Motorsport

Bozo

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Feb 12, 2002
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Went to the Indy car race at Pocono Speedway over the weekend. The pre race activities were great. We had pit passes which allowed us to walk right into the garage area. Every team that we stopped at would answer your questions even though they were really busy.
They also had about a dozen 1950 and 1960 vintage Indy cars on display. You could actually walk up and touch them (after asking permission). They started and ran a few of the cars while we were watching, standing about 3 feet from the cars. Then they rolled the cars onto the track and ran them for 10 laps. The sound of the Offenhauser 4 cylinder cars took me back to about 1957 and my first Indy 500. My son was clocking them and calculated their speed at between 90 MPH and 100 MPH, although it looked like you could jog along side them. Awesome!!
Looking at the cockpit of these older cars made me realize the men that drove these had titanium balls. Very little padding; a steering wheel that only steered the cars and actually looked like a steering wheel instead on a Rock-Ola juke box or a pinball machine; a roll bar that was usually lower than the drivers head; and most only had a seat belt, no 5 point harness. These men actually had to drive these cars. If the setup wasn't right, you man handled the car...not push a button on the steering wheel to change something.

The race itself was boring. We left after 130 of 200 laps.

And Pocono Speedway still has not addressed the traffic problems. A few years ago I went to a NASCAR race there. Big mistake. It took over 2.5 hours to get out of the parking lot and 4.5 hours to drive the 6 miles to the interstate. Nothing has changed since then.

We had a great time!
 
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