Walter Brookins was the star of the Wright Brothers team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's aviation show 99 years ago this week. In fact, 99 years ago today an article ran in the Indianapolis Star discussing young Brookins' (he was 21 at the time) relationship with the Wright Brothers. He charmed them as a small boy and the way the story is told, it reminds me of Formula One Wordl Champion Lewis Hamilton's relationship as a child with McLaren boss Ron Dennis.

I just loaded the last article in my file on the 3-day race meet held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 1910. You won't find more complete coverage of these exciting races anywhere unless you go to a library and hunt through microfilm yourself. There are books that cover the subject, but none anywhere go into the level of detail you can savor with these original articles.

Imagine your name is Raymond or Florence and you are in Indianapolis, Indiana the morning of May 27, 1910. You've scrubbed your face using the porcelain bowl on your dresser and brushed your hair. Stepping outside, the wood planks of your porch squeak softly as you descend down the three steps leading to the path to your barn. The sun is shining, not blazing, and only a few harmless white billowy clouds float lazily above.

It looks like the project to create a movie about the first Indianapolis 500 is really heating up. Check out these links for interesting updates. The first takes you to the movie producer's Web site. Click on "teaser" in the nav bar for an animated short just to get your juices flowing. The second link takes you to a downloadable PDF article from the Carmel, Indiana on-line newspaper discussing how the full-scale model of the track is being constructed.