For the past few years, King Snake and I have made the 8 hour trek up to Indianapolis to watch the Indy 500. It’s always a good Father/Son bonding weekend and this year we took our friend JoK. King Snake is a huge race fan having grown up watching his father serve as the flagman for their local dirt track. In a way, our jaunts up to Indy remind him of those days and, in a way, have become our own little tradition.
Tradition is part of what I love about Indy. This year was the 97th running and there are traditions that stretch back almost as far as the first race:
1) The pre-race laps with some of the previous winners (including the first winner, the 1911 Marmon Wasp).
2) A starting line-up of 33 cars.
3) Jim Neighbors singing “Back Home Again in Indiana”.
4) Florence Henderson singing “God Bless America” (although she was sick this year, so Jon McLaughlin took her place. First time since 1991 she hasn’t held the mic).
5) The playing of “Taps”. Let me tell you, few things are as moving as 400,000 people becoming absolutely silent in order to honor our fallen when this song plays.
6) The winner (this year it was Tony Kanaan!) drinking milk. Which, to be honest, is disgusting. If I’d been in the sweltering heat of a race car for 4 hours, the LAST thing I’d want in my body is a quart of dairy.
And that’s just the tip of the iceburg.
Anyway, I planned to write a long, poingant post about how traditions ground us in our past, blah blah blah. Instead, I figured I’d just toss some pictures and videos up here and let you see what our new Indy tradition is like.
How about you all? Any traditions of your own?
2013 Indy 500 Photo Diary:
One reply on “Indy and Traditions”
Those museum cars are cool, as is the fact that your grandfather was a flagman at a dirt track. (There should be more about that, if anyone were to ask me.)
My 9 yr old and I, every Father’s Day weekend, head over to watch the hot air balloons light up (literally -they do a glow) and then take off at the local hot air balloon festival.