The first running of the Indianapolis 500 came just 50 years after the civil war. The automotive industry has tested some its most innovative ideas and some of motor racing’s top drivers have made their mark at this race.
In the early days, the Indy 500 was televised on a pay-per-view basis. In 1965, ABC brought the race to broadcast TV. At 11 a.m. on Sunday, ABC will broadcast the 100th running of America’s most beloved auto race.
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“I think that is one of the great delights in doing this race is that not only does the race have the history, but we have the history with it,” said Jed Drake, ESPN senior vice president and executive producer of the race. “With the extensive ABC library, we have great footage. There are a number of great features that we will be running throughout the broadcast, and we of course don’t want to forget about this year’s race. We will have over 65 cameras covering every aspect of the race, and we will offer 5.1 Dolby audio so it will not only be a great race to watch, but the audio of the cars roaring over the brickyard should be amazing.”
I asked ESPN/ABC analysts and former drivers Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever about their favorite Indy drivers.
Goodyear » “I think for me it was definitely Mario Andretti, because I was a big Formula 1 fan growing up in Toronto, Canada, and my other hero, Gilles Villeneuve. So I had my two favorite drivers in both the Indy races as well as the Formula?1. Watching the IndyCar stuff with Mario was really enlightening, and probably giving me the opportunity to think that if I couldn’t get going in Europe, I’d like to go off and compete in IndyCar, and I did.”
Cheever » “[When] I started watching racing, Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark were the ones that I followed the most. I loved the rear engine Lotus. You had Mario with his STP rear-engine turbine, which was also ahead of its time. But when you sit down and look at the history of the 500, and look at a family like the Unser family. Bobby, Al and Al Jr., and one family has won a total of nine 500’s, it is incredible. Then there is the track. I like the four different corners. I like the fact that the walls are hard, and most of all, I think it’s good that winning at Indy doesn’t become too easy.”
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
