Burst balloons

They cling to their traditions in May, over there on the west side of Indy. It's what tends to happen when you've been putting on the biggest sporting event in the world for more than century, not so say the most hallowed in its genre.

In other words: It's easy to be an apostate at the Indianapolis 500. 

Just say, "Nah, we're not gonna do the milk thing anymore."

Or the Purdue band thing.

Or the "Back Home Again in Indiana" thing.

Or the "Taps" thing, the "Gentlemen start your engines" thing, the release of the balloons th-

Oh, wait. That thing is going away.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced last week it was suspending the balloon release for the foreseeable future, and the knee-jerk reaction from those of us who've spent so many of our Mays there was a lot of grumbling and harrumphing. 

The balloon release, after all, has been a part of the pre-race festivities for more than 70 years. It's as much a part of the race day backdrop as 33 cars in rows of three coming to the green. You can't thumb through a 500 photo album without seeing balloons rising from the infield into the late-spring sky.

That said ... as someone who covered the 500 for 40 years, and who's been going to the Speedway in May for more than half a century, I think this is one tradition that needs to go away.

I say this today not because I'm a serial tree hugger, or because it's Earth Day -- although Earth Day seems an appropriate day to bring it up. I say it because no one ever wonders, watching those balloons drift off wherever the day's prevailing wind currents take them, where they land and what happens when they do.

What happens is they wind up choking to death various and sundry wildlife that ingests them. What happens is they land in streams, lakes and rivers that often empty into the ocean, where saltwater wildlife ingests them.

That's not just random blue-skying, mind you. Environmentalists have been tracking this phenomenon for years. It's why they've consistently come out against these sorts of mass releases, and why the 500 release is one of the only such releases that still exists.

The Speedway has always maintained its balloons are biodegradable, but the tests that have been done on them have revealed they're not all that biodegradable. According to the Indianapolis Star. some, submerged in water, have remained largely intact for as long as a four years. 

I know it's chic now in certain political circles to belittle environmental concerns, if not openly sneer at them. But good for the Speedway for finally seeing the light on this. Sometimes you can still change minds with factual data these days, all evidence to the contrary. 

The balloon release?

Yeah, I'll miss it. Kinda like we all miss lead paint and asbestos.