One Lap of the Web: Indy 500 memories

-- In 1995, Jacques Villeneuve won the 79th Indy 500 and went on to the CART Championship. Viewers who tuned into ABC and saw the introduction to its Indy 500 broadcast, a five-minute rundown the entire history of American motorsport, were hyped up beyond belief to watch some cool-as-hell racing. Nineteen years later, the video can still get race fans PUMPED UP.

-- A year earlier, Penske Racing debuted a secret "super engine" that pushed Al Unser Jr. to a victory at the 1994 Indy 500. A monster pushrod Mercedes engine built by Ilmor with nearly 1,000 hp, it was developed in such secrecy that when it debuted, everyone -- press, rivals, fans -- were stunned to find out that it had nearly 150-200 hp more than the popular Cosworths and was 20 mph faster in practice than the second-fastest, in the hands of Emerson Fittipaldi. The results, reports Indystar, were not only inevitable but never duplicated. Of course, next year, Villeneuve would end Ilmor domination with the first victory for a Cosworth engine.

-- And five years before that, Fittipaldi sent Unser Jr. into the wall. "I look over at Junior's car and he was looking at me and you know when you put your head down and you want to move fast when you overtake someone?" said Fittipaldi. "I could see Junior doing this, and I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm not going to back off.'" Which was for the best, seeing as a lap later, Fittipaldi won his first Indy 500.

-- Even further back into a century of Indy 500 history, the tragedy of 1964 that saw the fiery deaths of Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs nearly spelled the end of American motorsports. Clamors for the ban of motorsports had begun as early as 1957, but 1964 saw the media come down hard on Indianapolis, and racing: Memorial Day is "not a day to kill people," said one news anchor. "This is not in the public interest, and Rambler will have no part in it." Easy to snark that maybe that's why American Motors is no longer around, but the 1964 Indy 500 was our Le Mans disaster.

-- Not to end on a dour note, of course: The Indianapolis 500 is a bucket list event, a transcendent motorsport experience, and capable of inducing jealousy in the enthusiasts who haven't yet gone. It's also, as Marshall Pruett points out, full of Cher fans.

Image via Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

By Blake Z. Rong