Out of the twilight

OK, OK. You  can commence with the jokes now, you snark-meisters.

Like, will Al Unser Jr. become the first person in history to go through the entire 200 laps of the Indianapolis 500 with his left turn signal blinking?

Will his pit box have one of these hanging over it?

Will he get the AARP discount on laps completed?

If there are a couple of rain delays and the race is still going on at 4 p.m., will Al abruptly decamp to Denny's for the Early Bird Special?

These things we wonder, perhaps only partially in jest. I mean, how else are we supposed to react to the news that Harding Racing has announced it will enter Unser, who works for Harding as a consultant, as the driver of its No. 8 entry for the 102nd running of the 500 in May.

In case you're wondering, No-Longer-Little-Al is 55 years old now. He retired as an IndyCar driver 11 years ago. A two-time winner of the 500, he last won it in 1994.

His teammate, Gabby Chaves, was 10 months old then. Last year's 500 winner, Takuma Sato, was 17 years old. He's eight years older than his dad was when Al Sr. became the oldest 500 winner ever in 1987.

So, you know, this is not exactly normal stuff.

"I’m sure a lot of people will think we are fools to be doing this," Harding Racing team president Brian Barnhart said on the Autosport Radio website, giving voice to the obvious.

But?

"But I can’t think of any better guy to pilot the car," Barnhart goes on.

Alrighty, then.

And yet ...

And yet, the Blob has to wonder about the advisability of putting a 55-year-old guy out there running laps in the mid-220s when he hasn't done it in 11 years. Muscle memory is one thing, and it will help that No-Longer-Little Al knows his way around Indy's square-jawed oval like few others, having raced there 19 times.  And 55 is not completely beyond the pale for a driver at Indy; A.J. Foyt last turned a wheel at the Speedway when he was 58, and Al Sr. and Mario Andretti were both 54 the last time they raced in the 500.

But of course, none of them had been sitting out Indy for over a decade when they did that. So, yes, this is way crazier, not to say potentially tragic in a place that has seen its share of tragedies.

Not that you'd expect Unser or any of the other principals to give that a second though.

"I'm over the moon with excitement," Al Jr. told Autosport Radio.

Here's hoping he doesn't wind up over the moon, or perhaps a wall, literally.