Initially Posted Memorial Day 2014 on Hooniverse.com
So this olelongrooffan has been somewhat Hoonisilent this past month or so. Ever since relocating here to FantasyLand and hanging out in the toney community where I earn a buck or two, my motivation for posting all things Hoon has been somewhat lacking. Yeah, I know, I’m a Slacker but how many times can this olelongrooffan do a post about a ubiquitous Maserati? However, as a means of attempting to motivate this olelongrooffan into sharing some stuff with my fellow Hoons, I backtracked and checked out some of my previous posts and, as a result, the comments on those posts. It was on one of them about some of the forgotten images I had gathered and my, presumed, switch from a HP product to that fruit so forbidden to Adam and Eve and it was in the comment section of that post that fellow Hoon Hycospeed left the following: "Olelongroof, I could give two shits what computer, software, smoke signal generator, whatever, that you use, just as long as you keep sharing your adventures and stories with us! I am with you, certain cars, certain car sights, certain car smells, can instantly bring back memories of people now gone, and to me that is one of the awesome things about old cars and old stuff, the ability for it to connect you to a person, a memory, and help keep them alive in your heart." Thanks Hycospeed.
Well Hoons, it was that comment which provides the motivation for this olelongrooffan to share with all ya’all a brief tale about the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan’s attendance at it. Appropriately enough this Indy 500 Sunday nearly 20 years later. I relocated from the Queen City of the Ozarks to Fantasyland in 1988. thejeepjunkie, thesungoddess, the Kid and the Kid’s yet to be born Sister relocated from Joplin, Missouri (yes that Joplin) to Fort Lauderdale in the early 90’s. thejeepjunkie was able to finagle a transfer from a corporate store up there to another corporate store on the other coast. He was so successful at selling those yellow shocks in his new location that in 1995 Monroe offered him an all expense paid trip for two to the Indianapolis 500. Of course, thesungoddess wanted nothing to do with this adventure so this olelongrooffan was the lucky recipient of that second undesirable ticket to the The Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports.
It was at that race that I acquired the above shown T-shirt, one of the few I own other than free ones I got from Chevrolet out at the Daytona International Speedway and the Hooniverse T’s the Missus sends my way pretty much any time I ask for one. Do any of my fellow Hoons own a nearly new 19 year old t-shirt?
So that fateful Memorial Day weekend Saturday morning in 1995, this olelongrooffan left my 3 month old daughter and her Mom and jumped in my not quite pink Fleetwood D’Elegance and sped across Alligator Alley to gather up thejeepjunkie and head out to the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, just off Eisenhower’s Interstate 595 to check our bags and hitchhike a ride to St. Pete to catch that charter heading to the my Holy Grail, the Indy 500.
That 30 minute flight landed us in St. Pete at 9:30 that morning. Without the need to gather up our luggage, thejeepjunkie looks at me and asks, “What’s up?” My response? “Let’s see if the bar is open.” And it was. We headed on in, ordered us up some frosty beverages and commenced to having a good ole Lee boy time. Slowly that morning the bar began filling up and by the time our flight was called, it was full. At that announcement over the PA system, everybody in that bar called for our tabs and the entire bar emptied out and the entirety of its occupants headed down to get on that plane to Indy. Needless to say that was a rowdy, yet fun filled flight to Indianapolis.
Upon arrival in Indy, our plane was directed to an area removed from the terminal where there were several buses waiting to transport us to our hotel. I asked thejeepjunkie which bus we were getting on? “Let me check,” was his response. He set off down that row of buses stopping off in each one and the coming back out to head down to the next one. When he entered the last bus he entered that afternoon, he shouted, “It’s this one longroof.” I headed down to that bus and climbed aboard. thejeepjunkie was settled into the second row of seats and gave me the window seat. I asked him how he knew this was the correct bus? “It’s the one with Bud Lights in the cooler.” Makes sense to this olelongrooffan.
So we got to the hotel and got our room cards at the check in table and feasted on a few sammichs and a few more cold carbonated beverages. We inquired about our luggage and were informed it was already in our room. Yeah, we were flying high that day. Not to bad for a couple boys from the Ozark Mountains. That evening we went out for a bite to eat and ran into a couple buddies from Indiana, Pennsylvania and had a grand ole time. I think the cab was the most coin we spent that night.
So, the next morning we climbed aboard that bus, yeah, the Bud Lights had been replenished, and they dropped us a ten block walk from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, my fellow Hoons, that trek to the Speedway was unlike any other this olelongrooffan had yet been on. The Speedway is not located in the swankiest part of Speedway, Indiana and there was one home just outside the entrance that possessed a sign encouraging passersby to toss their empty aluminum cans in its fenced yard. And we did. Upon leaving several hours later, that yard was two feet deep in aluminum cans. Just one entrepreneur’s way to make a buck off the event held just across the street.
We were then directed to our seats just at the start of the front straightaway with turn 4 in sight just to our left. After we settled in, thejeepjunkie commented on the lack of beer vendors in our area. It was then we noticed that nearly everyone, except those of us who were Indy 500 virgins, had a jumbo cooler filled with cold carbonated beverages.
Well, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan headed down to the vending station and spent a not small amount of folding and gathered us up a just few cold beverages emanating from the city with the Arch and returned to our seats. We got to see the start of the race and it was on the first lap over on the out of sight turn 2 that Stan Fox unfortunately suffered a career ending head injury after slamming into the outside wall. Now, he lives on and all is good but, damn, that clean up took some time.
Meanwhile, thejeepjunkie and I decided to head into the infield to see what could be seen. Well we caught some of the garages, the pits and stumbled upon the staging area for the sky boxes high above. Under one of those skyboxes was an unattended utility bed golf cart laden with an uncountable number of chilled 12 packs of thejeepjunkie’s favorite beverage. He and I looked at each other, started laughing and we each grabbed one in each hand and beat it the hell out of Dodge.
Well, needless to say, upon our return to our seats, we were the most popular guys of all of those dudes wearing their free Monroe Shocks hats. So by this time the race had gone green and we observed a great number of laps of full speed racing while enjoying our ill gotten refreshments.
Alas. soon, however, our beverages were depleted and we contemplated heading back to the infield to see if we could pull off a round two of our experience.
It was thejeepjunkie who noted that in the next section over in the aisle seats were two totally trashed, to the point of passing out, dudes with an empty cooler in front of one of them and a nearly full cooler in front of the other. Well, Hoons, thejeepjunkie being who he is, stood up and walked the short distance to that nearly full cooler and grabbed us a couple cold beverages out of it. And they were Bud Lights. It was hilarious and everyone around us started laughing their asses off. One of the drunk dudes woke up at all of the laughter, looked around and promptly passed out again. Yeah, they slept through the sounds of 20+ Indy cars passing by at full speed but woke up to the sound of laughter coming from the crowd. And we tried our best to empty those passed out dudes' cooler.
Well, needless to say, by the end of the race that Jacque Villenue won in only his second start, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan were pretty inebriated and totally Indy Car Racing satisfied.
And as I have said previously, a visit to the track is not all about race cars. Even the guy in that golf cart my buddy, TheGoodAttorney, spent an afternoon chasing around a football field years ago seems to agree.
Yeah, thejeepjunkie has hooked this olelongrooffan up pretty good over the years and this one is one of the more memorable.
But having said that, much like the Daytona 500, the experience is not to be missed if you have the opportunity but the best place to watch the Indianapolis 500 is from your living room, something this olelongrooffan is going to do right this moment.
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