I've seen Dixon at Kokomo a couple times- he's the best, love that guy!

I know that Robin Miller, God rest his soul, had taken countless IndyCar guys to Kokomo, as well as Eldora.

My "close encounter" was when Sam Hornish plopped down next to me at The Fairgrounds. He told me that his favorite racecar driver, anywhere, was Dave Darland. Great choice, huh? He quizzed me all night about any "inside" info I knew, and wanted to hear all the current rumors I had heard. He was so in to it that I could barely ask him a thing about his IndyCar exploits! Great guy, as are 95% of their paddock.

I got to meet Sam when he came to Tipton as the featured guest speaker to launch a Mens Bible study called Every Man’s a Warrior. (Highly recommend BTW) Afterward we had a 10- 15 minute convo about all things racing. Just those few minutes changed my outlook on Roger Penske completely. I’d always thought of Roger as just a super rich owner who tried to buy wins , but as Sam put it, it was more like Roger had all those businesses so he could be gone racing as much as possible!! Obviously my concerns of the dirt track at IMS going away were completely unfounded. lol. To your point, Sam is an amazing yet very humble guy. Nothing but praise for that dude.