Indy - 9781574889079

IndyThe Race and Ritual of the Indianapolis 500, Second Edition\nAuthor(s): Terry Reed\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Potomac Books Inc, United States\nImprint: Potomac Books Inc\nISBN-13: 9781574889079, 978-1574889079\nSynopsis\nIn a nation that worships the automobile for the freedom, style, and status that it confers, the Indianapolis 500, run on or near Memorial Day eighty-seven times, is an annual rite of passage celebrating Americans' love affair with speed. Indy recounts the drivers (677 men and 3 women) who have gone to Indianapolis in the past ninety-five years to live their dreams, staking their lives on the outcome. It highlights the faces in the crowd: hardworking Americans, tinhorn celebrities, hookers, movie stars, gate-crashers, and five American presidents. Terry Reed focuses his narrative on the track's four quarter-mile-long turns, each the site of triumphs (including those of such multiple winners as Billy Vukovich, A. J. Foyt, and Helio Castroneves); grisly deaths.