2017 Indy 500 CARB DAY Photo Journal

DAN'S PHOTO JOURNALS

101st INDY 500
CARB DAY
Friday, May 26st, 2017

I was really hustling yesterday to get my house cleaned up and buying
food and beer for the weekend. I'd been trying to get my race tickets all
month and my ticket guy finally showed up with them yesterday afternoon.
I had been getting worried about getting them, as he is from NY and I
wanted him to mail them to me a month ago.

E.T. and Koz showed up from Michigan around 2 a.m. We stayed up
for a couple hours.

This morning I got up 9 a.m. after four hours sleep. I had breakfast and
coffee and food and beer for the day all ready. I had been determined
that this year I was not going to be late.

Unfortunately Koz was not prepared for today at all, and I ended up
driving him around to the bank, the liquor store, Walmart and finally
Walgreens. This delay caused us to miss the entire IndyCar practice.
But that was ok, I've been late before and it was great that Koz could join
us again at Indy. We've been to various races together over the last 20
years.

I pulled into the track from 16th Street. I had a pass for T3, close to the
concert area. It was filled up in all northern areas. An ignorant woman
guarding the southernmost gate would not let us in. I kept telling her I had
a parking ticket and she kept saying that the parking was for workers
erecting the stage. As I drove off, toward the south, we saw tons of
open parking that we couldn’t get to because of her.

We ended up parking at the south end of the track by the museum.
Thus, having spent $75 to be close to T4 was a waste of my money.
Aggravating.

Photo Journal Index

I brought lawn chairs for all of us. I grabbed one
and my cooler and walked over to the nearby
viewing hills in Turn 2.

We got there in time to watch the Freedom 100.
It was very boring from this angle. Only 12 cars in
the race, they went by in single file 40 times.

As soon as we got there, E.T. saw some old guy
standing there with a cane, looking rather pitiful.
Good 'ol E.T. had been too lazy to carry his chair
with him, but he managed to donate my chair to
the guy. [Note to self: Don't ever give my credit
card to E.T. at a fund raiser.]

I found out later there had been a wreck on the first
lap and what we saw was the restart.

We tailgated back at my car waiting for the
concert, choosing to skip the Pit Stop
competition.

After we started walking to the concert, we
found parking spaces much closer, so Koz
walked back and drove the car over to the
west end of the parking lot so we'd have a
shorter walk on the way back.

It was a long walk all the way to the other side
of the infield to the concert.

Once we got there, we could see most
everyone had already arrived.

Perhaps the best seats in the house - Turn 2 Suites

TURN 2

After the race ended, we wandered over to the Museum east parking lot where long tents were
set up, protecting a large contingent of old Indy 500 race cars that were owned by individuals.
We spent an hour walking around looking at them.
We saw Johnny Rutherford and Bobby Unser looking around too.

Photos From Car Show

We found the gate and we stood off to the side
of the stage, but much closer than before.

We were listening to Bare Naked Ladies for
awhile. Then E.T. spotted some friends of ours
just a few feet ahead of us, so we joined them.
It was BW, Joy and Ron!

I hadn’t seen Ron in a few months and I was
pretty shocked to see he’d lost a lot of weight.
It hadn’t slowed his Irish ass from pounding
the whisky though. He was stumbling around
and someone suggested he sit down on a
cooler. He did, and then fell off it. The rest of
us were drinking beer. We hid his whisky and
wouldn't give him a beer either. That worked
as he was better by end of the concert.

The back of the stage

We walked over to a deck and grandstand to
see if our VIP pass would get us in, but it
wouldn’t. We needed to go to the far left side
of the stage and enter a gate there.

After the band stopped, Ric Flair, the wrestler,
came out to announce the next band
– The Steve Miller Band.

Ric seemed a little drunk to me.
He’s got a famous “Woooo” sound he makes.
Throughout the rest of the weekend, we got a
kick out of doing it.

I needed to leave a little early to go pickup some fried chicken.
ET and Koz stayed and would ride home with BW.

I left about 20 minutes early, and was hoping to catch a ride
back to the car, but had no luck.

Some friendly hot girl came up and put her arm in mine and
started walking along with me!
About half way, she had to go right, but I continued straight
towards the car.
What was I thinking?. I guess had KFC on the brain.

I got out of the track without much trouble and I did find a KFC
on the way home. I asked for 3 Family Buckets and they said
incredulously, “You want three?!” “Yes, “ I said, “I’m really
hungry.”

I made it home and ate.

Ron, ET and Koz had rode in the backseat of Wheeler's pickup
truck and said they had a great time singing loudly all the way
home.

Ron had regained his sea legs. D.R. showed up.
There was enough food for everyone.

Tim's girlfriend Jen showed up at 11pm, surprised to find
only Ron and I still awake.

There was a group of cops behind us and they had
to deal with drunks.

One of the complaints from
previous concerts has been lack
of volume for the crowd in back.

This year they added some giant
speakers to help.

Unkown Woman photobombing Koz and BW

Girls dancing to Steve Miller Band while guy looks
at his phone..

The graying of Carb Day. I think it's the bands they have been choosing.
All the young people show up on race day to party in the "snake pit" to the DJ music.

We were all surprised to hear how good
Steve Miller still sounds.

WOOOOOooooo!