Tweets of the Weekend: Indy 500 Edition
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.
Last night, music-industry icons, Indianapolis 500 stars, and other big-name notables put their well-heeled feet forward at the Indy 500 Soiree to help raise money for Riley Children’s Hospital at IU Health. In attendance were country-music star Garth Brooks and Motown legend (and Dancing with the Stars contestant) Gladys Knight, as well as two-time Indy 500 champion Dario Franchitti, 2008 winner Scott Dixon, and popular former Indianapolis Colt Dallas Clark. Lucas Oil owner Forrest Lucas and wife, Charlotte, graciously hosted the event at their 35-acre Hamilton County estate.
Editor’s Note: We must be sadists. IM intern Myrydd Wells had never been to a Carb Day concert. So today, without mercy, we sent her—alone—to the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at IMS. When we cautioned that it might get rowdy, and asked if she was sure she wanted to go, she reassured us. “I went to IU,” she said. “I’ve seen it all.” This is what she brought back.
Who: Rick Spingfield. Gig: Rock star/Soap hunk. Age: 62. Show-stopper: The ‘80s heartthrob (“Jessie’s Girl,” General Hospital) is back on TV and he’s working on a new album, Love Songs for the End of the World. Tomorrow, he joins the 500 Festival Parade and headlines the annual Snakepit Ball. Today, he broke one his own song’s rules: He talked to a stranger (IM).
Dan Wheldon was going to save IndyCar. That was the premise with which I set out to write an early-season profile of the Brit in the spring of 2005. He was 26, dapper, handsome, and quotable in a sneering, “like-it-or-lump-it” attitude that seemed about as sincere as his insistence that he only drank Red Bull and Jim Beam, his sponsor. He was coming off his first full season, having won three races and finished second in points, and sitting at a table in the back of his trailer for an interview the night before the first race in Homestead, hair spiked stiff, slacks immaculately pressed. He flashed a snaggle-toothed grin and agreed that, “Yeah, a good piece is exactly what the sport needs,” to get fans on board.
