Auto racing is a throwback to another time. In today's world of CGI F/X Gladiator movies, player unions, and pro-wrestlers who happily admit it's all fake, Indy offers something else — The Real Thing. It hearkens back to an era when Lillian Gish really ran across water falls for D.W. Griffith, when Ernest Hemingway sought wars, not deferments, and Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes for any infielder dumb enough to get in his way. People expected a lot from their pop culture back then, and Indy racers still risk a lot. The underlying possibility that somebody could get killed juices every second of racing — a sport that was extreme before anyone ever heard of a snow board. It remains our only sport where death is an accepted, oh let's face it, an expected feature of the event.

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