Part 40- My 2008 Magnificent Colossal Indy 500 Photo Blog Thing: Death Pimps, Max, Buddy, and Mario

I spent the last couple of days at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in various grandstands watching race cars and not trying real hard to get material for dumb blog stuff.

I will not apologize for it either, and there's nobody big enough to make me!

It has been great fun talking real Indy racing with insiders and true fans from TrackForum and other places and drinking beer and telling lies and looking at chicks.

I will now narrate to you various racing-related and unrelated things in a jumbled rambling series of words to help describe my last two days track side.

Here are a couple of track bums and derelicts laughing and acting goofy.

photo by GlennH used without permission

Today was Armed Forces Day, so I broke out all my war-mongering U.S Marine gear and went to the track to salute all of George W. Bush's Death Pimps.

I saw a CH-53 helicopter. It is cool too.




At the end of Bump Day, it took off and flared out and did a low pass over Gasoline Alley and scared everyone and made their mouths get all gaped open and stuff.

I was kinda nervous too, because I'm sorta like a military insider, or something, and I know how sometimes these things can plummet to the ground for no apparent reason.


Anyhoo...It was awesome and the kind of thing that makes one glad they are on our side.

It was also the kind of thing that will often make a young man's naughty bits feel kinda tingly and make him want to enlist and take part in such virile activities like scaring nasty civilians with your high-powered heavy-lift military helicopter.

It's a good thing I'm old and broken down, because it made me want to enlist too, but, then again, I did that three times already.

It would be silly to do it again at my advanced age.

Pretty much.

This is the racer of Max Papis after it was repaired by his crack team.


Max made a wrong mistake at Indy Saturday and biffed it hard into the third turn wall.

His crew thrashed and cobbled another car together for him to drive, but they couldn't get the transmission to work right and they didn't get a chance to qualify.

They should have taken it to AAMCO Transmission Repair Shop. AAMCO could have fixed him right up and for cheap too, probably, seeing as they are a big sponsor for real Indy racing and all.

I guess the thought never crossed Max's mind, but, then again, he's not from around here so he probably didn't know where the nearest AAMCO shop was.

It's times such as these when it is pretty handy to know some of us dumb local Hoosier Gomers.

We can be useful sometimes. Maybe.

This is a hawt chick eating some ice cream.


Have you ever really sat back and closely observed an attractive lady while she eats a frozen dairy product on a stick?

I heartily recommend this activity.

It is amazing...bordering on the spectacular!

Speaking of amazing and spectacular, this is the car Buddy Lazier heroically drove to a starting position in this year's Indy 500.


See...Lazier got bumped out, then he had to try to get back in. His first attempt was horrible and shameful, so he waved it off.

All was not lost, however, and Buddy Lazier knew exactly what he needed to do.

His crack team rolled him away from the tech line and cranked all the rear wing outta the car.

Doing so will make the car faster, but it will also reduce grip and down force, making the car a veritable fast and shiny and real coffin for an unskilled driver.

Buddy hurled his rig at ridiculous speeds for four laps around the world's greatest race course and managed to cheat a certain fiery and gruesome death and bumped his way back into the field!

I salute your bravery, o great and skillful pilot of shiny and fast and real Indy racing machines!

The next guy to try to bump his way back into the field was Mario Dominguez.

He hammered Indy's concrete yesterday, and his wrong mistake forced his Pacific Coast Motorsports team to thrash in order to get him back into competition.


Dominguez's crew sorted the car out, and he was the final qualifying attempt for the day. He tried his best, but, unfortunately, Dominguez failed in spectacular fashion and went out in a blaze of glory like a white-hot supernova.


If one must fail at Indy, it is best to fail spectacularly while exhibiting extreme courage and determination like Mario Dominguez.

We raise our glasses to you, brave and real Indy racer! It's guys like you who make Indy so special. Thank you for your efforts, and we hope to see you next year.

I strolled the garage area after Bump Day had ended. I overheard a Pacific Coast Motorsports crew member talking on a cell phone to his child.

The crew member said to his child, "Don't cry, honey. He is OK. We have to be good sports and go on to the next race. Everything will be alright. We'll try again next year."

After hearing this, I told a fellow race fan standing next to me, "You hear that? That's so cool! If I wasn't such a heterosexual, I'd go up to him and give him a big kiss!"

The race fan I spoke to slowly backed away from me.

That crew guy knows what Indy means.

I departed the garage area and started the long walk back to my car.

Thinking about what had transpired the last two days, I turned and gave a look over my shoulder.


I thought to myself, "DAMN! I LOVE this place!"

I'm such a Gomer.

I know what Indy means.