The past two weeks travelling the States to report on golf has very been a reminder for me back to the 70s and including Monday in celebrating my birthday.

I made mention that while Tour Miss and I were in Ohio for the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational I attended a Peter Frampton concert some 20-minutes drive north of Akron.

The first and only time I had been to Peter Frampton concert was in 1978 in Sydney when Frampton’s LP – Frampton Comes Alive – was the then largest selling live LP, and when both he and I had longer hair.

Well, I celebrated my birthday Monday driving from Milwaukee, and venue for last week’s PGA Championship, and journeying back to a venue I had been also just once before and that was in late November, 1979.

Back then I was in the company of a very good and long-time friend, Joe Sroba and we were making our way from the U.S west coast to Washington D.C. to visit my parents, and with my father working in the Australian Embassy.

However on this particular day Joe and I visited Indianapolis Speedway and home each year to the Indianapolis 500.  I can still recall pulling up on one side of the race track trying deperately to find an entrance to the track but then realising as we drove around the main entrance we could drive the car we had at the time on the circuit itself.

Bernie back to the ‘Brickyard’.

Well Monday, being my birthday, marked nearly 36 years since I last stood in front of the main entrance to one of the most famous motor racing circuits, and an event each year in May that still draws the biggest one-day crowd to any sporting event in the world.

Here is some photographs from my second visit to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Bernie arrives Indianapolis Speedway 36 years after a first visit in 1979.

The single biggest one day sporting event in the world – the Indianapolis 500.

Welcome to the Motor Racing Capital of the World.

And for those good at mathematics here’s the chance to work out my age:-