2018 Indy 500 Carb Day Photo Journal

DAN'S PHOTO JOURNALS

CARB DAY!
Friday, May 25, 2018

For the first time, I got a good night's sleep before
Carb Day!

E.T. played golf after his job and then drove to Indy
from Michigan in his new Miata. He showed up
about 2:30 a.m. and crashed on my couch.

I got up at 8:30 a.m. After breakfast, I made sand-
wiches to take to the track. I put our coolers and
lawn chairs in the back seat so that I could lower
the top of my hardtop convertible.

We headed to the track around 11:40 a.m. and
drove through town to 30th Street.

As we pulled into the North 40 drive, we were
jamming the stereo.

Since I had purchased an infield parking pass, we
bypassed the people being parked in the large
grassy field of the North 40, and pulled up to the gate.

I wanted to go have fun in the Midway, but learned we only had 10
minutes before the start of the Freedom 100 Indy Lights race!
We bolted toward the outside of the oval.

E.T. handed me $60 to buy our two admissions.

A very cute ticket-taker girl walked over to my car and told us it was our lucky
day! Perplexed, I wondered if we were lucky to get to view her lovliness.
But no. She refused our $60 and handed me two admission tickets for free!

She told us some woman had extra tickets and gave them to her to give
away to whomever she chose. It was our lucky day!

[During this interaction, the FBI was walking around my car with a dog.
We learned they were bomb sniffing dogs and they were examining every
car that entered the track today - slowing everything down.]

Once we drove into the infield, we were told the 3rd turn was full -
the same thing happened last year! But this time they directed us to a
much better location - right over by an exit tunnel. It was in between the
concert entrance and the the Pagoda, so we could hit the car later with
no long trip out to the 3rd turn AND it would mean we should be able to
drive right out quickly.

After we got out of the car, we heard the end of IndyCar practice.
We missed it for yet another year...

We went to the Chevy tent area which was thick with Corvettes.

The new 2019 Corvette ZR1 is bad ass.

There was an example of each of the 15 Indy 500 Corvette Pace Cars on display!

When it was over, we quickly got out and rolling home!

We stopped at Popeye’s Chicken and I ordered a lot of food,
for people coming over. We had to wait 1/2 hour for them to
cook it all!

Back at home, I moved cars out of the way and set up chairs
and stuff.

E.T. and I went ahead and ate.

We took the pedestrian-only tunnel.
Due to the crowded sidewalks on the other side,
people coming out of the tunnel had to slow and
wait to merge out into daylight. That resulted in
clogging the tunnel with a growing line of people
filling the tunnel. Feeling a little claustrophobic, I
thought this could be a dangerous place if
something caused a panic.

I did not like that. Later, when we were to cross
back to the infield, I chose to walk down to the
wider car tunnel that has pedestrian sidewalks
and re-enter that way.

I had planned to to sit in the first turn, but instead tried to join
friends who were sitting in section 23 of the Paddock Penthouse.

We went up there, but never found BW and the gang.

We sat in the back row of the front section of the Penthouse.
We were out of the hot sun, but there was no breeze.

We enjoyed some food and beer while we watched the Indy Lights
race. It was a good race.

Colton Herta won. He also won two weeks ago.

Greg found us and picked up the extra concert pit tickets I'd
brought for Julia.

Freedom 100 - Indy Lights (15 seconds)

Race to the Finish Line

As they set up for the pit stop contest, Firebird walked along the track shooting T-shirts way up into the air.

As I was filming, he fired one right toward me. A little girl right behind me caught it.

Pit Stop Competition video (19 seconds)

Will Power vs Josef Newgarden

We watched the first round of the pit stop competition from the .Paddock Penthouse

Carb Day Concert video compilation (5 minutes)

Crowd footage during the Train concert
(after the Blues Traveler concert)

Then we headed to the car.

We cranked the A/C as well as a CD E.T. brought -
Greta Van Fleet, a Michigan band E.T. saw in concert.
They sound a lot like Led Zeppelin

We smoked, drank and waited for it to get closer to
concert time.

We had passes to get into the concert pit so we would be
closer to the stage.

However, they stopped us at the entrance and told us of a
new rule - you can't bring in coolers!

I tried reasoning, arguing and bribing the gate attendants,
but to no avail.

I had just purchased a large cooler last night for this event.
Not only does it hold lots of beer, it gives me a place to sit
when I get tired of standing.

I was not going to give it up, so we settled in with our coolers
a little behind the pit fence.

To my surprise, the random T-shirt I threw on today drew lots of compliments from all types
of people. It said "Snake Pit Drinking Team" and was printed for 3D and looked blurry.

E.T. also got compliments on his shirt - it was a faded tie-dye Indy 500 tee from 1998.

My T-shirt

E.T. wore his 1998 Indy 500 tie-dye shirt today

"What do you mean, No Coolers?!"

We could barely hear the Blues Traveler band.
I don't know what was wrong.

When Train performed, we could hear them,
but it wasn't loud by any means.

We never saw BW and his gang at the show.

Here are some photos of the people around us

As we were walking into the concert area, I could see workers
still painting the Snake Pit stage backdrop for Sunday.

Blues Traveler

Free Tickets!

Stromberg 81s Carburators

Originally known as Carburetion Day, the event once
was a closed practice in which race teams adjusted
the carburetors of gasoline-powered engines. No Indy
500 car has featured a carburetor since 1963, but
because the Indy 500 is steeped in tradition — you
just don't mess with it.

Speaking of Led Zeppelin...
Train (who is playing today)
does a great imitation of them.

In fact they covered the entire
Led Zeppelin II album which
they released in 2016

TRAIN - Johnny Colt & Patrick Monahan

(2006)

Wow. Who makes a t-shirt last 20 years?

E.T. that's who!

When the B -52s played Carb Day, E.T. wore his
original B-52's Mesopotamia concert shirt from 1982!

Michie and Patrick showed up though
and we all hung out on the patio and I
made drinks.

Tim and Jen showed up and told us everyone else went home and were not coming over!

After this girl turned his jeans into shorts, other guys wanted the
same treatment! Apparently they're more trusting than I.

VIEW FROM PADDOCK PENTHOUSE, Section 23