Oilpressure

For whatever reason, Fridays have always had very light traffic on this site. Even on race weekends, my “(Fill in the blank) Preview” posts go largely ignored. Imagine how small the readership is in the offseason. No, I’m not abandoning my Friday posts, but there is a good chance many of you missed my post this past Friday. It has relevance to what I am writing about today, so you may want to go back and read it.

At least some people read it, because it generated an e-mail to me on Friday morning, from a reader who saw it and shared a similar story to my Orlando wedding trip over Memorial Day weekend in 1989. Without invading his privacy, I’ll be real vague and leave out most of the specifics he shared with me.

A few years ago, he had plans to go to the Indianapolis 500. His daughter was getting married, and for a variety of reasons – she and her groom chose the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend for her nuptials. Being the father of the bride, you can figure out where the reader spent Race Day that year (although he did confess to keeping up with the race on his phone).

This gentleman already had concrete plans to attend the 2022 Indianapolis 500, but he recently found out a grandchild is due at the end of May. Like a dutiful grandfather-to-be, he has now scrapped his plans for the 106th Running of The Greatest Spectacle in Racing in order to be there for the birth of his grandchild. In consolation, he has moved his racing weekend back a month and will attend the IndyCar weekend at Road America instead. If you know how much I love Road America, you know I don’t consider that much of a step-down.

But it begged the question, that only hardcore race fans will get; and that is – why do people make major plans over Memorial Day weekend, when immediate family members that go to the Indianapolis 500, are obviously busy that weekend? If you are a casual fan reading this, you’ll consider that an idiotic question. If you are a die-hard, you’ll probably think it’s a very legitimate question.

May is already busy enough with graduations and other matters that demand family attention. Why do people plan weddings that weekend, when there are fifty-one other weekends on the calendar? Even if I wasn’t a race fan, I think it’s a little selfish to expect your friends and relatives to give up a holiday weekend for your wedding. Years ago, someone once told me that there is no one more selfish than a young couple getting married. Since then, I’ve seen repeated examples play out that confirms that notion.

A year or two before Susan and I got married ourselves, I heard a race fan complaining about missing the upcoming 500 that year, because a close friend was getting married that same weekend. I made the comment to Susan how thoughtless it was for any couple to expect people to give up their holiday weekend to attend their Memorial Day wedding. She then informed me that her first wedding took place over Memorial Day weekend in 1987. While Big Al was winning his fourth, Susan was going down the aisle. Obviously, her first husband was not a racing fan. No wonder the marriage was doomed for divorce.

I’m not just limiting this rant to Memorial Day or racing. I’ll never forget back in 1980, when I was still in college – a friend of mine and his fiancé chose to get married in Knoxville on the Saturday night of Labor Day weekend. She is the one that set the date. The problem was that the Tennessee Vols were opening their season that night in Knoxville against the Georgia Bulldogs. Except for the wedding party that had no choice, not a single one of his friends from college showed up. We were all at the game, watching the Vols lose 16-15 against a freshman named Herschel Walker.

My friend was incensed that not a single one of his supposed close friends went to his wedding. What did he expect? Football schedules are set up years in advance. They knew the Vols were in town that weekend. If they really wanted people to be there, they should have picked another date. He never spoke to any of us ever again, and I’ve completely lost touch with the guy. For the record, I did hear that they got divorced about three years later. If she was that thoughtless about other people’s plans, he was probably better off anyway.

I am being semi-sarcastic here, but the Indianapolis 500 has been run over Memorial Day weekend since the early seventies, when Congress made Memorial Day a Monday holiday, instead of always on May 30. I can remember attending several races during the middle of the week in the sixties. While it went against tradition, it does make it easier to attend over a three-day weekend.

That was almost fifty years ago, when Congress did that. Since then, generations have been going every year over the same weekend (except for 2020) in May. Families make plans around Memorial Day, knowing it is off-limits to certain family members each and every year.

People do things over holiday weekends. If you were planning your own wedding, would you plan it over Thanksgiving weekend? Probably not, because you know no one would come. Why is Memorial Day or Labor Day open season for weddings?

Another friend has a sister-in-law that has an early June birthday. Her husband (his brother) planned a surprise birthday party (two weeks early) for her over Memorial Day weekend and expected him to be there. He went to the race (the 100th Running in 2016). He says he still catches grief about it.

I understand life happens and there do need to be certain priorities. The reader that e-mailed me has made the right choice to be present when his grandbaby is due. He would have probably preferred it happen at another time of year, but I don’t think he thought twice about it. Illnesses and pregnancies cannot be scheduled. You work around them. Weddings? That’s something else.

The reader had no choice, but be present to give his daughter away at her Memorial Day wedding. Apparently, she had little choice in picking the date because facilities had filled up and that was the only available date. There’s a reason that date was available.

Every year I see someone complaining on one of the IndyCar Facebook pages I belong to, complaining that they will miss the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in over thirty years, because a family member is getting married that weekend. If you’re not a race fan, missing the Indianapolis 500 once seems to be no big deal.

If you’re reading this, the Indianapolis 500 is probably a big deal to you. Some family members will understand that, but others won’t care at all. Even if you don’t go every year, you probably like to block that whole day out to catch it on television. Do yourself a favor and let everyone in your family know that if there are wedding plans in anyone’s future, one weekend is off-limits – Memorial Day weekend.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on November 1, 2021 at 4:03 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.