Dice Roll 500

They have done it all correctly. Hit their marks in every corner, if you require a racing analogy.

The Indianapolis 500 will go on as scheduled August 23, but only because every detail for a sporting event in the age of the Bastard Plague has been meticulously lined out. The precautions fill 88 pages, and they include the following:

Attendance will be limited to 25 percent capacity, and tickets will be issued to allow proper social distancing.

Every fan who comes through the gates will have his or her temperature checked and be issued a mask and hand sanitizer upon entry.

Masks will be required on the grounds when not eating or drinking.

Most concession items will be pre-packaged.

The number of fans who have access to Gasoline Alley will be severely restricted.

And everyone will cross their fingers and hope.

This is because 25 percent capacity in the cavernous old place still comes to just shy of 90,000 people. That's admittedly not a lot in a venue that sprawls as extravagantly as the Speedway, and it's all outdoors under God's own sky. But it's still almost  90,000 souls occupying one space for an entire day.

Here's hoping far fewer than that actually show up. And you have to know what a hell of a thing that is for me to say.

See, I grew up loving Indy, from the moment I stepped foot in the place when I was 12 years old. It was the second weekend of qualifying in 1967, a glowering day with a gray lid of clouds overhead. Sometime in the afternoon there was a stir in the stands across from the pit area, because Parnelli Jones was rolling out of the pits in the No. 40 STP turbine -- one of the most iconic cars in the century-plus history of Indy.

It flew past us once, leaving that odd ruffling whoosh/scream in its wake. If flew past us twice, its Day-Glo orange skin glowing like a Monument Valley sunset.

I was hooked on Indy from that moment on. And I am still hooked to this day.

And yet I still hope they have a whole wad of unsold, or at least unused, tickets on August 23. Because no matter what extraordinary precautions are being taken, I think Roger Penske and the gang are rolling the dice here. I think the weight of history is compelling them to tempt fate by attempting at least a partial Spectacle, because the 500 has always been the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

This year it's more like the Greatest Speculation In Racing. And they're gambling with people's lives to make it happen.

And, OK, sure, so there's a bit of melodrama in that. But it doesn't wander terribly far off the base, either.

The Bastard Plague is a killer. It kills quickly and it kills slowly, and even those who survive it don't always survive it. And if it kills mainly people who were sick anyway with various other afflictions, it is the Plague that finally put them in the ground.

Nearly 150,000 dead now in less than six months, if you believe the numbers. And even if you don't -- even if the wingnuts are right and the numbers have been wildly exaggerated in the service of some shadowy agenda -- you're still talking about a significant number of deaths in a relatively short time. 

Which brings us back to Indy, and putting almost 90,000 people in one place in a state where the Bastard Plague even now is staging a comeback. And where the athletic director at Notre Dame, Jack Swarbrick, said the other day that maybe trying to start the college football season on time might not be such a hot idea.

I think Jack Swarbrick is right. And I think the only thing left to say about the Sort of Spectacle coming August 23 is what I've said before many times this strange dark summer.

Which is, "Maybe they'll get away with it."

I hope so. I surely do.