by Kent Sterling

Whatever your thoughts about open wheel racing in the United States, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is still the most magical and historic race in the world.  Thirty-three of the cars that won the race were lined up behind the yard of bricks today for a photo shoot celebrating the 100th anniversary of the World’s Greatest Race Course.

Video was captured by WTHR’s helicopter, and just looking at the cars conjures Sid Collins and Donald Davidson’s voices.  Few sporting events are so completely entwined with its history.  That’s the first thing you learn when you move to Indianapolis.  Ray Harroun, Ralph DePalma, Louis Meyer, Wilbur Shaw, Bill Vukovich, Sam Hanks, Eddie Sachs, A.J. Foyt, and all the moderns – as Davidson refers to them – roll of the tongues of Hoosiers when they talk about the race.

There have been tragedies and triumphs.  Eddie Sachs fatal crash in 1964 was followed by an extemporaneous eulogy by legendary voice of the 500, Sid Collins.  A racing tragedy, and broadcasting triumph.  Lives have been changed, lost, found, and defined at the Speedway.

To look at that collection of cars is to see into the hearts of the courageous men who piloted them.  Nostalgia in sport is mostly inaccurate and useless, but for the Indianapolis 500 it’s the defining characteristic.

If you have never walked through the museum at the IMS, you must go.  If you have never sat in the first turn as the 33 cars starting the race barrel headlong into turn one, you have to go.  It’s the single most thrilling moment in sports from the absolute best perspective.  If you have never had a chance to talk to one of the older former drivers, you must do that to understand the balls it took and continues to take to climb into one of those sleds and rocket three wide through turn one.  If you can’t find a driver, talk to Donald Davidson, the speedway’s historian about the magic of the Indy 500.

Look at these cars, and say a quick prayer for the men who have died doing what they loved on the two-and-a-half mile oval.

Whether you like the new Dallara chassis or not, the cars are nothing but the tools that drivers use to test the limits of speed at their own peril.  These cars sent their pilots to glory.  Others sent 40 drivers to their deaths.  Riding mechanics, track personnel, and spectators have died too.  The ground of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is hallowed, and that the race is held on Memorial Day weekend is appropriate.

Next time you sit out in the grandstand drinking a case of beer, watching the cars go fast, give a moments thought for those who came before hans devices, tire tethers, and SAFR barriers – the crazy bastards who put their right foot down hard knowing the price for their thrills was potentially ultimate.

Sid Collins said it better than anyone could write it when he watched his friend’s car explode in 1964 and heard the news over the P.A. with the rest of the fans that Eddie Sachs was dead.  He said this without writing or rehearsing it.  It was a great broadcaster’s moment of grace.

“You heard the announcement from the public address system. There’s not a sound. Men are taking off their hats. People are weeping. There are over 300,000 fans here not moving. Disbelieving.

Some men try to conquer life in a number of ways. These days of our outer space attempts some men try to conquer the universe. Race drivers are courageous men who try to conquer life and death and they calculate their risks. And with talking with them over the years I think we know their inner thoughts in regards to racing. They take it as part of living.

A race driver who leaves this earth mentally when he straps himself into the cockpit to try what for him is the biggest conquest he can make (are) aware of the odds and Eddie Sachs played the odds. He was serious and frivolous. He was fun. He was a wonderful gentleman. He took much needling and he gave much needling. Just as the astronauts do perhaps.

These boys on the race track ask no quarter and they give none. If they succeed they’re a hero and if they fail, they tried. And it was Eddie’s desire and will to try with everything he had, which he always did. So the only healthy way perhaps we can approach the tragedy of the loss of a friend like Eddie Sachs is to know that he would have wanted us to face it as he did. As as it has happened, not as we wish it would have happened. It is God’s will I’m sure and we must accept that.

We are all speeding toward death at the rate of 60 minutes every hour, the only difference is we don’t know how to speed faster and Eddie Sachs did. So since death has a thousand or more doors, Eddie Sachs exits this earth in a race car. Knowing Eddie I assume that’s the way he would have wanted it. Byron said “who the God’s love die young.”

Eddie was 37. To his widow Nancy we extend our extreme sympathy and regret. And to his two children. This boy won the pole here in 1961 and 1962. He was a proud race driver. Well, as we do at Indianapolis and in racing, as the World Champion Jimmy Clark I’m sure would agree as he’s raced all over the world, the race continues. Unfortunately today without Eddie Sachs. And we’ll be restarting it in just a few moments.”