I've lived in Indianapolis, Indiana most of my life. Part of the ritual of living here is visiting the track sometime during the Month of May. I've been traveling a great deal over the past 8 months or so, and was fearing I might not get the opportunity to make the spring pilgrimage while the cars were running. But my afternoon opened up, the weather was great, and there were 22 spots still open in the 33 car field for this years Indy 500. I figured the practice action would be great. So I closed up my computer, left the office, and headed for 16th & Georgetown Road - the Capital of Auto Racing - The Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The scream of the cars reached out and clawed at my brain more than 1 mile from the track - grabbing the deepest recesses of my memories and pulling me as though I was on autopilot into the infield of the 2 1/2 mile race complex. Each time I pull into the Speedway, memories flood back into me: of my father taking me to the fourth turn of the track and showing me A.J.'s line through the turn - about 6 inches between the tires of his front engined roadster and the white concrete wall at the exit of the turn each and every lap, of the thrill of seeing Jimmy Clark pace the field in his British racing green Lotus, of the nearly silent punch of the STP red turbines of the early 70's, of the horrible fireball at the beginning of the '64 race, the thrill of seeing Tom Sneva break the 200 mph barrier, and so much more. This time was no exception.

For well over an hour, I just wandered around on my own - watching cars practice from the start/finish line, heading back out to the garage area to take in the mass of fans milling around, listening to the (very good) band "Psycho Dots" playing on the plaza, then moving south to the wide sweeping vista available of the first turn from the inside of the track. I could spend days walking around, listening & observing.

After a short while, I headed back from the first turn to meet my brother at his suite on the main straight. As I walked there, I got a call from work. A minor glitch with travel arrangements for an upcoming visit by corporate dignitaries. As I chatted on the cell phone and walked towards the Hulman Terrace Suites, I noticed I was about to walk through Gasoline Alley, the road from the pits to the garage area. There are always a swarm of "yellow shirts" stationed along the alley.

Yellow shirts are those volunteers who direct traffic at the track. They wear, ... yes, ... yellow button-down type shirts and gold safari helmets. There are HUNDREDS of yellow shirts arrayed around the massive complex at any given moment in May: at the car and pedestrian entrances to the track, along all in-track roadways, at all controlled access gates, at each ramp up into a grandstand, outside each concession stand, etc. They are EVERYWHERE. The ones who've been there for over a decade or two get some of the more cherished assignments. Among these is the "Gasoline Alley" station. Yellow shirts who have roadway assignments are given whistles. Most use the whistles much the same way Kelly Scott uses exclamation points. A yellow shirt will blast a whistle and give a wild arm signal to a pregnant woman with a youngster in a stroller just the same as he or she would a menacing beer truck. It's just a fact of life that must be endured by those choosing to visit the track during the Month of May. There is simply no getting away from the whistle of the yellow shirts, PARTICULARLY when walking near or through the pedestrian pass-thru area of Gasoline Alley.

It was a relatively calm appearing moment in the Gasoline Alley area, I quickly deduced while walking and chatting with my colleague from work. Nonetheless, I scanned the area, accounting for as many yellow shirts as possible and giving them a wide berth, along with the gaggles of autograph-seeking youths waiting for drivers to happen by. Having quickly sized up the area and charting my path through it, I set about to make the thirty foot journey across Gasoline Alley. About 3 to 5 seconds into my journey - and now focused back on my cell phone conversation - it happened.

A painful acoustic blast ripped into the left side of my face, exploding through my ear drum like an F-18 on afterburners. Instinctively, my subconscious nerve center turns my head and upper body to face the source of this violent attack. At about the same time as the visual image of the red-faced yellow shirt still exploding his hoary breath into the still shrieking "whistle" registers in my visual cortex, I feel my right shoulder and back come into mildly heavy contact with something. The whistle flies out of the yellow shirts spittle spewing face as he further contorts and bellows "did you not hear my whistle?!". With the yellow-shirt induced stimuli and the as yet unidentified contact to my rear still fighting for attention in my increasingly overwhelmed brain, I manage a "Holy Christ, YES". At this time, just moments into the event, I'm mostly focused on assessing the intentions of the apparently enraged yellow shirt, but I'm also recoiling from the contact to my rear. As the moment progresses, I notice the yellow shirt and others around me are NOT focused on me, but behind me. As this continues to register with me, the part of my brain that wants to know what I came into contact with begins to win over the part of the brain that is attempting to make sense of the yellow-shirt and his words and expressions - so I cautiously turn to see what I can see.

And there my eyes and brain finds Danica Patrick and some guy with a Motorola hat on, looking surprised and adopting a defensive posture - as though something was about to fall on them (or, as actually happened, had just hit them). I now have MANY more stimuli screaming for attention in my brain - far more than I can initially process. As the fog clears a bit over the course of a couple of seconds, I see that she is mildly amused but is quickly returning to signing autographs for the amorphous gaggle of shapes gathered around her. The guy in the Motorola hat continues to size me up, and looks at least a little bit annoyed. I'm totally confused as to what to do, but manage to chuckle uncomfortably - unable to come up with anything more than "oh, EXCUSE me" and then return my gaze to the yellow shirt who is now standing with both hands outstretched and upwards - non-verbally saying "what the F#@*, AS*HOLE". Several realizations hit me nearly at once. I'm amused that the yellow shirt had surprised me so much, I'm concerned that I was, indeed, an as*hole walking and talking on the cellphone, but I was mostly astounded at her size - Danica Patrick is tiny. Not just tiny, microscopically tiny - not even chest high. She wouldn't be admitted to drive the Dodge 'Em Cars at your local amusement park, not being any taller than Barney Rubble. And she's young. Younger than my daughter, seemingly not even 20 years of age. Yet she is genuinely pretty and has an engaging and confident aura about her (quite the contrast from the off-putting personality described by many in the media). As she grabbed the pencil from a young hand to sign another autograph, she looked at me and shook her head. Was it "no problem"? Was it "what a moron"? Was it just shifting her long locks of beautiful black hair? I have no idea.

Yes I do. It was "that was a moment of reality in my otherwise surreal life - thank-you for piercing, however awkwardly, the numbness of my non-driving life at the track".

And I'm sticking with that.

Oh, ... "#$*& off and die" Mr. Yellow Shirt, I've got me a new memory.