Paul Page - Hello, Im Paul Page: Its Race Day in Indianapolis

HELLO, IM

PAUL PAGE

ITS RACE DAY

IN INDIANAPOLIS

Paul Page & J. R. Elrod

Paul and I have been friends for nearly 50 years. In the booth there were great and funny moments, especially when Bobby Unser was there too.... We worked together at NBC in the early CART days, and I think we brought new fans to IndyCar.

Johnny Rutherford,
Sportscaster and three-time Indy 500 Champion

I met Paul for the first time as a rookie driver at the Indy 500 in 1983. He helped me significantly to understand the sport and culture of American Indy car racing. He was the best television announcer I ever worked with. He had a great set of pipes that helped generate excitement as he told the story.... It was obvious why he became the Voice of the 500.

Derek Daly,
Author, sportscaster, Indy car and Formula One driver

My profession has afforded me the ability to become close with many people whom I consider legends, a potentially awkward balance between admiration and friendship. Paul is as big an icon as there is in motor-sports, and I knew that very well in 2005. In 2021, hes that, but hes also just my buddy Paul.

Jack Beckman,
Funny Car Champion

Paul is by far one of the most talented auto racing announcers in sports broadcasting. I swear he was born with a stopwatch in his brainhis innate ability to follow direction made this producers job much easier.... He is, by far, the gold standard of sports broadcast announcers and one that I measure all others by.

Deb Luginbuhl,
Emmy award-winning network producer

When I heard that Paul Page was going to be our play-by-play announcer for the ESPN drag racing series along side of me, I was thrilled to say the least. When he started he never took advantage of being the motorsports icon that I saw him as. He came in and worked to learn our sport, our production and to do the best show possible every time which made me respect him even more. We had a lot of fun doing those shows and I can honestly say working with Paul is one of the highlights of my career. For me he will forever be that motorsports icon and the voice of the Indy 500.

Mike Dunn,
Sportscaster, Top Fuel and Funny Cars Champion

There are only a few non-drivers names you hear that you immediately associate with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the Indy 500 in particular. Paul Page is one of those iconic IMS figures. Through his voice, Paul painted pictures of and brought the excitement of the Indy 500 to fans from around the world.

Doug Boles
President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Hello, Im Paul Page
Copyright 2021 by Paul Page & J. R. Elrod

Published by Blue River Press
Indianapolis, Indiana
www.brpressbooks.com

Distributed by Cardinal Publishers Group
A Tom Doherty Company, Inc.
www.cardinalpub.com

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a database or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-68157-215-4

LCCN: 2021934601

Cover Art: Yker Moreno
Book Design: Korab Company Design
Editor: Dani McCormick
Interior Illustration: Heni Muslimah / Shutterstock
All photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted

Printed in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

For Sally, Brian, Marlo, Abby, Finn, and Coco.

Paul Page

For LCB and HKE, the two lights of my life.

J. R. Elrod

You havent won the Indy 500
until Paul Page says you did

Al Unser Jr.

FOREWORD

Paul Page is no rat. He protects his friends. He was around drivers and crews for a bajillion years and never let the secrets out. He has a moral compass. He was so closely tethered in our inner sanctum, and we were always comfortable with him in his role of broadcasting our sport. He never as much as told a joke on the air at someone elses expense.

Thats how he earned respect from his colleagues, from drivers, from race crews and fans. Respect is a direct reflection of how you treat others. In racing, you have to stack quality years on top of quality yearsand then you get the respect you deserve. Mission accomplished, Paul!

Paul Page always seemed happy. Over the moon, really. And why not? Hes on a joyride. Hes a big time broadcaster in his dream job in Indy-Car racing, and hes an insider. Hes laid-back, likes kibitzing, likes eating in dive diners as much as he does drinking fine wine at my winery in Napa Valley. And he never gets flustered... even when we refuse to forget that he can pronounce Lamborghini, but not Countach.

So it seems that Paul Page now is in the mood to share his storythus we have this book.

I hope he tells us what is really important from his broadcasting days; shares some of the pearls of wisdom he has picked up; tells us about the life lessons and friendships and what he misses; maybe the hiccups along his way and how he navigated those speed bumps. Id like to read that.

Its important for racing to have great broadcasters, and its important to have great people around. Paul Page is an example of both.

So without further ado, here is The World According to Paul Page.

Mario Andretti

PREFACE

When you know guys like Mario and a long list of my friends are going to read this, it can be scary. What stories can you tell? I like good stories about good people. Thats what you will find here. My life has taken so many twists and turns, it was hard to know where to start. I wasnt sure until my co-author realized that the story of my life cant be told without telling the story of the Indianapolis 500.

Writing a memoir creates innumerable questions about what happened and when. The opportunity to reconnect with so many friends and piece together the good old days has been an unexpected reward of its own.

My coauthor brought a vision for this book that pushed beyond a collection of anecdotes and toward an earnest first-hand account of this magnificent race across six decades. So, there are really two voices here: history, and a view inside the sport over 60 years. In this far more ambitious endeavor, I hope we have done justice to this enduring legacy.

INTRODUCTION

Mario Andretti once said, The crashes people remember, but drivers remember the near misses. A joke at Indy is that the pit wall is getting higher and the straightaways shorter. Memories change and fade. Likewise, the stories in this book are how I recall them. Everyone knows my memory is terrible. If others remember things differently, I can only offer my honest recollection.

This book covers my first Indy 500 in 1960 through the 100th running in 2016, when I entered semi-retirement. Too many people think of a particular time as the best era of racing. In truth, every era is the golden age. No matter the decade, every Indianapolis 500 is one of a kind.

The 1960s brought something completely new to the Speedway every year, with brilliant mechanics who relied on gut instinct and trial-and-error to find more speed. The rough-and-tumble drivers of the 1970s, flush with big sponsor money, lived life in the moment with no fear of consequences, in interviews and bar brawls alike.

The technological advances of the 1980s brought incremental improvements every year, and also record entrantsscores of long-shot contenders living an Indy 500 dream on a hope and a prayer. Speed continued on its upward trajectory and peaked in the 1990s, even as the open-wheel racing split threatened to destroy the 500 itself.