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Speeds low after 35 gigabytes of network's busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. This is Jane Pauley. David Letterman has thoughts on comedy and cars.
He's talking with Sunday Morning's Tracy Smith. Hi, you have a forlorn look. Am I late? I'm sorry, I'm Dave. I don't mean to look forlorn.
Nice to meet you, I'm Tracy. A lot of people do when I enter a room. Is this for me? Yes, it is indeed. Oh, my God.
Thank you for doing this. Thanks, Tracy. Have we met before? We have not met before.
Well, nice to meet you. I know I'm familiar with your work. I must be, eh? Thank you. Yes, I don't know.
Good. I don't know. I'm familiar with you. Oh goodness. I've been with that, gosh, 20 years?
Good for you.
So let's talk IndyCar.
Okay. Growing up in Indiana. how big of a deal was huge in those days. We had, let's see, what did we have? We had AAA baseball, and I think that was the Indianapolis Indians.
And I think it's the longest running, if not professional baseball team, certainly minor league professional baseball team in America.
So that was our draw for Indianapolis sporting activity. We had high school basketball and college basketball and Indiana was the hub for basketball. Still is, we like to think.
So, once a year in May, the world, it seemed to me, came to Indianapolis for the Indianapolis 500. It was a global event. It was broadcast on radio literally around the world, and people in every country had access and knew of it.
So, for that, To be the awakening of spring and summer was wonderful for me as a kid. Can you explain to someone who's not from Indiana what the appeal of the Indy 500 is? This is difficult because for me it's been part of me. It was always there and I still make it a part of me now. I think the spectacle is the appeal because the facility, the physical plant, And it's interesting.
I had occasion to be there recently when it was empty, completely off-season. You could hear whatever you could hear, there was nothing. And in that condition, it seemed so enormous beyond description.
Now, that enormity beyond description, the month of May, you filled it up with close to a half a million people. The organism is unimaginable. That's the spectacle. Is there something for you in particular that resonates with you when you go to one of these indie car races? Yeah, because when I was a kid, my family and every family on our block would have it on the radio.
And it would be Memorial Day, and we would be, Dad would be home from work and we'd be having a cookout. And I can remember listening to the broadcast sitting in a tree.
So that was my first memory of it. It wasn't. an option. It was mandatory. It was part of the culture of living in Indianapolis.
And now that you're a co-owner, which you've been for almost three decades now. Isn't that crazy? What's your role on race day? On race day, I listen to the race sitting in a tree. That's what they want me to do.
My role is just be as good-natured about it as I possibly can. This thing has evolved, motorsports in general, has evolved to the point of NASA-like intricacy and technology.
So when I go to the race, This is what I hear mostly from the staff and from the crew. You can't stand there. I hear that a lot on race day. Excuse me, no, you go over a lot of that. It's so far beyond me.
What I love about it is the romance of it. Men and women in these machines. 240, 250 miles an hour, controlling them with unbelievable precision. And when you see it occurring right in front of you, it's almost like ballet. you see the movement and it's all a blur.
Now that's underscored by the sound and the sound is unlike anything you've ever heard. The sound is something humans were not meant to hear. What does that sound do to you? This is a good measure for my heart. If it doesn't accelerate my heart beyond what humans' hearts should be accelerated, then there's something wrong.
Is part of the thrill the unpredictability of it? To me, the thrill of it is, okay, here's what we want you to do. You will be one of 33 participants. You are going to be driving 200 laps, total of 500 miles. At the end of that, we would like you to be smart enough and to be lucky enough to finish first.
It's that. And I think all of sports is a metaphor for life. I think nothing more apt as a metaphor than motorsports. Every day, you got to be in it. It doesn't make any difference whether you're 33rd or 1st.
Every day, you're going to see how it turns out. by bedtime. What's it like? You've been on the winning team a number of times. What's it like to win one of these great teams?
It's a jolt of adrenaline I have never experienced in my life. It was crazy the first time we won it in 2004, I believe it was. And One one literally one minute you're standing there watching, the next minute you've won the dang thing and Your world changes immediately. There was a crush of people around me like I had not experienced. And suddenly, I'm not just dumbbell Dave, the talk show host.
I'm the owner of the Indianapolis 500 winner. And that euphoria stays with you.
Well, you may be able to tell. I still have a touch of that in me. Yeah, it's immeasurable. And anybody who will say that it changes their life, it's 100% true. They may have a different description of it, but the changing of the life is absolutely positive.
Wow. Talk about a childhood dream. Oh, it's crazy. It's just crazy because... When I was a kid, you belong in a tree listening to the race.
You can't go anywhere near that. And up until the time I was part of it, you still can't get near that, but now I'm in the middle of it and the allure of it has been realized and it's repaid me a thousand times over. That's wonderful. We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview. After this break.
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Pickup fees may apply. F1 gets a lot of attention. Should IndyCar be getting More attention? That's an excellent question. You know, there was a time when the Indianapolis 500 was part of the F1 championship point gathering events.
And I think it was like two or three seasons. And there was intermingling of the series. IndyCars would go to Monza and race there. Used to be a banked oval at the Italian Grand Prix home of Monza. And so there was a commingling of these events.
I always thought that F1 ought to produce an IndyCar for that one event. because those people have no shortage of money. and just come over and try and qualify as a points paying race.
So you would get the combination of the two schools of drivers, two worlds, culturally, socially, geographically, not always, but some difference. and let them race it out for the 500 as part of the F1 series. It seems like those worlds are intermingling more and more. The drivers are going back and forth. Yeah, and F1, they're not bashful about promotion.
And I think that they would... This would be heaven for them to come in and win that event. It, of course, won't happen, but it's fun pretending, which has been the story of my life, by the way. Have you been in one of these things? Yes, I have.
Not moving. Don't get me wrong. It was stationary. It was parked.
So you've never taken a ride around? I've taken a ride around, yes, but not in a race car. Paul Newman, years and years and years ago, God bless Paul Newman, took me for a ride around the California Speedway, which is very similar to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And Paul, a guy with a sense of humor, thought it would be fun to scare me silly. And all I can remember is five minutes of complete disorientation, and against all G-forces, looking over to see Paul and thinking, oh my god, this guy is old enough to drop dead.
And so that was my memory of being on track at speed.
So you're more content to be sitting in the stand. I say this as self-flattery. I'm too smart. Or, no. Yeah, I'm too smart to do that.
Or maybe I'm too smart. I don't know. Too smart. Anyway, it's not going to happen. The spectacle is great.
The pre-race activity. I like to be there. I like to be on the starting grid. This is my schedule. We go out on the starting grid.
The 33 cars are there. And I go to a position like it'll be Graham Ray Hall or it'll be Louis Foster or it'll be Devlin DiFrancesco or it'll be Takuma Sato. And I'll stand around the car like... oh, there's, oh, look, David, like, but I really don't belong there. But that's the fun of it, because as a kid, I'm still in the tree.
So I'm standing on the starting grid for the Indianapolis 500, and they back home again in Indiana, and the flyover, and now they turn on the engines, gentlemen start your engines. My goal is to stand there until I can feel the vibration. By the way, the smell is tremendous. You've got this ethanol, these fumes, and I don't know if it medically is a good idea, but it makes you feel better to breathe a little ethanol. And anyway, it's my goal to stand there until two or three people say, you can't stand here anymore.
And then I go to the pits. And then that first lap.
Okay. You know when there's a weather tragedy and people always say, yeah, it sounded like a locomotive came in and destroyed half the town? It's louder than that, the first lap of the 500. That's great. It's in your chest.
It's so loud. And are you in the pit the whole time? No, I stay in the pits usually until the first pit stop just to make sure the boys are okay. And then I go to a place a little more human-friendly.
So for people who have never seen an indie car race, what would you say? Oh, for God's sakes, it doesn't even pertain to motorsports fans. Just go. I mean, one day, there's enough stuff going on, not the least of which is you are looking as far as you can see at people, and it's, like I said, close to 400,000 people, seating for 300,000, like a party at my house. It's unimaginable.
And you may not go back, but you'll talk about it the rest of your life. Beautiful. That's great. Great. Excellent.
Thank you. May I leave now? Yeah, I think you may leave now. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening.
And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts.
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