Like Rats, I’ll watch them wave the green flag to start what was once one of my favorite sporting events and was genuinely the, “Greatest spectacle in racing.” That racing event really used to be something else with all of the not only great, but also diverse and entertaining personalities who occupied the cockpits of their machines. Names like Unser, Foyt, Mears, Andretti, Johncock, Sullivan, Rutherford, Fittipaldi…And the machines were just as diverse and interesting as the men who harnessed and controlled all that HP for 500 miles…Coyotes, Eagles, March/Cosworth, Wildcats, Lotus/Ford, McClarens, Penskes, and who can forget the great Offenhausers? I attended the ’82 Indy in which Gordon Johncock piloting his STP sponsored Wildcat Mk. 8/Cosworth outgunned and outlasted Rick Mears and his Penske/Ford in what, at the time, was the closest finish ever at Indy. I can still hear the roar of the powerplants wrapped up tight at wide open full thottle on the last 4 laps as the estimated crowd of over 300,000 almost drowned out the noise of those screaming machines as they rocketed out of the final turn and down the stretch to the checkered. Nothing else at all like it.