Race Day Narrative

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June 30, 2016, 10:30 AM, Greenwoods Camp for Boys, Decatur, MI 49045 It was a hot and sunny day after a dark and stormy night. I was headed to riflery class with my friends, Doug, Ryan, and Quin. Upon arriving at riflery class, reeling my paper bullseye target out, and taking my firing position under the overhang, I was set to shoot my first bullseye. The blue mat made my shooting more comfortable to ensure that I would shoot well; I shot my first bullseye that day. Quin shouted, “WHAT IS THIS?!” Doug, Ryan, Quin, and I found ourselves in a colossal wormhole bright enough to almost blind us. We had suddenly been transported. We were all our nineteen-year-old selves. Shocked, I exclaimed, “That was tougher than a 400 IM!” May 17, 1946, 1:48 PM, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN 46222 Amid the blur, I found myself …show more content…

Air temperatures exceeded seventy degrees in the air, with the average thermal energy on the Speedway course averaging 100 degrees. For the 500, I had installed a thermally activated cooling system into my racing suit and my McLaren-Renault. Paralyzed in a state of panic, Doug seeked the starting grid for George Robson’s Adams-Sparks #16, the first auto with one of Dr. Rocciola’s bombs. Ryan looked for Ted Horn’s Maserati #29, once driven by Speedway sovereign Wilbur Shaw and one of the cars on which Dr. Rocciola placed a bomb. Quin was the only member of my small four-man pit crew who saw one of the fuses, panicking after returning from Jimmy Jackson’s sixth-place starting place, Jackson’s blue #61 parked there. It was twelve years old, the war forcing his team to use a reserved car due to the metal, fuel, and rubber shortages. While I was in deep conversation with Mauri Rose, another future Speedway sovereign who drove car number eight in 1946, Ryan tried to keep his emotions in, his pulse extra high. He frantically announced, “There’s a bomb in the 61!” The Gasoline Alley administration had no time to

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