6 days to the Brickyard: Thrills and spills of inaugural IROC at Indy

It’s my favorite NASCAR story. To this day, it’s my favorite NASCAR moment. Ask me which race I remember the most, and well, it’s probably the last one run, but I still remember bits and pieces of the original run of the International Race of Champions (aka IROC) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

First, some background: Most of my readers know that I attended the Brickyard 400 in 1996 at the young age of seven. What readers may not realize is that the only reason I got to go to that race was because my dad couldn’t find anyone to go with him.

He always got the same answers. “It’s boring,” my uncle Larry told him. Well, he let one of his daughters—my cousin—marry a NASCAR fan, so we’ll forgive him. “I’ve got a wedding to go to,” many of his friends from high school and college responded at a party on the Saturday before the race. My pleading to go was answered at that time; I’d be headed to Indy in 1996.

That trip in 1996 fostered an even deeper ‘fanhood’ for me, one that continues today. So, in 1998, when we decided to make the trip up to Indy for the 1998 IROC race, I was even more fired up. Almost every IROC race I watched ended the same way—with Mark Martin in victory lane.

Hopefully this one would be no different.

We headed to seats on the inside of pit road, a place we had never been before, and climbed up many rows nearly to the top. I had on a Mark Martin t-shirt that was easily ten sizes too big, but it didn’t matter to me—I showed everyone who I was rooting for that day.

Mark Martin started last (12th) due to his hold of the number one spot in the IROC points. His teammate at Roush Racing, Jeff Burton started to his inside. It didn’t take but two laps for the mayhem to ensue.

Coming off of turn four the green car of Tommy Kendall hit the wall and bounded into the orange car of Arie Luyendyk. You know there’s a problem when you can read the name on the side of the car—the passenger side of the car. Luyendyk was along for the ride it seemed. A split second later he slammed the inside wall—which was covered with black foam, the precursor to the SAFER barriers of today’s NASCAR—and the black foam flew everywhere.

The only reason I remember watching Arie’s car fly across the track was because running right behind he and Kendall was the Aqua #1 car piloted by 39-year old Mark Martin. Mark came through the smoke unscathed, but Burton, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Sr. all had damage. Burton had to retire from the race, Gordon got taped up and continued and Earnhardt got four fresh tires (in IROC races there were never pit stops, but in this case they let Dale take four tires to continue racing).

After the once orange car came to a stop against the outside wall, facing the correct way down the track, with very little sheet metal left on it, my mom became very worried. “He’s dead, he’s dead,” she said, with concern. Forty-five minutes later, Luyendyk emerged, waved to the crowd and hobbled into the ambulance. He suffered a fractured ankle in the horrifying wreck.

My mom’s first race would be her last.

After the long red flag the IROC cars got rolling once again. The race was typical for Indy, the field got single file and strung out. Mark made his way up through the field and ran second behind CART star Jimmy Vasser.

Vasser’s gold #12 led the first 36 laps of the event. Folks, let’s flashback to the green car handled by Tommy “Skip the Wall” Kendall (as I call him). As each lap progressed the green car kept falling further back from the pack, and the crowd loved it.

Now, we as race fans certainly didn’t want to see Kendall performing horribly, but as it became apparent that he wouldn’t be contending for the victory, we showed our appreciation for his effort, cheering loudly every time he came off of turn four and zoomed down the 5/8th of a mile front straightaway. On occasion he stuck out his hand from the window, waving to the crowd, firing back his appreciation for the race fans.

On lap 36 Mark Martin made the pass of Jimmy Vasser, pulling beside him down the front stretch, within view of the kid in the tower terrace wearing the black Mark Martin shirt. I can’t recall my exact celebration at that time, but I do remember the friendly guys sitting behind us beginning to cheer Mark on with me. Apparently they had no proverbial horse in the race, so they rooted for Mark to win.

And as the Aqua car came by us for a final time, about three car lengths ahead of Al Unser Jr., I jumped up and down wildly, celebrating the first time I had seen Mark Martin win in person. High-fives were abounding with everyone sitting near me.

Mark got to victory lane and celebrated with his wife, Arlene and his son, Matt. “This is truly the highlight of my career. This is it.”

Or is it?

Could 2009 be the year that Mark Martin makes it to victory lane at Indianapolis in a Sprint Cup car? All signs say he’s got a great shot to do so, but you folks will have to tune in tomorrow to see what this sports journalist thinks.
----------------------------------------------------
I was going to put up some of my favorite photos of the past weekend and tell the story of the truck and ARCA races at Kentucky from my vantage point last night, but I couldn’t muster up the energy. Hopefully I can get through feeling absolutely horrible and make it back to 100% for tomorrow. You folks deserve to hear the story and see some neat photos.

Thanks for reading; hopefully you can check back tomorrow. I won’t disappoint, I promise.