For Drivers and for Fans, This Is the Fastest Lane

All right, sports fans, this is not Road America in Elkhart Lake, this is not Watkins Glen or Brand’s Hatch. This is not a dash through the streets of Cleveland or a road race in Portland. This is not the Bosch GP.

This is the real thing. The Indianapolis 500 in, by God, Indiana. The citadel of racing. The Vatican of the sport--three hours that can make you forever. The race you have to drive in to be considered a driver and to win to be considered a star. Everything else is just Sunday afternoon traffic. You’re just another teamster there. Here, your name goes up in lights.

This is the World Series, the Super Bowl, the heavyweight title, Wimbledon, the U.S. and British Opens. This is Broadway, baby, the Palace. Everything else is just the out-of-town tryout.

I once dubbed this America’s Earache, but I was kidding. What greater music to the ears of Americans in love with their automobiles--and whom doesn’t that include?--than the sound of a turbocharged Cosworth or Chevy winding up in the backstretch. It’s Beethoven’s Fifth, Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” or anything by Willie Nelson all rolled into one. It makes the”Moonlight Sonata” sound like a dirge. Half a million fans pause and think, “Listen! They’re playing our song!”

It’s the noisiest, most perilous three hours in the fabric of sports. It makes crossing a chasm on a wire look like a stroll in the park. It’s 33 cars pouring through barely squeezable holes at speeds far in excess of the driver’s ability to think or react. It’s life on the edge.

It’s not for ordinary people. It’s for the chance-takers, the high-risk rollers among us, the people who climb mountains, ride sharks, walk tightropes, douse oil fires or bet the blue chips on the next card. The people who get bored standing still.

This is for the Unsers, the Foyts, the Andrettis among us. This is not for the accountants, the ribbon clerks, the guys who fold aces. This is for guys who get a glaze over their eyes when they see a fuel injector, for people who can’t wait to go into a corner at 220 m.p.h. in traffic.

This saw Rickenbacker before he became a fighter pilot taking on the Red Baron. This is for guys who would go to the moon in a tin can.

This put auto racing on the map. Drivers went into the language. “Who do you think you are--Parnelli Jones?” “He’s a regular Barney Oldfield.”

Brave men have died here. It used to kill more people than diphtheria. Not lately. It’s gotten safer than taking a bath. The faster they go, the safer they go. The ambulances used to log more miles than the winner. The hearses got laps. The fire trucks needed tire changes, too.

The cars used to be slower, but they were heavier. They disputed the wall, didn’t yield to it. Now, they come apart like a Hong Kong suit. They keep the driver intact while everything else splits.

It’s still no day in the park. Fuel still bursts into flame. Burn spots are the drivers’ dueling scars. Cars burn. So do people.

Still, you have to get in a car here to gain credibility. You have to play Wimbledon to be a tennis champion. You have to fight for the title to be a ranked contender. You have to play the Masters to be a world-class golfer, make the Olympics if you want to be considered a runner.

You go on the talk shows and you talk about winning championships, winning at Phoenix or Daytona and the host stops you.

“You ever race at Indy?” he wants to know.

If the answer is no, he may turn to the audience and say, “And now, our next guest is. . . .” You’re suddenly not a race driver, just another chauffeur.

To give you an idea how fast these cars are going, just imagine driving from San Diego to San Francisco in just under three hours. And stopping six times for gas, oil and a tire change on the way.

The cars think they’re airplanes and would like nothing better than to take off. If they do, they cartwheel through space like a roof in a tornado. The cars have to be aerodynamically outfitted to cause a downdraft, rather than an updraft, to keep them aground.

There’s really no more unequal struggle in the world of sports. Keeping a mindless, brutish, 1,550-pound mount going forward and turning left requires the hand-eye coordination of a .400 hitter, the strength of a linebacker. A race horse has an equal pull in the weights over its driver, but a race horse will not slam into a wall. Facing Mike Tyson is scary, but so is facing Turn 2.

It’s more than a race, it’s an American institution. It’s a salute to American bravado. They ran in it in a day when one out of every three men who got in a race car died in a race car. Even so, fields were full and there was a waiting list. Economics keep young daredevils out of it now, not fear. No one has died in the race since 1964. No one has died on this track since 1982.

Has it gone soft? Lost its punch? Gotten bored with blood?

Hardly. It sits there like a heavy-lidded crocodile, patient, cold-blooded, waiting till it gets hungry while they take liberties with it. They run around at ever-faster speeds, they tease the walls with hubcap scraping grooves, but it’s still the most dangerous stretch of highway in the United States, 2 1/2 miles of potential pileup. Blood Alley. It is armed and dangerous. Respect it or die.

That’s why it’s America’s Race. Shootout at high noon. Showdown on Main Street. Saturday night in Dodge City. It’s as American as the gangster funeral. Make a mistake here and the payoff is not a knockout, a strikeout, an interception or the two-shot foul. The score is not deuce.

They talk about courage in all sports. Indianapolis redefines the term. Courage is not stealing home on a 3-and-2 count. Courage is not taking the ball on the Chicago Bears’ two-yard line, or taking the fight to Tyson.

Courage is just starting your engine.