Ladies And Gentlemen: Start Your Engines

The onslaught of fans and traffic has been going on here in Indy, for a couple of days now. It's affected many things here where I live. One thing is the increase in traffic congestion, on and off the road. On the road is expected, but the newer thing is the increased hi-speed internet traffic that my local internet service provider has had to accommodate. So, as a result, my service is slower than usual and if I can get this post out before I throw something at the monitor, it'll be a minor miracle.

I'd like to take a moment and share a couple of things about the race, you may or may not know about this year's and past races.

The first thing to note deals with this year. There will be three women starting this year's race. I won't bore you with details, but you can read more about it in the Indy Star.

The second thing deals with the past and present. An interesting piece can be found here, from yesterday's Star.

Tony George has lived most of his life in Indianapolis, but he also feels like he is at home in this city, where he occasionally works in his late grandfather's Hulman & Co. downtown office.

Terre Haute has long been regarded as part of the Indianapolis 500's extended family.

The connection forms the backbone of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which will host the 500 on Sunday for the 91st time. It shows in the Speedway's employees, their backgrounds and their influences, past and present.

In a rare moment of self-disclosure, I recently wrote a post that chronicled a portion of my life and world, with Terre Haute being mentioned as one of the many stops. Hulman and Company was one of the companies I worked for, while I was at that stop.

Hopefully they will get the race in today, it's raining at the track right now. If they do get it in and you are planning to watch "The Greatest Spectacle In Racing", enjoy it for me. It's blacked out here and I am in no mood to fight drunken crowds at my age.