May 1997: The Indy 500 That Wasn't (for me.)

In 1997, through a series of coincidences, I wound up in the owner's suite of Arie Luyenduk, a top race car driver at the Indianapolis 500. He won that year--but I didn't get to see it.

The scene: it was 1997, I was 30 years old, a few months away from being a father, married to my now ex-wife, and I was “in the zone” in my career field. At the time, I was among the best in the country at the kind of engineering work that I did; I could design, troubleshoot and find problems in hardware like few others on the planet.

It was something of an art form. My boss Dr. Yu used to say: “You’re not a conductor, orchestrating music, E.T.” (my nickname.) “You’re a brilliant engineer who knows how to orchestrate conduction.” It was a play-on-words inside joke he and I made about chip design, but he was right, it was much like that.

I could make electrons sing as they zipped around circuits in fractions of nanoseconds, and through that orchestration, build machines that could help sequence the first ever complete Human Genome, among other things.

The year before, our company had won a contract to provide a line of supercomputers to the NSA (you can read more about that here in Supercomputing in 2021), and I was both a design engineer and team lead on the hardware.

That previous summer of 1996, we designed and installed what was—for a brief time—the world’s fastest parallel processing systolic array processing system. A supercomputer that—when compared to regular PCs—was like a turbo-charged Indy 500 racecar compared to a Volkwagen beetle running on only two cylinders.

In early 1997, the CEO of the company, Dr. Kwang-i Yu (PhD from Caltech) was in negotiations with a Texas-based company called Wavephore; Dr. Yu was in the process of selling off a division of our company to Wavephore. Negotiations had been going on for some time.

One afternoon, I wandered into his office to give him an update on the status of our team’s engineering work, which was progressing well. After a 5- or 10-minute technical briefing, we started chatting about small-talk things, and I glanced over at his desk.

There was a small model race car in a tiny Plexiglas box sitting there. “Hey Kwang-i, what is that? I haven’t seen that before.”

“Well,” Dr. Yu said, “it turns out that the owner of Wavephore is a racing buff. He’s part owner of some team that will be racing in the upcoming Indy 500. He gave me that yesterday.”

I picked up the model, and as I was looking at it, I told Dr. Yu something he didn’t already know about me. He knew I was a graduate of Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, one of the nation’s top engineering schools; but he used to tease me by calling it “Rosebud Hallmark.”

“When I was in high school and college,” I told Kwang-i, “I lived in Indianapolis. In mid-May every year, we would get out of class early and go out to the racetrack for time-trials and qualifications. My parents bought tickets for my sister and me to the race several times as a reward for good grades.”

“That place … it’s like Mecca to me. I love the track.”

He nodded a bit, and we wandered off onto some other topic. I put down the model car and got up to leave. Dr. Yu said: “as part of the deal we’re trying to negotiate with WavePhore, the owner offered us four tickets to the Indy 500. I’m taking my wife, and our CFO Ted is bringing his wife.”

“Wow,” I said… “that’s going to be cool for you. I’ve never been anywhere but the cheap seats, it’s probably quite an experience to be in an owner’s box.” He could tell by the way my voice trailed off that I was a bit envious.

But I was busy; I was supposed to fly to Maryland in 3 weeks to do some troubleshooting at the NSA, and I had some assembly and testing to do in the lab. “Hey Kwang-i, I’ll see you later. Got to get back to the lab. Have a great time when you go!”

At the time, I was at the peak of my abilities; I was able to quickly get into what some people call “flow-state”. This is a state of mind of intense concentration in which work seems to flow effortlessly and you can do work and solve problems at lightning speed.

At that age, I could get into “flow-state” after about 5 to 10 minutes of focused concentration, and I would completely lose track of time when I did. Many times, if I was focused on a difficult troubleshooting problem, I’d get down to work in the lab at 8am or so, and then I’d look up—and it would be dark outside. The clock would show 7 or 8 PM.

I would be completely disoriented, because it felt like only a few hours had gone by; my brain couldn’t handle the fact that the sun was missing. Instead of a few hours, ten or eleven hours had passed, and I didn’t even stop for lunch.

Not everyone will experience “flow-state” in their lives; those of us who have tend to lose the ability later in life (except Elon Musk, bless his soul), and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get back into it for brief periods of time.

When you are doing intense intellectual work, your brain is consuming huge amounts of glucose, and it as tiring as running a mini marathon might be; your brain consumes a vast amount of energy in flow state.

I used to go home and drop into a deep sleep completely exhausted, but in a good way; and in the morning, I would be bright and refreshed and eager to find my way back into the zone again.

It was intoxicating, to be able to concentrate that intensely.

After I left Kwang-i’s office, I went back to the lab and disappeared into the zone for the rest of the day. The next morning, he came into the lab when I was working. “Hey, I talked to the WavePhore guy again last night. We’re pretty much ready to close the deal. But I had to put one more demand on the table.”

“What’s that?” I mumbled at Kwang-i while fiddling with an oscilloscope, “do we need to give them more of our tech?” He said “No, I told them the deal would only close…if he got me two more tickets to the Indy 500. For you and your wife.”

I dropped my oscilloscope leads and a huge grin broke out on my face. “You didn’t.” I looked up at him. “Oh my God, you did! Oh man, you have no idea how much this means to me. Thank you so much, Dr. Yu! Like I said, the Indy 500 is like Mecca to me, and I’ve never been near the pavilion. You are a legend!”

At the time, Kwang-i knew that I was the most valuable member of our young company, having met impossibly difficult timelines and solved tough problems while still meeting our testing and shipping schedules.

He knew I had been a good part of the reason that we won the contract with the NSA the year before, because I did not know the word “quit” and would do whatever it took to get us across the finish line with these supercomputers. He knew a few tickets to a race was the least he could do as a way of thanking me for the hard work.

So, I went home and made arrangements with my wife to fly out to Indy for the race and stay with my parents for a few days.

When we were young, my friends and I used to like wandering around the whole track; unlike race day, on time trial days you could pay $10 and go pretty much anywhere you wanted because there were no assigned seats. So, we got to experience both the inside and outside seating areas and watch the cars during time trials and qualification laps.

One of the interesting details about the Indy 500 track is that, at the time, it was owned by the Hulman George family—the same ones whose family had founded my college, Rose-Hulman. Their family wealth came from the “Clabber Girl Baking Powder” company, a firm that been manufacturing baking powder since the early 1800’s.

In fact, the “pole” showing relative positions as cars raced around the track was initially designed and built by some students at Rose Hulman, and many talented mechanical engineers joined racing development teams after college.

My favorite spot to be on time-trial days was outside turn 1. When you sit there just above the fence, you can see the cars screaming straight at you at 225MPH, and at the last second, they bank and break to your right into a sharp turn, roaring like jet fighters as they screamed by; then the doppler shift would lower the engine pitch as the engine whined at 10,000 RPM.

The sound, the fury, the sheer elegance of those magnificent machines is truly spectacular.

After we had our fill of watching from the outside of turn 1, we’d wander over to the inside of turn 1, which at the time was called “the snake pit”. That’s where the biker-gang types would sometimes hang out. When they and their girls got drunk, you’d invariably see a young lady lift her shirt and show off her … uh … wares.

Of course, we were high-school boys who were, um, studying to be doctors, so…we were just intellectually curious about the physical anatomy, you see. To compare to the textbooks, that’s all.

It was quite an experience going to the racetrack. I went to the actual race about 4 or 5 times in those years; my neighbor across the street was a ‘track spotter’ who looked for debris after crashes, so my sister and I would catch a ride with him at 4:30am and get to the track before the crowds and just wander around for a few hours.

This year, though, I had two tickets to the Pavilion, a place I’d never been. The face value was something like $750 each (even back in 1997) but you couldn’t buy them; they were in some sense “priceless.” Only the owners and their invitees (and some celebrities) could get them.

On the morning of the race (usually the last Sunday in May) we were told to show up at a hotel where the WavePhore contingent was staying, and we would “carpool” from there.

What we didn’t know is that the owner had arranged a police escort. We found ourselves in expensive black sedans being whisked across town by police, who would go ahead of the convoy and stop traffic in the intersections so that we could just sail through. I’d never experienced anything like that.

We got across town and into the track in record time, and we were escorted into the owner’s suite at the pavilion. They had champagne, caviar, shrimp, beer, you name it.

While we were waiting for the race to start, we’d go out to the balcony and watch the preparations. Celebrities would breeze into the suite to say hi; we met Crystal Gail, a country music star at the time, and Edward James Olmos and some other actors.

Finally, the hour of the white flag lap approached. We saw B1 bombers and fighter jets fly over the track as a salute to the veterans, the traditional balloon release was done, “Gomer Pyle” sang his traditional “Back Home again in Indiana” song, and they started up the cars.

One of the most stirring things I’ve ever experienced is the National Anthem on Race Day at the Indy 500. The sound of 300,000 people all singing the Anthem at the same time sends shivers up and down your spine. That, alone, is worth the price of admission.

The race started, we were on the balcony pretty close to the start finish line, and I was in heaven. Nothing could have prepared me for the spectacle from that point of view.

The race looked to be ready to get off to a clean start, but after about just a few laps, the rain started and got too heavy. They tried to wait it out and dry off the track, but the weather forecast was ominous, so they called off the race. So, we went home in the rain.

On Monday, we did it all again: met at the hotel, got the police escort, got whisked into the track, went up to the suite. The champagne was a little warm and flat, the shrimp was a day old and soft, but hey! We were there again! And the race started up. But about 15 laps later, the rain fell… again…and for the second day in a row, they called it off.

So, we went back home. Unfortunately, my wife and I had plane tickets to return to L.A. on Tuesday; and I had only about a week to prep for a visit to the NSA, so I couldn’t afford another day and we couldn’t change our tickets. Kwang-i and Ted were able to extend a day, so they went to the race on Tuesday as we headed for the airport.

The whole time we were in the air, I was wondering how it was going. There was no onboard Internet in those days; but there were some sports channels on the inflight TV systems, and I was flipping channels looking for news.

When we got to L.A., the race was still running, so we tuned into AM radio in the car, and got the lap-by-lap details. When it was all over, Arie Luyendyk won the race starting from the pole position; it was his second Indy win.

Guess who was the primary sponsor of Arie’s car that year. If you guessed…WavePhore, you’d be right. Arie came up to the owner’s suite after the race, and the party lasted until about 3am, we were told. But my wife and I didn’t get to see that.

Still, it was the opportunity of a lifetime, one I’ll probably never have again. Two months later, in July of 1997, my first daughter was born, and from that day forward, my life changed forever in many blessed ways.

There was a tiny little being whose first word was “Da”, and her favorite computer game—that she started playing at 18 months of age using a giant Easy Ball trackball mouse—was a little cartoon car called “Putt-Putt Wins the Race”

As she grew, we told her the story about why she felt a rumbling in her tummy two months before she was born when the B1 bombers, jets and race cars went roaring by.

She’s now 25 this year; I have no idea where the time went.

Guess I was in the Dad “flow-zone”.