Indy Race Results

Memorial weekend in Indiana means one thing. The Indianapolis 500 race. Many of you probably watched this exciting event on the television but I am filling you in on some of the happenings that didn't appear on the big screen.

This is a copy of the promotion poster to spike interest in the 500 race. Since this was the 100th year of racing the owners of the race track pulled out all of the stops to make this the bestest of the best race in the history of the speedway.

While the regular networks were airing the race with the humans the animal channel had a crew at the track to follow the real happenings that were going on. I was asked to race in this historical event and was more than proud when I was also asked to ride around the speedway in the official pace car before the race started. More exciting than riding in the pace car was my driver, the legendary, AJ Foyt! AJ is known as the King of the Indy 500 being the first driver to win four times.

Before the offical start of the race I caught up with the Andretti family. Mario, Michael, and Marco offered me pointers on how to get ahead in this race, what to watch out for, and charted out when my pit stops should take place. I paid careful attention as I knew this could make the difference between a win and a loss. My folks were so excited when they knew I was meeting with the Andretti family as they are fans of Mario. They were so surprised that his grandson is now a racer, yep the folks here are old.

Here I am in my race car being pushed out onto the track to get ready for the opening ceremonies. I was feeling pretty nervous when this photo was being taken as I knew there were many miles of a race to run.

The opening ceremonies were fabulous and included Jim Nabors singing "Back Home Again In Indiana", the Purdue marching band playing, Kelly Clarkson and Seal singing "The Star Spangled Banner", honoring our men serving our great nation, and last but not least a fly over by a B1 (Stealth Bomber). The mom said when she saw the stealth it brought tears into her eyes making them run down her face.

After doing our lap with the pace car once around the track the green flag was given and the race was on. I took the advice from Mario and tried not to push the car too fast, I didn't want to wear it out too soon in the race. I decided I would stay near the front and make my move in the last several laps left of the race.

This is a photo of my pit crew waiting for me to head in for gas and a change of the tires. They are such a dedicated group and gave me a thousand per cent. I could not have done so well without their dedication and quickness during the stops.

When the race was over I exchanged a few words with Dan. He is a really nice man and it was a pleasure to meet him. He was declared the winner of this year's race, the human winner that is. But . . .

. . . Yep, you guessed it. I won the race, I even beat out Dan Wheldon, what a finish. Most of you that saw the race knew that Dan won when Hildebrand had crashed into the outside wall as he exited the final turn. I protested the findings of the officials when I wasn't declared the winner but when I watched the replay I couldn't see my car ahead of Dan's. I guess I was going so fast that the replay cameras didn't catch me. Bummer.

The officials at the track declared Wheldon the winner but as you can see by the photo above the official official winner is me, team Gracie. Lucky for me the animal channel camera workers have the footage showing my car way ahead of Wheldon.

The traffic leaving the raceway was terrible so I decided to hang out for awhile and reflect on the days events. I am sorry that I won't be in the statistics of raceway history but I have my memories, trophy, checkered flag, and I was given all the milk that I wanted to drink.

Yeah Team Gracie