How does someone become an Indy car driver ?

Question

How does someone become an Indy car driver ?

Answer 1

By posting in the wrong category on Yahoo Answers.

Or getting a kart, yeah a kart might be good.

Answer 2

The May 28, 1999, issue of the Wall Street Journal produced, within four oddly contradictory pages, reactions of great satisfaction and mild anger regarding what appeared in those much honored and widely read columns. On page six of the "Weekend Journal" section was a glowing review of my new book, Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul (shameless hustle: Little, Brown and Company, $24). The book, which was already in its second printing before its official release date, is, according to the WSJ reviewer, "full of information, passion, and some pleasing swipes at the cultural conformity that is quickly reaching totalitarian strength." That, plus a wonderful, unsolicited jacket endorsement from no less an eminence than Dr. Hunter S. Thompson ("Outlaw is a ***** of a fine payoff'), has produced a terrific launch--stronger, I might add, than for any of my previous tomes about automobiles.

But enough of that. The other WSJ story, on page 10, was the source of consternation and not a little irritation. It was written by the paper's always erudite sports columnist Frederick C. Klein. In this piece, Klein took the Indianapolis 500 to the woodshed for a sound spanking as a hope-less bore and a quasi sport. "I see in auto racing none of the grace, strength, or sweat associated with other sports," he charged. "Driving a race car takes guts and a steady hand, but so does high-rise window washing." This is an interesting analogy for a man who admits to having seen but two 500s in his life ("a yawn and an unpleasant one," he complained) but surely an incomplete analogy. Perhaps Mr. Klein could have embellished his comparison by noting that the window washer ought to be falling toward the sidewalk at 225 mph to be truly akin to a racing driver.

Although I openly admit that racing drivers are not "athletes" in the classic sense, I protest that Mr. Klein seriously trivializes the challenge of driving a major-league race car. Yes, a steady hand and guts are components, but so too are judgment, fierce competitive desire, and the need to concentrate intensely over long periods while enduring terrible g-loads, heat, noise, and vibration at obscene speeds in a machine that can kill in a variety of grotesque ways. I respectfully reject Mr. Klein's race-driver/window-washer analogy but sadly do agree with his reservations about the once-great Indianapolis 500, albeit for other reasons.

An admission: For the first time in my memory, I missed either attending the race or following its progress on radio or television. During the appointed hours this year, I was in a woods on the edge of the St. Lawrence River, 12-gauge shotgun in hand, flailing away at pigeon-size discs on a notably difficult sporting-clays course. My interest in the Indy 500 had waned so much that I simply ceased to care. Constant readers will note that I behaved similarly during the so-called great American race, the Daytona 500, earlier this year, which, in my opinion, has become so commercially corrupted that it has lost all the drama and verisimilitude that once made it so special.

Sadly, the Indy 500, once so important to me that I wrote two books on the subject in the 1960s, has suffered a similar descent into ennui. It is for different reasons from what has happened to the Daytona race, which, for all its slick, seamless glitter, remains the most prestigious stock-car race in the world and still attracts the best cars and drivers in that class. But Indy has degraded itself to a second-rate race with AAA-level players pretending to operate at Championship levels. With all due respect to recent winners Kenny Brack, Eddie Cheever, Buddy Lazier, and the like, they simply do not pack the power, punch, charisma, and upper-level skills of the great winners of the past. It might be said that the last truly great driver to win at Indy was Emerson Fittipaldi. Since then, victory circle has been occupied by men of less than legendary talent.

Excuse me for the geezer's curse of constant carping about a past that is described (often inaccurately) as automatically better than the present, but I remember Indianapolis 500s in the 1960s and early 1970s when the absolute best of the best contested for victory. The likes of great world champions, including Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and Jackie Stewart, lined up against superstar Americans named Foyt, Andretti, Jones, Gurney, the Unser brothers, and Donohue in a mass of interesting machines--Lotuses, Kurtis-Krafts, Kuzmas, Brabhams, McLarens, and Watsons, powered by all manner of engines including Meyer-Drakes, turbo and non-turbo, four-cam Fords, Cosworths, Novi V-8s, a few stock-block Chevys, and turbines.

Answer 3

Enjoyed Susan D comments about window washers but back to the question about becoming an Indy car driver.

The most promising way is to get really close to an F1 drive.  You are then almost guaranteed to get an Indy car drive (sorry Dan Wheldon!!)