Taking off from Chicago's O'Hare Airport, and all I see on the ground are golf courses. This is a favorite hobby of mine -- counting golf courses from the plane -- but not since I was flying in and out of Orlando on a regular basis have I seen so many in one place. People in Chicago do realize that it's cold in Illinois in the wintertime, right?

But once you breach the suburbs and get into Real Country, the golf courses vanish. Land is too valuable in that corridor to waste it on some silly sport like golf. Not until final approach into Indianapolis do I see those familiar fairways again. Interesting.

Indy has grown up since I was there last, which was 1995. Downtown is booming, and looks terrific. Very inviting, like a Chicago or a Boston. Restaurants, couples hitting the clubs, lots of energy. None of this applies to our hotel, however, which is on the outskirts of town next door to a Cracker Barrel. The good news -- it's a ten-minute drive to the Speedway.

Much like Wrigley Field (what is with all the Chicago references? Who cares, I love that town), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway sort of pops up in the middle of a heavily residential area. You go through a stop light, pass the Gas 'N Sip on the right, and there, to your left, is the hulking structure of the most famous racetrack in the world. You cannot comprehend the size of this facility from television. It's massive. I was reminded of the first time I ever saw the Pentagon in person. It's even bigger than you pictured it.

The first hurdle to our trip came quickly. The entire weekend RPM crew marched into the IMS administration building to pick up our credentials, only to find that there was nothing there under the name "Whit Watson." Hmm. This could be a challenge. One cell phone call later, Ron Green, the IRL's top media relations officer, had corrected the oversight, just like that. Worth mentioning: the Speedway personnel were among the most helpful, professional, and efficient group I have ever encountered at a racetrack. Kudos to everyone in those offices -- and a special thanks to Ron for allowing me into the track.

Carb Day. Sunny, 75 degrees. I'm thinking, let's forget this whole TV thing, grab a cold one, and go sit on the grass. No dice. We spend the afternoon taping segments for SportsCenter, for ESPNEWS, and for the weekday RPM show. Those members of the tech crew who have been at Indy throughout RPM's month-long stay have added their own touches to the compound, most notably bringing in a charcoal grill, from which I enjoy one of the best chicken sandwiches I have ever tasted. Must be the atmosphere.

Tony Kanaan sets the pace in final practice, which is a good thing for us, because he's one of the best interviews in racing. We'll save him for Sunday. We wrap up our taping just in time to watch Nine Days and Better Than Ezra take the stage to entertain the now-fully-lubricated crowd at the end of the day. There are increasing levels of nudity happening over there, but we've got work to do.

Friday, we head across the track to the Brickyard Crossing Golf Club, four holes of which, famously, traverse the infield at the Speedway. Our purpose was to tape a fun segment with Eddie Cheever, an avid golfer -- he lives on a spectacular golf course, Lake Nona, in my hometown of Orlando -- and get a "driving lesson" for the both of us. Get it? "Driving" lesson?

Anyway -- Mr. Cheever was a very good sport about the whole thing, wore a microphone as we hit balls on the range with Rollie and Jeff Schroeder, the father-and-son head professionals at Brickyard Crossing. Rolllie is worth a show by himself -- he tells us that Parnelli Jones was a real golf nut -- and Jeff is more than accommodating. I only wish that we had more time to include all the nuggets that Eddie gave us about the connections between golf and racing. Sadly, most of the interview will end up on the cutting room floor by Sunday morning, but we hope to show you more of it when NASCAR comes to Indy in July.

Saturday is quiet. We have lunch at the Cracker Barrel. The turkey was good.

Sunday. Race day. My wife, who has inexplicably agreed to accompany me on this trip, is beginning to regret her decision when the alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning. We had been warned by the IMS security guards that traffic would be a nightmare on race day. It takes us 15 minutes to get into the infield and park next to the ESPN compound. I'm ready to strangle those security guards. But we are in, baby.

Sunday morning show, Kanaan is a terrific interview, Marlo Klain and Robin Miller are digging up news all over the place. Honda's announcement that it will manufacture engines for the Indy Racing League, coupled with the IRL's planned trip to Twin Ring Motegi next year, has everyone at the Speedway in a bouncy mood. I note that Tony George was asked by a major newspaper if this was the final nail in CART's coffin. His answer: "We bring our hammers to work every day." I decide to leave that out of the Sunday morning show.

Our set is about 50 feet from the stage where Florence Henderson sings "God Bless America" and Jim Nabors does his annual tribute to the Hoosier State. He doesn't get past the first line -- "Back home agaaaaain...in Indiaaaaannnnaaaa..." -- before my wife and I are feeling chills. 450,000 race fans stand and listen. A Stealth bomber flies overhead. Purdue's marching band plays. "Lady and gentlemen, start your engines." Yikes. This is getting good...

...until the green flag drops. Did anyone else happen to notice that Bruno Junquiera had about a one-lap lead after the second pace lap? I know they're not supposed to start side by side -- the drivers on the inside are given a bit of an advantage over those above them, so as to avoid tie-ups at the green -- but that start looked awfully questionable to me. What do I know, they're racing, and nobody mentions anything, although Robin would later call it one of the worst starts he had ever seen -- off-camera.

The race itself has been analyzed to death, but a couple of impressions from our set above the Yard of Bricks. Junquiera, Kanaan, and Tomas Scheckter had dominant cars. Bruno was running away with this thing until he blew a motor -- perhaps from pushing a bit too hard. Kanaan caught a horrible break when he slid on Junquiera's oil. And Scheckter -- well, he says something broke in the car, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He missed Turn Four by about 40 yards, so clearly something happened.

Gil de Ferran looked like he was creeping up on the leaders when he lost a left rear tire after a pit stop. Giaffone, Barron and Cheever played it cool and stayed out of trouble -- which is obviously the secret at Indianapolis. I was amazed at how quickly and completely the nature of the race changed. After 20 laps, Junquiera looked like he would walk away with it. Your whole world can end quickly at the Brickyard.

And now, the finish. You will never know what those hours were like for the ESPN crew after the checkers waved. We had a piece of video that was fairly compelling, and everybody in the world wanted a copy of it. The poor guys in the tape room were under strict orders to guard it with their lives, so a parade of very important people trooped into the production truck to have a look -- owners, drivers, IRL officials -- but nobody was allowed to remove the tape from our possession. We did make one copy for Tony George, because he asked for it.

Hours and hours of waiting. Marlo was camped out along Gasoline Alley, waiting for news. Our Helio Castroneves interview was in the can, waiting. The first thing he asked me when he came to the set after the race -- "Are you going to ask me about good things or bad things?" Day passed into night. You know the story.

Finally, my take. The Indy Racing League made the right call. Not necessarily because they had compelling evidence that Castroneves was ahead of Tracy at the yellow, but because they didn't have compelling evidence that he wasn't. It's similar to a trial -- if there's reasonable doubt, you cannot convict. No way could they take the win away from Helio based on what they had, and they had plenty -- our video, ABC's video, telemetry, the whole nine yards. There was, as Brian Barnhardt said in his news conference, "no evidence worthy of overturning our original decision."

That's not to say that Paul Tracy didn't make the pass in time -- just that there was nothing available to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he did. The appearance of the yellow relative to the two drivers' positions on the track is simply a mystery that will probably never be solved. Of course, Team Green will probably pursue it beyond the denied appeal, and they should.

What an experience. Indianapolis on race weekend is like Boston before the marathon -- everybody, and I mean everybody, is involved. Can't wait for the day when I can take my son to the Brickyard and tell him some stories.

They'll start like this -- "Did I ever tell you about my first trip to the 500?"