Every year, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, I have a tradition: I watch the Indianapolis 500. I have done so for at least a quarter-century that I can recall; the first clear memory I have is of listening to the 1982 race on radio at my godparents' house in the two-stoplight town that is Milton, Indiana. At that time, thanks to blackout restrictions, ABC could not broadcast the race live within the state of Indiana so the only options were listening live on the radio or watching the tape-delayed broadcast late Sunday night. With a few exceptions, I've never missed a race since.

I may well have watched or listened to the Indy 500 before then, but I'm sure that the reason I remember the '82 running is because it had one of the most thrilling finishes in the history of the race, with Gordon Johncock edging out Rick Mears in what at the time was the closest finish ever. It still stands, I believe, as the third or fourth closest finish at The Brickyard. But Johncock's win had the added virtue of having the added element of overcoming tragedy. Johncock had won the race once before, in 1973, but that race was marred by a whole month of tragedy:  a driver was killed during qualification. Another driver, "Salt" Walther, was severely injured in a crash that nearly killed him and injured 11 spectators. Rain, along with the severity of Walther's crash, delayed the race two days. When racing resumed, Johncock's teammate, Swede Savage, was in a horrific accident. A pit crewman was killed after being hit by a truck when running to aid Savage, and Savage himself died a month later from his injuries. Not even the infamous Andretti Curse can live up to that.

There are many other memories, though. I always loved watching A.J. Foyt drive, and I'll never forget him getting out of his car, trying to pound his gearbox back to life in that famous 1982 race after being among the leaders up to that point. It was probably his last, best chance to win. And there was Marco Andretti, in 2006, literally coming within inches of being the first Andretti to win at Indy since 1969.

And who can forget Danica Patrick last year? Frustrated, but finally getting her misbehaving, poor-handling car under control, Patrick seemed to be making a move to the front when she pitted. On her way out of the pits, she was sideswiped by Ryan Briscoe, taking her out of the race. I don't think I'll ever forget seeing her (I swear there was fire shooting out of her eyes) stalking toward Briscoe's pit, probably ready to dismantle the other driver with her bare hands. I've no doubt, had her crew not restrained her, she would have done just that.  

I also credit the Indy 500 for opening my eyes to the possibilities of alternative fuels. The cars there are all alcohol burners; for years running on methanol, and now the run on an ethanol-methanol blend. It always made me wonder, if we could race high-performance cars at Indianapolis on renewable fuel, why we couldn't do the same for production cars. Given the decades we've had to research production possibilities for making alcohol-based fuels practical, that question still stands.

However, in about an hour, I'll be thrilling to that time-honored call: "Ladies and gentleman, start your engines!" A call for a race that has endured two world wars, that other financial collapse  that the current one is always being compared to, and any number of splits and tiffs among racing league governing bodies. It has even, heaven help us, survived renovations made to run a NASCAR race on the track. Maybe that's the appeal of the Indianapolis 500--no matter what happens, the race endures.