Well, the Indy 500 is history for another year. For another year, I didn’t see a bit of it. I’ve always been a racing fan. I never went to one in person, but I loved them. I loved watching them.

Really it started when I was about ten years old or so. Yeah, they had engines and things like that when I was a kid. I was not only a kid but I was addicted to them. I loved them and watched them and wanted to keep up with them. If only I had done as much in the study hall, but nevertheless I was a racing fan!

A.J. Foyt – I could name the majority of them. Thirty-three run in the Indy 500 and I could almost name the entire field for you. Now, I want to tell you that this has nothing to do whatsoever to do with the final running. That took place yesterday and it doesn’t matter who won it. I wasn’t a fan of the people who raced but I was a fan of the race itself.

Anyway, Indy 500 was the name of it and I don’t know why I was so enthralled by it, but I loved the race itself. I never got close to going to it and it probably would have burned me up or burned me out or something if I had gone to one.

You know, they carried it on the radio back then and it was a big deal. I don’t know how you do something like that but it was an event that probably couldn’t have been done. You know, when I was addicted to it back then, I loved watching and I watched as much as I could but when it came down to it, it was something that is hard to explain, but it’s something that you couldn’t get a grasp of if you were watching it. If you weren’t watching it, it didn’t matter. It was just the race itself.

I went, oh gosh, probably twenty years or so without watching it. It was like it was the biggest thing on Sunday afternoon – the biggest thing on any afternoon. It was amazing to watch! I could see fights breaking out and I could just see stuff that you couldn’t see on the race track very often. It was an event. It was something that you looked forward to. It was something that you didn’t understand if somebody else couldn’t understand it.

It was that way with quite a few of us that were about the same age. But about twenty years ago, for some reason, it kind of stopped. It was just gone. I guess it was because racing was not so much – it was a big race – it was like it was the only race and it was the Indy 500. Of course back then, NASCAR wasn’t as big an event as it turned out to be. Anyway there was the Indy 500 and there wasn’t anything else. Then for about twenty years NASCAR came up and the Indy 500 was nothing. Of course, I’m sure they kept selling it out and everything, but it was nothing. Now, NASCAR, I don’t want to say it’s nothing, but it’s nothing compared to that. I guess it goes in cycles. That’s all I can say.

I was a big Indy 500 fan and now, I don’t even care that much. Let them race. Let whoever win. The Indy 500 though, in my heart of hearts, still the greatest of all time.

Until next time, so long everybody.

***

‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].