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Indianapolis
Alright, so the infield part of the track owed much to Walt Disney’s famous Michael Mus Musculous, but come on people, this is Indy, F1 cars on the banking – going the wrong way if not very quickly – and there’s a real yard of bricks that crosses the main straightaway. We hadn’t been to the Good ‘Ol US of A for eight years when we headed off there in 2000. The dollar was worthless and you could head to the Apple store and buy 2 iPods for the cost of one in the UK. It had a great media centre with huge quantities of food. If you wanted to snack between meals you could pick up a giant turkey leg – actually I couldn’t, unless I wore a weightlifter’s kidney belt and used both arms – and in the evening the locals were more than friendly in the Slippery Noodle Blues Bar. No wonder we loved it. Alright, in pure racing terms it was a bit second rate, but it was an amazing experience and actually an honour to race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was a crowd-pleaser too with around 225,000 fans attending in 2000. However, the 2005 “race” when only six cars took part, because of the Michelin tyre woes, rather took the gloss off things.
