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After what has been an interesting year, it’s time to push away from the keyboard and get ready for a long winter’s nap – for a couple of weeks anyway. Today is my last day to work until Jan 2, so I figured today should be that last day of the year for this site.

My racing season started at the end of March, when Paul Dalbey of Fieldof33.com and I drove out to Ft. Worth for what turned out to be the final IndyCar weekend at Texas Motor Speedway – for now, anyway. Three weeks later, Susan and I made our annual trek to Barber Motorsports Park. That was after I had traveled to IMS the previous weekend for the Open Test. After Barber, we attended the three weekends of the Month of May, which also included me running solo for the week of practice between the GP and Qualifying. After a short break, Susan and I made the long drive to Wisconsin to one of our favorite race weekends – Road America. After taking off the month of July, we attended three races in a row – the Music City Grand Prix, the Brickyard double-header weekend and then Gateway. Just like that, it was all over.

As we creep toward the upcoming Month of May, this site will celebrate a milestone. On May 1, it’ll be fifteen years since I launched this site – and what a ride it has been since. At this time, I have no plans to do anything out of the ordinary to commemorate the date – other than observing it when it gets here. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think this site would last this long, but I can promise one thing – it won’t go another fifteen years. Even if I’m still above ground then, I have no plans on being an 80 year-old IndyCar blogger.

The way things have been going this offseason, I’m glad to be taking a break. Maybe things will improve soon and gain some positive momentum for 2024. I hope so. I don’t really want to return in January with a snarky post to kick things off.

Susan and I are not going anywhere this Christmas, but we’ll both be off work and plan to do some fun things around town. This past Sunday, she and I attended our first Titans game since 2019. COVD and cancer have prevented us from going since then. But her health has improved to the point that she felt up to going Sunday. Too bad the team didn’t play better. It’s been a dismal season.

We plan on relaxing and recharging our batteries. We’ve not finalized our in-person racing schedule for next season, but there are several tracks we know we will be going to – Barber, IMS for the entire Month of May, Road America, Gateway and the season-finale at the Music City Grand Prix. I can almost assure you that we will add at least one more race – most likely Milwaukee or Long Beach, perhaps both.

I shouldn’t jinx it, but Susan’s health is better than it has been since her pancreatic cancer diagnosis almost four years ago (March of 2020, when she was initially scanned). She has already beaten so many odds, and we are grateful for that – but we are greedy and we want more.

I’ll close with a photo of us from Sunday’s Titans game, after we got there way too early before the seats filled up. I have done a crude job of turning into a Christmas card.

Susan and I both want to wish all of you who keep coming here day after day, week after week, a very Merry Christmas! Get ready for lots of testing and racing news in January. The season will be here before you know it. I will return here on Wednesday January 3rd. Enjoy your Christmas break!

Susan and George Phillips

This entry was posted on December 20, 2023 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.