Indy Car 2013

This past weekend, we decided to take the girls to the IndyCar race at the Milwaukee Mile.  Kris and I wanted to to go, but we were holding off buying tickets because we wanted to take the girls, and they were hemming and hawing about whether they wanted to go.  I didn't want to pay for a ticket for them if they didn't want to go.  But a couple of days before the race we decided they would just have to deal with it.

Kris and I had gone years ago, and we sat in the bleachers coming out of turn four, right before the entrance to the pits.  This time I wanted to sit in the grandstand, and we ended up sitting right on the start finish line, though we were pretty low - in the fourth row.  We couldn't see the back stretch.  Our field of view was from turn four, down the front stretch and thru turn one into turn two.  And being so close we could really see the detail on the cars, or as much as you could see as they were flying by at 150 mph.  We also had a large video screen directly across the track from where we were sitting in the infield that was broadcasting the NBCSports feed, so from time to time, were were able to see what was happening on the other side of the track.

When we got there, the Indy Lights race was going on, and those cars were LOUD!  I was actually surprised because both Kris and I thought that the Indy cars were actually more quiet that the light versions.  Sarah apparently didn't even feel the need to use ear plugs for the main race.  I think that is mainly because her hearing is shot from always having ear buds in listening to her music.

Overall it was a pretty exciting race.  We saw a couple of spin-outs in turn four and Ana Beatriz cracked up her nose.  Marco Andretti was crushing things until he had a bad pit stop, then electrical problems put him out.  And right in front of where we were sitting there was a gate in the fencing that allowed access to the track.  About a half an hour before the race started, we saw someone in a fire suit come walking over, open the gate and climb through over to the grandstand.  I asked Kris if he looked like Arie Luyendyk, and she thought so.  He climbed up and was talking with some people in the front row.  Then he took a couple of pictures with them, signed a couple of things and then went back to the infield.  When he turned around the back of his fire suit said Arie Luyendyk.  He lived in Brookfield for about ten years before he had his success in IndyCar, and I remember one of my professors at Marquette saying he was friends with him.  He was the SAE car advisor and Luyendyk apparently helped out with it one year.  So it was pretty cool to see him up close.  

Unfortunately I left the camera at home, so we didn't get any pictures.  Kris tried taking some with her phone so maybe if I get them off of it I'll see what they look like.  I did find this picture online though on the autoweek website.

The girl in the hot pink shirt is Sarah and Kris is standing next to her.  Alison and I are behind the fence post.  I think the girls had fun, more than they thought they would.  This was the second year of a two year contract with Andretti Sports Marketing to put on the race, so hopefully they'll be back next year.  If they are, I think we'll be going again.