Three motorcycles roared Eastward on 10th Street, passing me with blatting pipes; one was a “tri-ped,” and someone had installed speakers that put out multi-decibel aural insults. As I walked down E. 10th Street, I added the sounds of those motorcycles to the roar of glasspack muffler-equipped muscle cars, their drivers arrogantly demonstrating a blatant disregard for the eardrums of pedestrians. But hey: it’s May. The 500 is next up.
When I lived in St. Louis Missouri in the early 90s, I still maintained a relationship with two friends that I had made before I left Indianapolis Indiana. The “Three Amigos” — Lisa, Nancy, and CJ — had formed after I met Lisa Clarkson at Indiana University Southeast, where we were both students. Lisa insisted that I meet her best friend, Nancy, and the three of us bonded. I attended one of Nancy’s weddings, and after Lisa moved to Florida, I visited her as often as I could. Nancy’s husband, Bill Davis, was a car-race enthusiast, and regularly acquired tickets to the Indianapolis 500. Bill and Nancy still lived in Southern Indiana, and regularly attended the race. One year, Bill invited Nancy’s two best buds — CJ and Lisa — to attend the race with them. I flew in from St. Louis and Lisa flew in from Florida.
Quiet as it’s kept (to use a phrase from Toni Morrison’s novel, “The Bluest Eye,”) I was not a big fan of the “vroom-vroom,” nor was Lisa. But we wanted to be with our friends, and there was a big race, and we went. I cannot remember the date, but it was sometime in the early 90s; I moved to St. Louis in 1993, so it was after that. Sharp journalist that I am, I also cannot remember who ran in the race, nor who won. I do recall that the tickets that Lisa and I had were not in the same area with Bill and Nancy and their other friends, so the two of us were alone at an event that we were interested in only because of the people we adored. And we were frying in the hot sun, asking each other, “Are we having fun yet?” But we survived that race, and when the next year’s invitation came around, we again, got tickets. This time, we were with the in-crowd, and I was able to aim my camera at whatever turn that was near us. Even with my new Nikon camera, (with which I loved to take photographs, Momma) I managed only to get the rear spoilers of the roaring cars.
When I lived in Los Angeles California in the early 1970s, there were automobile laws and ordinances at which Hoosiers would have cackled. A driver could be ticketed for demonstrating an “unnecessary display of speed” — screeching away from a stop — or having mufflers that were too loud. (I’m not sure how the noise was measured, but hey…) When I was young, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, my first bride’s sister had a friend who owned a Lotus Ford. He took me for a spin, one that topped one-hundred-ten miles per hour. (I deny the rumor that I wet myself.) But that was then, and this is now, and it is May in Indianapolis.
I no longer live close enough to the Speedrome on S. Kitley Avenue to hear the howl of the cars in the evening, but there are plenty of cars hammering down E. 10th Street to remind me that it is May, and “the greatest spectacle in racing” is coming, and street racers are practicing for the howl into the third turn.
cjon3acd@att.net