My Favorite Indy 500 memory

My fist memory of the speedway was, I believe, in the fall of 1972. We went to the old museum outside of turn one (The Hall of Fame wasn't opened till 1975). I was 7 and the main thing I remember was seeing Bobby Unser's 1968 winning car (The Rislone special). I also got a toy Indycar (it didn't have wings). We went to the 2nd day of time trials in 1973 and I was hooked. How many 8 year olds do you know of, who would sit and listen to an entire race on the radio? Well that's exactly what I did in 1974, when the two Texans A.J. Foyt (my favorite) and Johnny Rutherford battled each other during the first two thirds of the race, until Foyt's engine expired and "Lonestar J.R." went on to win. My first time attending the race was in 1976 and Rutherford also won that one. It was rain shortened (102 laps, the shortest race in 500 history) and his chief competition was once again "Supertex." I have been to 23, 500's (1976, 1980, 1981, 1986, 1989, 1991, and 1993-2009. I can't describe what this race means to me!!! My father who first brought me to the race, died on Pole Day 2006. When he was buried we put an Indy 500 pin on his suit jacket. Going to the 500 today is in some ways for me, a celebration of his life!!! For me to list my favorite memory, would be all of them!!! Seeing Mears win his fourth, Rutherford, Bobby Unser and Castroneves win their third would probably be strong contenders. But if I had to pick one moment it would be as a 10 year old, standing against the backstretch fence in 1976. Seeing all 33 cars going slowly down the backstretch on the parade and pace laps and anticipating, seeing all 33 flying down that same backstretch at close to 200 mph!! Magical is what it was and is!!!