The Indy 500, an emotional event for me, every year. I remember listening to it on the radio back in the 30's and 40's. Not sure the year, probably the late 30's, we had been visiting my Uncle on his farm in Marion, Indiana, and were on our way home and got caught up in a bad traffic jam, traffic from the 500 crowd.
We were on a long straight stretch, bumper to bumper. Probably 15 or so cars ahead of us, was a railroad track. We looked, and saw an approaching train, and one car was stuck on the tracks, and they could not move. They hit, the train was pushing the car down the track, and we saw a white straw hat, with a long bow, floating away in the air. Never have forgotten that scene. We never learned if anyone was in the car or not, we think not, and the hat, floating in the wind, etched in my memory.
Howdy Bell. Sid Collins, Paul Page, there were many more announcers. Then the length of the track and the slower speeds necessitated announcers at all the turns and the straightaways, and the would bounce back and forth, they would follow a car around the track. Their voices and their enthusiasm were the Indy 500 back then.
In later years, we made a weekend out of the event. We had a nice picnic house out in back, and my friends would congregate for the weekend, big cookout on race day. By '49 it had turned in to quite an event. I imagine that, if still around, I imagine some thoughts are headed back to those events.
They are presenting the drivers, a new tradition, I think .... so much tradition .......
"Gentlemen and woman, start your engines."
or
"Drivers, start your engines."
