They say that it is one of the three most important racing events there is, right up there with 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix. Around 400,000 people physically attend the race - yeah, that's not a misprint! This particular trip was a family event, designed for a certain guy's birthday. You know who you are.

Ok, the trip started out with walking around the city. The place is actually very pretty. Check it out. And these pics *do not* do it justice.

I had the opportunity to cruise the streets of Indianapolis at night. The streets seemed clean and safe (yeah, I walked *a lot*). Downtown Indy has many cool restaurants with outdoor seating. Not to be sidetracked but such pleasantries, I headed straight for the Slippery Noodle. The Slippery has multiple stages, and apparently, Indy folks have no other blues clubs - because this place was packed that night. Seating was non-existent. The outside stage had some nondescript 80's funk thing happening, which at the time I just was not in the mood for. Avoiding that, I headed inside, where there was some killah! blues going on. With a few jack and cokes and my plastic cup, I got my fill that night and walked back to l'hotel.....but not before I stopped for some chow! I ended up at a very nice place (sorry place, I don't remember the name) where I had a few more with some nice din-din while trading jokes with the bartender and a couple cute Texas women. Turns out that fellow Canuck Marty Roth was having dinner there with his entourage (and it was a sizeable entourage dude, I hope that was family...) and I ended up talking to his son in law for a bit. Seemed like they were all a very nice bunch. Alas, Marty crashed in the race, finishing 32nd.

(logo is most probably copyright © by the Slippery Noodle)

Ok, let's focus on the race. Apparently, even though the drivers will be racing around a closed, overly repetitive oval track....there must also be a closed, overly repetitive parade the day before. Does that say something about racers? I'm not sure.

Those panhandlers sure have cool sunglasses.

Some parade shots for parade lovers. I always seem to get kilts into this somehow...

Yes, those balloons *are* real ;-) Sorry for the aspect ratios folks...

Parade celebrities: guitar god Slash, and Danica Patrick. She's turned sideways, I hope you can see her....

On to biz-nezz...race day! This is the first big, official-looking sign you see at the Indy 500. After you spend an hour in traffic, of course.

Inside the track park. My camera caught this one as picture number 500. Ironic? Perhaps.

Show up early, and you can actually get up close and personal to the track. Who are these people? And why are they in my pics??

I bet he wishes he was in an Indy car right at that moment, doing stupid speeds on this stretch. Maybe one day dude.

There are many car-oriented displays at Indy. I will probably never own these, but they are cool to look at!

The race itself. Think very loud, very fast, and *lots* of people.

Here's a tip for when you are leaving the Indy 500: go to the restroom first! It will be a couple hours minimum, just to get out of the area.

Overall it was a highly fun trip, despite a bad mishandling of the ticket kind by yours truly. Lessons learned here: