally. She still gets up early to read each article I post, and then e-mails me the corrections by the time I get to work. She continues to drive and still goes to an exercise class three times a week. I am very thankful we still get to spend holidays in the home I spent my childhood in, from the age of five.

I’m also thankful that even at our ripe old ages, Susan and I are still in excellent health. That’s somewhat remarkable in itself, because neither of us exercise nor watch our diets. A couple of people e-mailed me asking for my…um, colonoscopy results from a couple of weeks ago. In case you were wondering, everything came out fine, so I’m good for another five years.

From an IndyCar fan’s viewpoint, I’m extremely grateful that we got through the 2019 season with no serious injuries. The worst thing that happened was that after the season ended, a few IndyCar regulars were told that their rides were going to someone else. While that’s unfortunate for them, if that’s the worst thing that happened this season – that speaks well for the season we just had.

Of course, we should all be thankful that Roger Penske recently stepped up to buy the NTT IndyCar Series as well as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Everything seems to have a much brighter outlook for the next several years. I’m very thankful for that.

Since I never want to be sitting behind a keyboard over Thanksgiving, I will be taking off from here, this Friday Nov 30 and also Monday Dec 2. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be pushing away from racing and relaxing. In fact, quite the contrary. Susan and I will be returning to Nashville on Friday afternoon, so that we can get up early on Saturday morning and drive to Indianapolis.

The Titans are playing the Colts up there this Sunday. Quite honestly, when I saw that the game was being played on Dec 1, it never dawned on me that it was Thanksgiving weekend. I thought it would be the following weekend. Had I known that, I probably would not have bought the tickets. But I did, so we are going. We will make our usual pilgrimage to IMS on Saturday afternoon, and do some Christmas shopping at the gift shop. We also plan to have dinner at Dawson’s on Saturday night. I’m already trying to decide between their delicious tenderloin or their weekend prime rib special. I have an idea the tenderloin will win out, but we’ll see. Since the game will not be over until after 4:00 local time on Sunday, and we will have to drive back home Sunday night – there will be no post here on Monday. I will return here on Wednesday Dec 4.

Hopefully, the Titans will play like they did this past Sunday than they did last year in Indianapolis. Susan and I made our first trip to Lucas Oil Stadium last November and the game was over before halftime. The Colts won 38-10, and it wasn’t that close. If anyone is there this Sunday, please look for us and stop to say Hi.

I am also thankful for all of the loyal readers that have been coming here over the years – some of them since the very beginning, over ten years ago. The numbers keep growing, probably not so much because the content is so good here – it’s just because so many of the other bloggers are now gone and few have replaced them. But still, I’ll take the growing numbers however I get them and I’m very thankful that people still come here. If they didn’t, I’d have no reason to keep doing this – so thanks to you all.

Susan and I want to take this time to wish each and everyone of you the happiest of Thanksgiving weekends, and we also hope that everyone stays safe during their holiday travels. Please come back here on Wed Dec 4.

Go Titans!

George Phillips

This entry was posted on November 27, 2019 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. 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.