In all that vast host of men...

So, now I'm back home from Memorial Day. I got to see Takuma Sato, one of my favourite drivers, win the Indianapolis Five Hundred, and hang out with mom for a few days as well.

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It's probably safe to say that Takuma Satop isn't one of this fellow's favourites. I think that on the one hand, it's sad that anyone would still feel resentful three-quarters of a century after the war*, but on the other hand, firing the man was IMHO an over-reaction.

* A war, moreover, in which we administered one of history's most comprehensive beatdowns since Carthage pissed off Rome, then completed our victory by rebuilding their society to be pro-American.

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At 5'5", Sato is apparently the shortest man to ever win the Five Hundred. Surprisingly, he's one of about six or so who won their first Five Hundred when they were over 40 years of age.

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Delicious cherries and cold milk! Now we'll see if I'm harder to kill than Ol' Zachary Taylor.

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When regarding the hundreds of thousands at the Speedway, I'm always reminded of Hannibal's statement before the battle of Cannae, as true today as it was then: "In all that vast host of men, there is not one named Gizgo".

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Space-X static fires a Falcon Heavy core unit. I love Elon Musk's attitude: "One way or another, launch is guaranteed to be exciting".

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I am disappointed in the Smithsonian. When you're converting the thrust to rotary motion, it's no longer a "jet". It's a turbine engine.

Look! It's Gizgo!

Still obsessing cheerfully over the Five Hundred. I'm quite enjoying myself here :)

Takuma Sato is the first Japanese driver to win at the Speedway. To find the first Japanese member of a winning crew, we have to go back considerably further. To the best of my knowledge, it was the redoubtable Takeo Hirashima, who went by the nickname "Chickie" (not a clue why).

He started as a mechanic sometime in the 1930s. In 1935, he became a riding mechanic* on Paul Weirick's team, riding with pole-sitter Rex Mays.

He rode with Mays again in 1936, when Mays was on the pole once again, albeit with an engine built by Art Sparks, rather than his previous engine builder Harry Miller. For '37, Hirashima followed Sparks to Joel Thorne's team, where he rode with Jimmy Snyder, who set the one lap record in qualifying (although he left it until too late to win the pole).In 1938, American racing returned to a more normal formula with single-seat racing cars, which ended the riding mechanic's position.

In 1946, he was once again with Joel Thorne, whose driver George Robson won the race. The engine was the Sparks "Little Six" (probably one of the very few racing engines in history to actually have an individual name), the same one that had powered Snyder's 1937 run.

His win as crew chief with the Ken Paul team in 1960 gave rise to a long-running controversy. Ken Paul basically allowed his driver, Jim Rathmann, to choose whoever he wanted for his crew. He got Hirashima to be his crew chief, but also signed up Smokey Yunick (he of the curious hat). Yunick had apparently understood that he and Hirashima were co-chiefs, and worked on that basis. Throughout that month of May, Hirashima did the engine and power train (which is what he liked best anyway), and Yunick supervised the crew and ran the garage and pit. Yunick most assuredly ran the team on race day. It wasn't until the Victory Banquet, the night after the race, that Yunick discovered that he was listed on the entry as a mechanic, and not as a chief. Considering that he spent the next 40 years bitching loudly about this to anyone who would listen**, I have to assume that he sincerely believed himself to have been promised a co-chief's position. Interestingly, he never blamed Chickie Hirashima or Ken Paul for this, but only Jim Rathmann.

That same year of 1960, Hirashima was also the engine builder for Rodger Ward, who came in second. Again in 1962, he was the engine builder for Rodger Ward and Len Sutton, who finished first and second. He was also Sutton's crew chief that year, so racked up two wins and two seconds as engine builder, and a first and a second as crew chief. He finally retired in 1964.

* Depression racers lasted from 1930 to 1937. In an attempt to make racing more affordable (as AAA was having trouble getting enough entries to make a full field, especially at lesser tracks), they mandated large, normally-aspirated engines (essentially passenger engine rebuilds), and a two-man cockpit, with driver and riding mechanic. The reasoning behind this was that, as racing cars of the day were built on a frame rail chassis, exactly as passenger cars are still to this day, making the cars wider would allow builders to use passenger car frames, along with the original steering gear, half-axles and suspensions. It didn't work exactly as intended, but did produce plentiful and in many cases very cool-looking cars. From '30 through '37, the Five Hundred was more or less a hotrod race.

** And he was salty. My favourite Smokey Yunick quote was to the effect that Bill France (head of NASCAR) would have to repeat fifth grade five times before he'd even be eligible for an idiot's license. Of Jim Rathmann, he said "If he dies before I do, they better bury him in a water-proof suit and goggles."

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Not at all what I expected from the title, but interesting anyway.

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Gay Vultures raising a child.

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I'm delighted to see us unequivocally rejecting that Paris Climate Treaty. Contrary to the mantra of the news media, we're not "withdrawing" - the Senate never ratified the treaty, so we were never a part of it to begin with. Obama understood full well what would happen if he took that to the Senate. I'm pleased as well that Trump leaves open the possibility that we'd be willing to take part in a fair and even-handed climate treaty, if others are interested in having one.