KEY POINTS:
Ernest Hemingway said that of the three true sports in the world only one remained - motor racing.
Bull fighting had been hijacked by the "save the animals" brigade and mountaineering had become a queue of people waiting to get to the top.
He went on to say
motor sport was the last of the true gladiatorial sports. It's a view shared by New Zealander Scott Dixon on the eve of the Indianapolis 500.
"I'd go along with that, there's not a lot of give-and-take on the track. We're not deliberately trying to take each other out - but no one's going to give way either. My biggest competition is my teammate, because he's got the same equipment."
On Monday (NZT), Dixon will line up with 32 other drivers in the 91st Indy 500 - the greatest motor race in the United States. Two hundred laps of the famous "Brickyard" at an average speed of 320km/h.
Another Kiwi, former Formula One driver Chris Amon, was once overheard saying he couldn't understand how the cars and drivers got round that track that fast - and, at times, three abreast.
"It's just one of those things. If you do it often enough, and long enough, you get used to it," Dixon told me.
"Experience helps. If you don't give the track respect, that's when it's going to come back and bite you. From year to year the conditions change. Each time the drivers turn up at the speedway there's something new and the drivers are constantly learning."
Weather plays a big part in how fast the teams go, says Dixon. "The temperature of the track surface affects how well the tyres work. If the wind gets up, it'll buffet the cars around, upsetting their balance. You can get all four seasons in a day here. On light downforce, any bit of wind affects the car."
Dixon, like many before him, started in karting and captured two championships in the New Zealand Formula Vee series. After a successful racing career in Australia and New Zealand, including a championship in the class one Formula Ford Series and a Rookie of the Year award in the Australian Formula Holden Championship, Dixon moved on to the Dayton Indy Lights series in North America.
There he added another championship to his resume in 2000 for PacWest Racing.
Dixon moved up to the CART Series in 2001. He finished eighth in the championship and was named Rookie of the Year.
In 2002, Target Chip Ganassi Racing signed him up, and he had 12 top-10 finishes, including a second in Denver. But 2003 was Dixon's season. He began with a victory at the season-opening in Homestead, Florida and went on to capture the series. Last season, he had to drive aggressively to compensate for a car that handled badly and was down on power.
As a result, he was pushing the envelope just to keep up.
"You still have to be aggressive but, last year, everything was on the edge and we were doing things that were silly. We made a lot of mistakes and crashed a lot of cars."
So last year they changed cars and are still getting used to them. Last year the team was competing with a car that other teams had had three years' experience with, so they had to play catch-up.
Dixon's Chip Ganassi Racing team have made numerous changes to the car. But it takes more than a good engine chassis and mechanics to build a race-winning team.
It also takes top management, great engineers and a slick pit crew.
Every part of a team, from the spotters to the crew chief, have to gel if it's to provide a spring board for a race win.
"Chip's hired a lot of good people who work hard on training the pit crew and they try to cover all the bases," says Dixon.
"It's not just one thing that's made the difference, it's about 20 small things, and an attention to detail. It's pretty easy to catch up on the big things, but it's all the little things that take the time. Some teams don't have the time or money to do some of the things we now can."
The Indy 500 is the only race where drivers qualify for pole and the other grid places almost two weeks before the race.
"You get qualifying out of the way and can concentrate on race stuff. You're kind of planning for two different things. The set-ups are completely different for qualifying and racing. You're probably using 600 to 800 pounds less down force so it's a lot more on the edge in qualifying.
"Once qualifying's done, the teams can then concentrate on getting the car set up for race conditions. Get it dialled in for a full fuel load and get the handling right when in traffic."
At the speeds the cars are travelling - more than 320km/h - potential accidents weigh heavily on a driver's mind. In some cases, anticipating or watching an accident unfold, will allow the driver to take evasive action. But if something does happen, it happens very fast.
"A lot of times you can see an accident in the making. You'll notice a guy in front and think 'what on earth is he doing that for', and you kind of just wait for it to happen.
"Or there's the spur-of-the-moment thing, and you go into a corner flat-out with five other cars. Halfway through, you start to think this is probably not a good idea, and - bang, you're out of it and into the wall or the infield.
"Of course there's no accounting for someone taking you out, so you're always looking around to see what the other drivers are doing."
Dixon sits on the second row for this weekend's race. Due to the length of the race, the starting grid position is not the be-all and end-all.
In 2005, Dan Wheldon won starting from 16th, and there have been winners in the past who started the race even further back.
But qualifying fourth does give Dixon some clear air - and a much better chance of staying out of trouble in the opening laps while the race settles down.
"I don't think it makes a huge difference, it's just nicer to have a much cleaner start to the race and have a better chance of avoiding a crash in the first few laps."
The Indy 500 hasn't been a happy hunting ground for Dixon in the past. He has been fastest in practice and is happy with the car.
So the burning question has to be: will he win?
"We've got a pretty good chance this year. As a whole, our team is very strong. So far this year our qualifying has been a bit off, but not here, and recently we've come on real strong during the race and become quite dominant.
"My biggest threats will be Dan [Wheldon], Sam [Hornish jnr] and TK [Tony Kanaan]."
Ladies and gentlemen - start your engines.
