IMS - Day # 12 - Traffic Control - 7th Day, aka: Fast Friday

Many days here have their own unique names earned over the 100 plus years of this event.  Friday is known locally as "Fast Friday".  It's the last day before "Pole Day"....aka: Qualifying Day......so all the teams are out in force pushing their cars to higher and higher speeds.  In anticipation of "Fast Friday" one driver pushed it a little too hard into turn one, and put his car into the wall pretty hard......so now we have our first crash.  

"Fast Friday" started out, much like Thursday, with very heavy cloud cover, and as we walked to the check in area it was apparent, at least at that time, that we would get rained on Friday.  We "clocked in" and caught the first golf car shuttle up to Gate # 2 where TLE and I found out there were just the two of us, plus Sarah, and then Rick (our supervisor) and Dan.  By 8:30, just 30 minutes into my first break I was called back to the line.....we were getting slammed with inbound traffic.  Thankfully, this day, the Indianapolis P.D. showed up to assist us.  Without their help we would have sunk quickly.  

The inbound traffic never really let up the rest of the day, and on this day there must have been a 100 school buses entering IMS for the day.  We were reduced to taking 10 minute breaks and then back into the line.  TLE actually ran "point" several times Friday and did a great job, just as I knew she would.

I was on a break around 3 pm when we started seeing lightning in the distance....within 15 minutes the sky fell......you could not see across the street and the wind was blowing the rain sideways.  Everyone still on the line quickly retreated to the break tent, and there we remained.  Finally about 3:45 the main office called on the two way radio releasing all the workers at every gate except for the supervisors.  Well, that was all fine and good, but none of us were going to walk 1.5 miles back to Gate # 10 to clock out, so there we sat waiting out the deluge until almost 5 pm when they finally were able to bring up an enclosed passenger van to transport us to Gate # 10.

Normally......whatever "normal" is on a job we have held for 7 days....we would just have stayed until quitting time, but Saturday we must clock in no later than 5 am, so getting off an hour early means we have an extra hour before we have to get to bed.....for TLE that means between 8 and 9 pm.....way, way to early for me.  I fell asleep in my recliner around 9, and woke up at 10:15 and moved to the bed where we were rudely awakened this morning (Saturday) at 2:50 am........as TLE and I often remark when we must wake up way, way too early......."this is iniquitous!"

Well, that was "Fast Friday", and it was faster in every sense of the word!  Thanks for stopping by!