World Race 2011

The epicenter of closed track racing! 

Today we head for Indy, and in the early morning drizzle the racers had one eye on the TV where they're talking about snow?  Hey, it’s April and north of the Mason Dixon line - anything can happen this time of year.

The bad news was that the 1916 Studebaker is on the trailer.  Their starter disintegrated yesterday shorting out the electrical system. The good news was that Howard and Dennis didn’t have to endure the drizzle this morning!   Dennis located the necessary parts, and with the help of Gary and Jeanann Martin (who drove a new starter up from Louisville, KY), completed the repairs later in the afternoon.

We strategically opted to move the starting line under the entry canopy, complete with a local girl to wave the green flag for each racer!  Galena Baumann is the daughter of a close friend of racer Roy Geigel.  She enjoyed the experience so much, she wondered if she could come to Paris to try waving the checkered flag!

Third off the line was car #4, a 1951 Chrysler New Yorker owned by Jonathan Auerbach of New York.  With Bill Secrest as navigator they make an interesting team.  Jonathan is an accomplished businessman with a passion for cars, and the Chrysler is clearly one of his favorites.  He doesn’t pamper it, as some collectors might by keeping it climate controlled conditions under subdued light so as not to fade the interior.  No way, #4 is racking up the miles with many left before it’s time to think about tucking it away in a garage.  

 Jonathan quite simply loves to drive, and gets some of his best ideas while on the road.  It also serves as a welcomed change from his fast paced life in New York City.  The Chrysler did develop a temperature problem, which Jonathan soon discovered was a thermostat stuck in the open position.  It was repaired by mid afternoon.  That meant for the first time in two days all of the vehicles were at 100%, even if their occupants were not.

Bill Secrest is the detail guy, charged with the administrative tasks of the navigator.  The teams are allowed to use GPS.   They are given a daily starting point and a finish point, however they are allowed to choose which route to take.  Now, I know there are some "purist" who might question this arrangement in rally format racing.?  In reality, this method is most true to form for World Race 2011 when you consider that the racers of 1908 employed what was then the most advanced in automotive navigation instruments (which included a compass and sextant).  They were also allowed to select their own routes between designated points. 

For the navigator there is still more than enough to do on this 22,000+ mile race.   Part of the competition is to answer a daily series of challenging questions based upon the history of the original1908 race, as well as local knowledge of the multitude of areas we pass through in 12 countries over 3 continents.  Some of the more obscure questions might require creatively employing occasional assistance from “outside sources”. 

We find that some of the teams have become very adept at doing that, including one team that was asked for the sister city of Warsaw, IN?  The Miller Garrison Racing Team called the Chamber of Commerce, and when they didn’t know they were connected to the Mayor’s office. It will be interesting to see how this approach works when they loose cell phone coverage in parts of Asia....

The “Brick Yard” has seen many track racing legends on the 2.6 mile “rectangular oval” surface.  Indy is celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year, so there will be a lot of activity later in the summer.

We then took a tour of the track surface itself, which looks much different in real life than the perspective you get from the mini cams in the racers cars.  With 257,000 fans in the permanent seating on race day, and another 400,000 on the infield, this is the largest sporting facility in the world!

Soon it was time to head for the hotel, and the first afternoon/evening without a planned event since leaving NYC.  We are located at the Embassy Suites in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, and it was perfect timing for a break in the action.  Racers had an opportunity to take in all of the downtown sights and attractions.

It also gave me the first opportunity to finally get this BLOG published before 11 PM J