Next Sunday, what is to me, the world’s most extraordinary racing event takes place in Indianapolis. If you’ve never been in person, I can assure you that words cannot adequately describe the spectacle.
My first Indy 500 race was in 1987. Besides stock car races at smaller dirt tracks near my hometown of Lawrenceville, GA., that was my first ever auto race. It was a fun weekend with a great group of folks. I experienced a wide variety of craziness, like spiked watermelons, streaking, fraudulently posing as drivers and team owners, bribery, being ejected from a restaurant, and doing an extremely inappropriate (even for 1987) cabaret number (Just a Gigolo) in a gay bar, only to find someone that had done the same just a couple of weeks before and was shot and killed. But, better than all of those wild and crazy experiences, I fell in love with Indy racing that weekend.
After that year, I didn’t miss a race day for almost two decades. I was honored to play in the driver’s golf tournament, attend the driver’s dinner, and have breakfast next to Arie Luyendyk, who was so hungover that he ate with his head in his hands and smelled like a distillery. We assumed we’d not see him on the track that day. Imagine our shock two hours later as we watched him break the qualifying round speed record with an incredible 237.4 MPH. It still stands today.
One year, we had a large group sitting in Penthouse Paddock seats, the ideal view of the track and pits. One member of our party may have been slightly overserved, as we learned when security came to our seats. They made us aware of his actions and advised us that he had been escorted from the track and, “We could pick up our trash at Gate 6.”. They let us know that our friend had climbed about thirty feet up onto the crow’s nest where the ABC cameraman was positioned, and they frowned on that at the track. He spent the race outside the gate.
All of those experiences, however, pale in comparison to my favorite. In those days, there were no companies that offered racing experiences or other similar packages that would get us mere mortals on the hallowed Brickyard. I got to know Eldon Palmer, the last non-racer to drive the pace car to lead the race. Eldon had an accident that led to a policy change where only pro-drivers were allowed to drive the pace car. The wrecked pace car, a Dodge Challenger, was displayed in his showroom on 38th Street in Indy.
For the 1996 race, the same year as Luyendyk set his record, Dodge was chosen as the Official Pace Car with the Viper, and the Official Pace Truck, with the Ram 1500. At the time, I was not yet an owner of our Dodge dealership but its General Manager. My Chrysler rep, Dave Shutte, called me with an offer being extended to the largest volume dealers, a chance actually to get to drive on the track. The catch was I had to buy a Viper pace car and a Ram pace truck, around $125,000 total. I couldn’t say yes fast enough.
The event was on May 1, and there was a constant stream of communications building up the anticipation and excitement of the big day. I was so nervous that the fickle Indy spring weather would wipe out the event or that some other disaster would derail me from getting to drive on the world’s most famous raceway.
One of our salespeople, Doug Alsman, was a top performer for Chrysler nationally and a genuine car nut. I invited him to go with me and ride on the track. He was as excited as I was.
On the morning of May 1, we took off on the hour and a half drive to Speedway, IN. When we arrived, we saw a long time of Ram pace trucks along the track in front of the pit area, where the cars start on race day. This was getting real. In just moments, I would be flying around the track and across the brick finish line.
I was led to a spot beside a pace car and truck, next to the scoreboard. This would be for my souvenir photo. Guides directed us to a massive tent for snacks and drinks before we were seated for the “driver’s meeting” to get into the details of our ride. The Chrysler guys were so excited. They introduced three-time Indy champ Johnny Rutherford and announced that he would be pacing our lap in the actual pace car for the race. Could this get any better?
Then, the sky fell in. As we reviewed all of the safety items on their list, we heard that we would be cruising the track at a leisurely 30 MPH. My first reaction was, “This is not what I came here for.”
They complete the safety speech, and we are given the number for our vehicle. Doug and I make our way to ours. We get into the cab. Doug can tell something’s not quite kosher, and he asks, “It’s the 30 MPH, isn’t it?” I confirmed but said, “I have a plan.”
As we get the famous “Gentlemen, start your engines” call, I ask Doug to hop out and raise the hood. I tell him, “we’re gonna act like our truck won’t start.” He raises the hood and re-enters the cab. Doug says, “What now?”The other trucks make their way around us, and we see support personnel in the pits looking our way. As they head toward the support vehicles, I assume to help us get started. The other trucks have made it through turn one, the short straight, turn two, and are on the back straightaway, puttering behind Johnny Rutherford in the pace car. The emergency vehicles are coming out of the pits the wrong way, headed toward us. I say to Doug, “Close the hood.” He does, jumps back into our truck, and off we go.
If you’ve ever been to Indy, you know that the track isn’t banked like Nascar tracks, so driving in the turns is more challenging. I put the pedal to the floor and went low into turn one, well over 120 MPH. We lost the rear end just a bit but straightened out in the short straight before turn two.
In turn two, we got a bit more sideways but hit the back straightaway wide open. The back of the pack was just going into turn three, and we closed the gap quickly with our speedo buried.
There were other security vehicles on the track, trying to catch our truck, but they weren’t gaining ground by this time. I suspected this would not go over well with track officials, so I overruled the commonsense idea in my head to slow down and tuck in behind the pack.
The pack was up the track a bit from the inside line, so I went low and started blowing by them. Doug is hanging on for dear life but loving every second of it. He yells over the noise, “What about the pace car?” I didn’t respond but kept the pedal on the floor, and we shot under Rutherford. I debated running another lap for a moment, but common sense prevailed, and we rocketed onto pit row. Several security-type vehicles surrounded us as we stopped and exited our truck.
Most of the initial questions were along the lines of, “Are you trying to get yourself killed” “are you crazy” and, my personal favorite, “Do you want to go to jail?”. These were all before the guy I assume was in change confronted me and advised me that I was banned from the track for five years. I responded, “There are well over 100,000 people at the 500. How would you know?” His answer chilled my spine. “Oh, we’ll know.”
Doug and I had an interesting trip back to Louisville that afternoon. Dave Shutter told me that my “stunt” had become legendary amongst the Chrysler brass.
A year later, I attended a Chrysler dealer meeting in Dearborn, just outside of Detroit. We had a cocktail hour before dinner, and the room was filled with the dealers and factory execs. Bob Eaton, the CEO, was in attendance, but the main attraction was Bob Lutz, the epitome of cool. He was the President of Chrysler then. Having served in the US Marine Corps, Lutz was known as “a man’s man,” an adrenaline junkie who loved planes, helicopters, fast cars, and motorcycles. After the Cold War ended, he bought a MIG from the Czech government. All of the instrumentation was in Cyrillic, which he could not read. Nonetheless, he flew the plane back to the U.S. without being able to read a single gauge or control. To a man, every dealer loved Lutz.
