Oilpressure

Due to the way the calendar falls and with racing activity this past weekend, I want to wish every one a belated welcome to the Month of May.

May has had an ominous start for racing fans. We learned Monday morning that three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser passed away on Sunday night. He was eighty-seven and apparently died of natural causes. Those of us that had seen him in recent years knew that he was in poor physical health, but the mind was as sharp as ever until just before the end. We kidded ourselves that he would last forever. Obviously no one does, but the sport lost one of the wittiest and sharpest minds to ever grace the intersection of 16th and Georgetown.

I will spend more time tomorrow reflecting on the life of Bobby Unser.

While this year’s Indianapolis 500 promises to look and feel different than most, there is still a lot more normalcy than last year.

So yes, I will do my best to post every weekday in the Month of May. My work is abnormally busy for this time of year, and I have been having to bring work home at night lately. I do have a fulltime day-job that actually pays the bills, If that happens, there won’t be any post the next day. But I promise you that I will try.

My Month of May posts will generally center around the Indianapolis 500. They may be personal reflections, something from a historical perspective or something very light-hearted. With the race so late in May this year (the traditional date of May 30), it will be a long month – so I’ll have plenty of time to create new topics.

Most importantly, the trivia contest will have thirty-three questions again – plus a tie-breaker. I started gathering the questions in March and completed it last week. The only question is what the prize will be. The trivia contest will be posted on Wednesday May 12.

This year’s race may feel a lot different. COVID-19 has taken away a lot of privileges from a lot of people. As of this writing, I am still not sure if I will be credentialed for this year’s race. While many will sarcastically say “boo-hoo”; I’ve been fully credentialed for the Indianapolis 500 since 2010. I am hoping that streak will continue, but I can’t say I am confident at this point. If it doesn’t, I’ll completely understand. Those that make these decisions have their hands tied. Not that anyone really cares, but I will keep everyone here posted.

Susan’s health will also play a part in our May plans. She is doing VERY well, but we learned back in December that follow-up radiation after her surgery in February would be happening in May. It’s not great timing, but we will deal with it. She is over a week into the five weeks of treatment and it seems to be going fine. It just really tires her out. So it is doubtful she will make all three weekends at IMS this year. My guess is that she will skip Qualifying Weekend this year, but we’ll see.

Lastly, it is usually this Month of May post that I recognize the anniversary for starting this site. Saturday May 1, marked the twelfth anniversary of this site. I started blogging anonymously here on May 1, 2009. Surprisingly, things caught on quickly. Some followed for a while and dropped off. Others showed up later, but have been here ever since. A few of you have been here since the very beginning. Even if you first stumbled across this site last week, I appreciate all of you that have been reading this site for the past dozen years. Even at my ripe old age, I still enjoy doing this. Once that stops, the site will stop – but for now, I plan to continue for a while.

So, buckle-up for a full month. We have nightly Tracksides from 7:00 to 8:00 EDT on 1075theFan.com followed by Beyond the Bricks with Jake Query and Mike Thomsen (more on that show on Thursday) nightly from 8:00 to 9:00 EDT. And of course, a daily post from Oilpressure.com. It’s going to be a fun run.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on May 4, 2021 at 4:03 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.