Indy 500 driver intros...by animal

Illustration by Roger Warrick

Indy 500 driver intros...by animal

IndyCar

Indy 500 driver intros...by animal

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JIMMIE JOHNSON: Man, I’m riding in on a jackass. Yes. With a sombrero on the donkey and possibly myself. And actually, I don’t know if you call it winning, but I’ve won a donkey at an auction for Petty’s Victory Junction Gang camp, and there’s two donkeys named Chips and Salsa. And on the donkey where the saddle would be on one side literally was like a little area for chips and then the other side for salsa. So I think I would have some kind of theme and this to mind quickly. That’s of course before my wife hears about my idea and then edits it.

MP: Yeah, we’re we’ll try and hold off on telling her about that donkey. Oh, man, no one’s gonna pick that.

WILL POWER: I mean, first thing that came to mind was a kangaroo just because of Australia, but I think riding a camel up onto the stage would be different. There’s a lot of camels in the middle of Australia. Why not a camel?

MP: Jimmie Johnson said he’d ride a donkey. So, you know, I guess there’s nothing wrong with a camel.

WP: Or an emu. You can ride them. They’re fast, man. Gotta hold onto their necks pretty good. You can’t choke him out, either. So it’s just a perfect balance.

MP: How do you know these things, Will Power?

WP: Well look, you can ride emus. You can. There’s actually competitions. Nuts, man. Nuts. It would actually be pretty fun, honestly. You can get up on those birds.

MP: Never change, Will Power. We love you exactly as you are.

ALEXANDER ROSSI: Interesting. Could it be aquatic?

MP: It could be whatever you want.

AR: I’d just ride a dolphin in the driver intro. I think that’d be pretty sick.

MP: Let’s get a wave pool going and you riding a dolphin in.

AR: That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it.

PATO O’WARD: I want something that represents what we’re going for this year, like full attack mode. Maybe, like something that’s ******g fast. Like, you’re scared to see it in your rearview mirror.

Maybe like a cheetah. Yeah, a cheetah. She’s a quick one and I don’t think anybody wants to be near it whenever it’s ready to attack.

MP: I like that.

SCOTT DIXON: I don’t think you’d want to do it on a Kiwi bird.

MP: No, that’d hurt if you tried to ride a Kiwi. And you’d kill it.

SD: That would be bad. So, I don’t know. You want to be king of the jungle, right? So it’s got to be a lion, man.

MP: Wow. But you’re not the first…

SD: Yeah, yeah, but you got to look big and bad, right?

MP: Right.

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