It's May again, and here I sit in Indianapolis. I grew up here and fell inlove with racing, and my father used to pull me out of school every year as a childto go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He wasn't a big fan, but he knew I had a passion for the place, and faithfully took me and signed my absentee slipfrom school.

I loved everything about the Speedway - the bright cars, the huge mass of people, the relative isolation of watching practice on the backstretch, the completely tasteless hot dogs - everything. I remember begging my dad totry to sneak us into the outside grandstands during practice so I could see moreof the track at once. I looked forward to May more than I looked forward to mybirthday and Christmas combined. May was special.

As I grew older, my enjoyment of the track didn't wane one bit. When I was working at Allison Transmission in Speedway, I would go in to work at 5 AM in order to get out of there at 1 PM so I could walk to the track and catchthe last five hours of practice - every single day.

I am 27 years old, so while my heroes don't include the "old guard" of the Speedway, they do include Mario Andretti, Al Unser Sr., Gordon Johncock, Rick Mears, and many others. I could tell Andretti's STP Wildcat apart from Johncock's STP Wildcat by the shade of blue when the cars were travelling at 205 miles per hour. My least favorite words in the dictionary were "Mario is slowing down", but I heard them nearly every year. It was all a part of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing - the most intense, nerve-wracking, butterfly-inducing race in all the world.

It's all gone now. The month of May in Indianapolis is now like any othermonth. The incredible hype is gone. Sure, the city still hangs checkered flagbanners from the street signs, and every once in awhile you'll see some businesswith a "Welcome Race Fans" sign out front. But now you can drive right by 16th and Georgetown on a practice day and not touch the brakes. The street vendors aren't open except on Pole day and Race day. Down in Greenwood, only twenty minutes away, the hotels advertise "Race weekend vacancies". For as many people as there are in this town, it somehow seems like a ghost town; ashadow of it's former self. The race goes on - full fields, some good racing, butno sense of the overwhelming tradition that used to encompass and define it. This devastation of the Motorsports Capital of The World is not due to waninginterest in open-wheel racing, lack of sponsorship dollars for open-wheel racing, orlack of talent in the open-wheeled ranks. On the contrary, there is moreinterest, more sponsorship money, and loads of talent poised and ready to make the Indianapolis 500 the awesome event it once was. The only thing that standsin the way is personal interests. Track owners, presidents of sanctioningbodies, and owners of racing teams cannot seem to find the time or inclination torepair the burned bridges of the split.

And this fan has not been able to find the time or inclination to step footback inside the track.