It’s an August Race Day at IMS!
It always sounds a little disingenuous to say race Day at IMS, when the GMR Grand Prix runs in May. It sounds downright surreal to say it in August. But an IndyCar race will run at IMS today, so that’s what it really is.
We woke up to a thunderstorm this morning, and it rained until about 9:00 am. The sun came out and made everything steamy. People here are complaining about how humid it is. None of them were in Nashville last weekend. This is nothing.
We made it to The Workingman’s Friend at 11:05 am, just five minutes after it opened. As soon as we walked in, someone yelled “There he is! George Phillips!” It was a longtime reader, his wife and two of their friends. He stood up and introduced himself – Jim Peabody (I hope I got that right) a Colorado Springs native, transplanted to Birmingham, Alabama – in town for the race.
He had been reading the site since the early days. We sat at the table next to them. He said I had turned them on to Dawson’s, so they wanted to try The Workingman’s Friend too. I don’t think they were disappointed. They left before we did. When we asked for our check, our server said it had already been taken care of by the table next to us. So, thank you Jim!
There is a much bigger crowd than I was expecting. It dawned on me that the only other time we came to this race was in August 2021, when we were still dealing with COVID restrictions. I had forgotten that detail. We arrived at the track by noon, but got caught in traffic. By the time we got to the Media Center, it was about 12:40 – and we were lucky to get a parking spot.
The Cup cars are out on track qualifying right now. They look smaller on the main-straightaway in-person than they do on television. But they sure seem to lumber through the twisty portion of this circuit.
The IndyCar race is to start in about forty minutes. We are going to wander around before it’s time to head to the IndyCar grid. I’ll have a wrap-up after the race, then Susan will have a post that will go up on Sunday, so please check it out. Then I will have my usual Random Thoughts on Monday. Please check back later this afternoon and enjoy the race on USA Network.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
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