Memorial Day Memories

It's that time of the year where we kick off the beginning of Summer with the Memorial Day Holiday. In addition to what Memorial Day is really about, race fans celebrate the weekend with three prestigious races that Sunday.

In the morning, the Grand Prix of Monaco begins and the Formula 1 drivers spend the day running through the streets of the Principality inches from the wall being watched by royalty. Here's Monaco then in 1955.



And here's last years race in Monaco. Apologies that it's in another language and even though the two videos are 17 minutes long, it was a good race.





Here is one of the most classic races in Monaco, in 1982, the rain came and the leaders kept wrecking in the final laps.



In the afternoon, the legendary Indianapolis 500 Indy Car race begins and is still one of the most traditional sporting events ever. This year is the 100th anniversary of the opening of the speedway and 500,000 people come to the track every year. Every year, the pre-race festivities give such traditions as the playing of "Taps" and Jim Nabors singing "Back Home Again in Indiana."



The next two videos are from the first ever Indianapolis 500 in 1911.





Back then, the track was layered with 3.2 million bricks, hence the name the "Brickyard." Now the track is covered in asphalt, but there's still a yard of bricks exposed at the finish line.

As the day concludes into night, the longest race in NASCAR is beginning. The Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte is 600 miles and is meant to test both driver and machine. When the Indy 500 was on an hour earlier, drivers attempted to race both Indy and Charlotte in the same day. The last person to do this was Tony Stewart in 2001 where he finished 6th at Indy and 3rd at Charlotte. In the history of drivers doing the double, Stewart was the only person to complete all 1,100 miles and finish in the top-10 in both races.

I wrote this because I got to go to Charlotte to see the NASCAR race in 2006. My dad and I went down for the week and "roughed it" in a tent from Wednesday to Monday. Because Charlotte is where all the NASCAR teams have their race shops, we went to every teams shop on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons. Roush racing had a memorabilia sale and for $5, I bought Mark Martin's tire that blew in this wreck in the 2006 All-Star Race the previous week, watch the #6 car. It was the left front tire which my favorite driver, Kasey Kahne (#9) went into. It's all broken apart, but it looks cool. I want to get both their autographs on the tire someday.



Friday night, we went to the World Premiere of the movie "Cars." We got to see all the stars of the movie and everyone sat in the stands and watched the movie on a huge screen in the infield. Earlier that morning, "Regis and Kelly" were filming their show at the track close to where we were camping. If we had known about it, we would've gone there.

Saturday night, we went to the Busch race there and witnessed probably the worst racing weekend of Tony Stewart's life. In this race, he hits the turn four wall and injures his shoulder blade. He was right about the fans, it was pretty silent until he got out of the car. We were sitting after the finish line about a few hundred feet down the track. The one thing I remember from the wreck was Kahne running over the spring Darrell Waltrip mentioned and made a high pitched noise right in front of us because it must've popped the transmission into 1st gear.



Then on Sunday for the "600," Stewart plows into the wall and finishes off breaking his shoulder blade. The car came to rest right in front of us in turn two and again took Stewart a while to get out of the car.



I'm getting a little ahead of myself from that Sunday. Because the race is at night, a lot of the drivers hang around with the fans outside. Over the afternoon, I got to meet Richard Petty, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, and Dale Earnhardt Jr just walking around the facility. I came back to the campsite for lunch and we watched the Indy 500. It was a "blast from the past" because we watched the race on a tiny portable black and white screen. The duel between Sam Hornish Jr. and Marco Andretti has become one of the greatest finishes in Indy history. Here is the color version.



After that, we took the walk to the Lowe's Motor Speedway to watch the Coca-Cola 600. It was a long race, but when you pay the money required for tickets, you get your money's worth for 600 miles. My driver, Kasey Kahne, had a good car but it wasn't good enough to lead. As the race wore on, Kahne kept charging up the standings and was now a contender for the lead. Kahne kept pulling away and won his first Coca-Cola 600 race. Last year, he won his second race, but I'm glad to say I was there for the first. Here is a video of his burnout after the race.



There's nothing like Memorial Day Weekend. On Sunday, 18 hours of racing will take place among the three greatest races in motorsports. A total of 207 of these races have been run on this day. This year will be the 67th in Monaco, 93rd in Indianapolis, and 50th in Charlotte and this experience never gets old for a race fan.