Canter Bridge

‘Funny how different things look from up close.

Three years ago my family and I left a sixteen-year stint in Costa Rica, a place we loved and where we believed we’d one day die and be buried. Of all places, we came to Indianapolis, a town with a reputation for dullness placed smack in the middle of the nation’s Heartland. We have no Midwestern roots and so accepted by default the conventional wisdom that we were coming to a bland place for the sake of a great job.

How wrong we were!

Indy is a great town, a place mayor Bart Peterson assures us is becoming ‘a world class city, one neighborhood at a time’. I believe him. Indy has most things you’d want in a real city and many things you can’t get in a bigger place than this.

Take the Brickyard for example, the storied two-and-a-half-mile oval track that hosts the three most attended sporting events in the world. The 500 is the big draw, NASCAR’s Allstate 400 the next, and it seems that the substitution of the top motorcycle circuit for Formula’ 1’s U.S. Grand Prix in 2007 will maintain our hold on the third spot.

Yesterday, I attended the Allstate 400 for the second time. What a spectacle it is! You don’t often see as many people in one place, needless to say. Yet the Brickyard management and the local police do a fine job of maintaining traffic and foot flow and the crowd itself is remarkably decent.

There is no other sonic experience like the first time a NASCAR field passes your spot in the stands. The rumble can be felt in every cell of your body and, if you’re smart, you’ve already reached for your ear plugs. Or your very cool Uniden headphones and scanner, which I picked up recently and debuted at yesterday’s race.

Tony Stewart, of the superbly run Joe Gibbs Racing Team, took the race yesterday after fending off some late challenges in a race somewhat too plagued by yellow flags. As with baseball, another sport in which what happens on the field is only the epiphenomenon of myriad decisions in the dugout, people unacquainted with this form of motor racing will imagine that it was an exercise in boredom. Those who know better will understand that Stewart’s crossing of the finish line is merely the outcome of years of meticulous improvement, careful strategizing, and relentless attention to detail.

And all of this right here in Indy, my (adoptive) hometown.

A guy could do worse.