Oilpressure

If you follow the NTT IndyCar Series or the Indianapolis 500 at all on social media, you probably saw that there were two events to celebrate the unveiling of the 2025 Indianapolis 500 ticket yesterday. One took place in Indianapolis yesterday morning. More specifically, it took place at the Indianapolis Airport. Why there? For a couple of reasons – first the IMS Museum, where they usually hold such things, is still closed for renovations. Secondly, it was held there to commemorate the beginning of non-stop service for Southwest Airlines between Indianapolis and Nashville. Guess where the second celebration was.

If you guessed Music City, you would be correct. I was lucky enough to be invited to the Nashville celebration, that took place at Big Machine Distillery & Tavern – obviously owned by Scott Borchetta and his Big Machine Music Group. In fact, I was invited twice – once because I am (still) a member of the IndyCar media, and another because I am a longtime Nashville ticket holder to the Indianapolis 500.

I am lucky that it took place just after work, and not too far from my office. Unfortunately, I was not accompanied by Mrs. Oilpressure – my wife, Susan.

Now is as good a time as any to let you know what has been going on with Susan’s health lately. Starting New Year’s Day, she went into the hospital for four nights with liver issues – the after-effects of chemo that started almost five years ago. In short, the chemo saved her life but did severe damage to her liver. She left that visit with a party favor – a biliary drain that empties into an external bag that she is to wear “for a while”. To say that she loves that thing would be a huge lie. Did I mention that on Jan 13, she tripped and fell in the parking lot leaving work? The result was a fractured collarbone.

By the end of January, she was back in the hospital for five more days. The bag was causing her to get severely dehydrated and she went into renal failure. Once the kidneys were stabilized, she was released. A week later, she was back in the ER, due to the fact she couldn’t take five steps without having to sit and rest. Once they got her back there, they did the usual EKG. This time, the EKG was showing something far different than what it had been less than two weeks earlier.

Further tests showed that sometime in the previous week or so, she had suffered a NSTEMI (Google it). I was seeing that on her portal, but didn’t know what it meant. It is essentially a mild asymptomatic heart attack (I didn’t know such things existed), which is far more common in women than men. A heart echo showed she had little to no heart damage. Her heart is in good shape, but just learning that still scared us to death.

It was Feb 5 when she went in this time, and she has been hospitalized at Vanderbilt ever since. There was a time when things looked very bleak. But as she always does – she has bounced back. It was scary for a few days, but she now seems completely normal. She has felt great for the past week, but they still want to see her blood-work stabilize a bit more. She was really wanting to go to Thursday’s ticket event, but the doctors said no. But a couple of hours before the event started, they told her she might go home today (Friday). After being away from home for over a month, she is certainly ready to get out. But she was bummed it couldn’t happen just one day earlier. They have teased us before about getting out, but I think it may actually happen this time. It has been a tough 2025 for Susan so far, but we are both fairly confident she will be 100% when May rolls around.

Back to the event, it was a very enjoyable gathering. I’m not much of a mingler, but I talked to several people in the crowd. All were from the surrounding area. These were not casual fans. These people knew racing, and the place was packed. I was talking to one retired gentleman who said he has been a ticket holder for fifteen years and goes every year. Another was actually a long-time reader of this site and knew that I was taking a step back – but not entirely.

The Borg-Warner Trophy was present, as was the Astor Challenge Cup. I saw some friends and familiar faces with IndyCar and Penske Entertainment that I visited with before the festivities began. Newgarden was over in a corner being interviewed by local TV. It was almost like being at a race, but I had just left work. It was sort of surreal. (All photos mine, unless noted)

When the program started, I honestly had no idea I happened to be standing in front of the microphone. I had a front-row seat for everything. Another long-time reader was following along live on Instagram and texted me this admittedly fuzzy screen shot from the video, when he saw me standing right there, and no – I was not the “Hometown Hero”. (Photo screenshot from Instagram video)

IMS President (and now IndyCar President) Doug Boles kicked things off explaining the ticket that had been unveiled in Indianapolis just a few hours earlier. The photos of Newgarden and his car as he won the 2024 race were in the foreground, but the shadows showed almost identical images from his 2023 victory. The number “2” in the back2back script also featured the same font as his car number. It is one of the better ticket designs I have seen and it was designed in-house.

The Indianapolis 500 is one of the few events in this world that still prints card stock tickets, as opposed to lifeless digital tickets. They don’t go through Ticketmaster or any of those evil ticket exchanges. They still are sold by the IMS Ticket Office. Enjoy this while you can. They say they will never follow the path of other sporting events and concerts, but who knows? Change is Bad!

After Boles spoke, he turned it over to a very relaxed and smiling Josef Newgarden, who kept talking about how much he loved his hometown of Nashville. He must love it, because he still lives here – probably about five miles from where the event took place.

Boles then introduced Scott Borchetta, who could not have been prouder to have the event in his venue. He was talking about his love for the Indianapolis 500 and it even gave me goosebumps to hear him go on.

Afterwards, Boles, Newgarden and Borchetta posed with a bottle of milk (which Boles explained was really diluted paint, so that it wouldn’t spoil like milk would).

When the event was over, Newgarden sat and signed autographs and any memorabilia that fans brought with them. There was free food and drinks available, but I didn’t stick around. I wanted to leave to get up to the hospital to visit with Susan, who is hopefully spending her last night there for a while. But it was good to see a lot of familiar faces of many of my racing friends. It was another reminder that the IndyCar season has started and May is just around the corner. Is it May yet?

George Phillips

This entry was posted on March 7, 2025 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.