Oilpressure

It’s that time of year again, where I pack up the ol’ keyboard to take a little bit of a break for Christmas. This will be the twelfth Christmas since I started this site. I must say that I’ve never been more glad to put a bow on a year and an IndyCar season, as I have been this year.

Like most other sports, the IndyCar season got a late start – by almost three months. Once it got started, it was somewhat disjointed and, quite honestly – the racing wasn’t that great at a lot of the tracks. The Indianapolis 500 was postponed by three months and ran with no fans. The race itself was a decent race, but I think every participant will tell you that it wasn’t the same without the energy and pageantry that the fans usually bring.

We did get a championship battle, after it looked as if Scott Dixon was going to run away with the title. He eventually won it, but not without a good fight from Josef Newgarden. I think all of the drivers are hoping we can race in front of larger crowds next season, even if there will be schedule adjustments along the way. We’ve already seen one major move just yesterday, with Long Beach being moved to September as next season’s finale.

The difficulties our family experienced in the second half of 2020 have been well documented. My wife, Susan, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on July 7. Less than three weeks later, my mother dropped dead unexpectedly. Yes she was 96, but she was in excellent health until that day.

Susan’s battle has had more good news than bad. Her cancer is still confined to the pancreas, with no sign of spreading. Today, she wraps up Round Eleven (of twelve) of her chemo regimen.

She had a setback last Friday. She was feeling good and was sitting on the floor wrapping Christmas gifts. She got up to get something and tripped over an oversized roll of wrapping paper. When she fell, she landed on her knee and her face. Her face was fine, but she ended up cracking her tibia, just below her knee-cap. She is now wearing a knee brace and using a walker to get around. She didn’t need this, but her spirits are still strong and she’s just dealing with it as just another road bump.

As we head into Christmas, we both have a bright outlook. Susan will completely wrap her chemo for good around New Year’s Day. Although she will feel bad for a few days as we open up the new year, it will get much easier for her from there – although we’re not certain what the next step is beyond that point. We are both focused on her recovery and both want to return to race tracks in 2021. Assuming we can accomplish Plan B sometime in late January, we have targeted Barber as her coming out party, and have every intention of both of us returning to our full Month of May schedule in five months. We are certainly happy to leave this year behind us.

So, it is time to start my annual Christmas break from here. I will not post anything here next week before Christmas, or the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I plan to return here on Monday Jan 4.

Until then, Susan and I want to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas, and I hope we all have a happier 2021. Susan and I are looking ahead to the new year with great confidence that the next one will be as good as this past year was bad. My parting shot for this year is an oldie but a goodie that Susan created a few years ago, that I run every year here just before Christmas. We hope we all get to go to many race tracks in 2021.

Susan and George Phillips

This entry was posted on December 18, 2020 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.