There’s a lot of chirping going on today over the new Twitter logo, a similar version of the old blue bird. If you ask us, it looks like the bird just got a buzz cut and a dye job, but one of the more intentional changes is the creature’s new upward flight path. Twitter has some deep thoughts about the graphical tweak—involving the words “hope,” “freedom,” and “possibility”— but we’re more concerned about the fate of the famous logo’s Indianapolis DNA.
With as smooth a swing as you’ll ever see, defending champion Justin Rose drove home the official start of festivities surrounding the BMW Championships on Monday, scorching a dead-center drive down the fairway to the delight of onlooking dignitaries and media members.
When you’re a reporter, you’re supposed to keep fandom to yourself. Cheering (and, sadly, beer) is frowned upon in sporting-arena press boxes. There’s never a sign telling you not to; you’re just supposed to know, much the same as no sign tells you to wear pants in public. It’s okay to be breathless in your description of high sports drama, so long as the excitement is not tied to one side in the contest. And you’re not supposed to fawn over the competitors (a dictum many of ESPN’s reporters and commentators seem to have lain aside, but I digress).
On Sunday night, close to 12 miles away from the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, another spectacle played out at a more-modest racetrack across town: the First Annual United States Figure 8 Championship 90-minute World Figure 8 Enduro race at Indianapolis Speedrome (802 S. Kitley Ave.), on the edge of the eastside Irvington neighborhood.
Top Indy 500 drivers—and their fans and arm candy—descended on downtown’s Sensu late Sunday night for the “Big Finish” party. First-time 500 driver Wade Cunningham hosted the affair, where dance songs zoomed by as uproariously as an Indy car, and where the day’s big winner himself elected to celebrate race night.
It was a race to remember, with Indianapolis 500 darling Dario Franchitti winning his third Borg-Warner Trophy and embracing both his wife, actress Ashley Judd, and his friend Dan Wheldon’s widow, Susie, with warmth to match the day’s second-hottest temperatures on record, 91 degrees.
The sun-drenched and sweaty masses came out for international DJ and electronic artist Benny Benassi in this morning’s Snake Pit, that patch of grass in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Turn 3 infield where revelers take in thumping beats and cans of beer.
On the heels of their star turns in the 500 Festival parade today, celebrities in for the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” took to the checkered carpet outside the Indiana Roof Ballroom. On the docket: the 2012 Snakepit Ball, with headlining performer Rick Springfield.
Bicycles have become a ubiquitous part of life in Indianapolis of late, and the trend is finding its way to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May Madness reported last week that pedicabs are giving foot-weary walkers relief inside the IMS confines, and, with the Pedal and Park program, race-goers are finding bikes to be a good way to cut out parking hassles and/or long slogs from distant parking spots.
The stars aligned for the 500 Festival parade, which promised a fairly high celebrity quotient and did not disappoint. Floats and cars, bands and marchers—they all moved swimmingly along the route that started on Pennsylvania Street downtown, wounded around Washington Street and Monument Circle, and then proceeded up Meridian Street.
