IndyCar: CART Alumni Reunion Night One

In a deserving place tonight, Speedway, Indiana, a room full of people who had worked together in the CART racing series gathered for the first night of the 2022 CART Alumni Reunion at Brozinni’s Restaurant.  About 65 people were in attendance for the 2nd reunion in four years.

These individuals were former officials, timing and scoring workers, safety workers, and logistic coordinators.    Some were wearing the old official uniform shirt and others wearing nostalgic CART clothing.

The thing that bonded them together was the camaraderie that was experienced for many years while setting up the race tracks, insuring the safety of the CART IndyCar series drivers and track workers, monitoring the rules and regulations, and keeping official records for scoring.

Paul Leyton, the President of the CART Alumni Committee, spoke with AR1 after dinner.

“It is important that we are seeing everyone back together again.  We had made a decision back in 2018 that we were going to meet biannually.   So when 2020 came along, “Uncle COVID” decided to greet us and halted our plans for 2020 and 2021.  So here we are in 2022 with a live reunion.”

“And it is just great. If something goes wrong, I do not even care.  Just seeing people together again.”

“We did a virtual reunion in December of 2021.  It was great.  We had a lot of attendees and people at least got to see each other on Zoom.  But nothing can replace this face-to-face.”

“The committee expected about 80 tonight and we expect about 95 attendees tomorrow night at the Andretti Autosport shop.  Michael (Andretti) gave us permission to use his shop, and we thank him so much for that.”

“His shop is just unbelievable to be in.  And I think the attendees are excited knowing that they are going there tomorrow night.  Dinner will be catered by Dawson’s in Speedway.  We are all looking forward to it.”

“Thanks to Michael and Paul “Ziggy” Harcus,   Ziggy has been great to us.  Of course, he was one of us for a while.  Maybe there is a little bit of allegiance left.  I think it is going to be a great time.”

“If someone is not signed up for the reunion and would be inclined to come to the shop after dinner, we are having a program and a shop tour.  Feel free to join us after 8 pm and mingle with the group that made CART the top standard in racing.”

Sounds like the Saturday night event will be first class, with a video of the CART years and a tour of the Andretti Autosport shop.

Lucille Dust reporting live from Indianapolis