Collin Woodard/Jalopnik I'm sorry, but I haven't been completely honest with you. Every time I said the Indy 500 would probably be the best weekend of my life, I didn't really believe it. I wanted to believe it, but the internet made it sound like I'd be in for one of the wildest parties I'd ever seen. As a journalist, I felt an obligation to experience and cover the party, but I didn't exactly want to do it. Not really. I'm 37 years old, barstools are uncomfortable now, and I don't enjoy people spilling their drinks on me. I didn't actually want to party. I wasn't just worried about the drunken chaos, either. I also don't like crowds that are so packed that I can't move easily. And while I've loved every race I've ever attended, by the time I get home, I'm usually run ragged. It's work, so it's part of the gig, but especially since I was flying in for this year's Indy 500 on Thursday, three full days of racing, plus flying home on Memorial Day, sounded like a recipe for one of those events that would provide plenty of stories but still leave me exhausted, sore, swollen, completely mentally drained, and in need of far more sleep than I'd ever hope to get before 9:00 a.m. rolled around on Tuesday, and I had to be functional for work again. At least it was Honda that invited me. They usually hire cool people. Maybe the party highs would make up for all the lows I felt the next day (and most likely the next several days). Maybe a cute engineer might also think I'm cute and talk smart to me. There's always a silver lining, even when you aren't having fun, but would I be able to find it? I wasn't convinced. Full Disclosure: Honda wanted me to write about the Indy 500 so badly, it bought me a flight, put me up in a hotel, supplied all the credentials I could possibly need, and provided shuttles to and from the track. And when I told them that recent medical issues meant I'd most likely need to depend on meal replacement shakes instead of solid food over the weekend, Honda bought me two cases of Ensure. But more on that later. No need to panic Collin Woodard/Jalopnik Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. In fact, my Indy 500 experience was actually downright pleasant. Even with 350,000 people in attendance — more than the Indy 500's seen in a decade — it just didn't feel that crowded. Georgia games feel crowded with fewer than 100,000 people in the stadium, but somehow, with more than three times that many people at the Speedway, I still had more space to move freely than the attendance figure would suggest. It doesn't make sense, but I promise I'm not making this up. You would have to pack way more people in if you wanted the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to feel as crowded as the floor at SEMA. If you've always skipped the Indy 500 because you assumed the crowds would give you a panic attack, that's totally valid, but I'd also encourage you to at least consider reconsidering. I'm not saying there won't be a lot of people at the track. There will be. At least 300,000 of them. But no matter where I wandered, it never felt crowded in that "these people are stopping me from getting where I need to go" way that even people without anxiety don't enjoy. Admittedly, the cooler temperatures and constant threat of rain may have cut down on how many other people felt like wandering around at the same time, so it's plausible that future races could be different. Except when I asked around, everyone told me the crowds felt pretty normal for the Indy 500. The Speedway's just big, and it was built to hold an almost unfathomable number of people. Modern IndyCars aren't absurdly loud, either, so the track's also quieter than you'd expect, at least if you mostly go to NASCAR races. Ear protection is always a good idea at any race, but without it, it's not like you'd be miserable in the stands. Wishing you hadn't left your earplugs in the car? Probably. But not no-ear-protection-at-NASCAR miserable. If you're out wandering around instead of seated and watching the race, you may not even need to pause your conversations whenever the cars drive by. At least not completely. No worse than Waffle House Collin Woodard/Jalopnik I'd happily take my pre-teen niece and primary-school nephew to the race next year, and the only reason I wouldn't take the younger ones is, well, I just don't think it's ever a good idea for an adult to be outnumbered five to one at any time ever. That's way too many kids to keep track of without leashes, and unless they're your kids, once the leashes come out, that's a sign you need more adults. Ugh, and they all move at such different speeds now, too. If other adults came along, I'd say bring the whole crew. Although by then, we'll have an extra infant in the mix, and maybe that would be more work than... Okay, forget the logistics of getting my family to the Indy 500 next year. The point is, the Indy 500 that I witnessed was a race I would voluntarily take someone else's children to. Because I think they'd have a blast, and it wasn't so crowded or loud that I'd constantly have to worry about losing them or quietly be miserable the whole time. There are definitely a few areas I wouldn't take them, but that's also true of most places. I mean, you can take your kid to stores all the time without showing them the dumpsters out back. The same goes for the Indy 500, except instead of dumpsters, it's the Snake Pit and the Coke lot. Will you see drunk people at the race? Of course. Especially after the Snake Pit clears out. You might even see a fight or two and maybe a little vomit. It happens. It's fine. It's not like anyone did any of that stuff to me or near me. Not even the mass of drunks leaving the Snake Pit. Also, if you want me to draw the line at some drunks, a little vomit, and a few fights, you're asking me to stop eating at Waffle House, and I'm sorry. I'm just not going to do that. Maybe I'm just built different? Maybe I really am just built different Collin Woodard/Jalopnik Considering the near-complete lack of lows, my first Indy 500 was probably the best overall race weekend I've ever experienced, but still. My expectations of what went on inside the Speedway during the Indy 500 were so wildly off from what I was seeing, I just couldn't get past it. How did I get it so wrong? When other people whose opinions I usually respect disagreed, none of their so-called "evidence" changed my mind. Which only made it more confusing. They're normally right, so how can I be so convinced they're wrong? It's not like Midwesterners can't drink. They can definitely drink. But as I thought about the 15-year-old American flag Chubbies that I'd so unnecessarily brought along in case the party got good, I realized — in this extremely specific case, I might actually be built different. Not one of those people met their ex-wives on Frat Beach before Georgia-Florida. They don't know what it feels like to have a dude wearing a banana costume try to fight you. They've never spent a whole summer working in Daytona or Panama City Beach. And they'd all probably need a menu if I took them to Waffle House. Even though I'm mostly retired at this point, maybe I've simply seen too much drunken chaos for what went on at the track to register for me. I mean, I was told that as we left after the race, the drunk people-watching would be a spectacle all on its own. But it wasn't a spectacle. All I saw were normal drunk people doing a pretty good job of getting wherever they were going after a long day of partying. Heck, everyone was doing such a good job staying vertical, someone else in our group had to point out the one person they saw fall over. One. On wet grass. But sure, crazy party. Maybe for the Big Ten, but not in the SEC. Zero gators inside the Speedway Collin Woodard/Jalopnik Did an SEC football team win the national championship again this year? Nope. Am I constantly dodging speeding football players every time I have to drive somewhere? Of course. Is it possible SEC schools have a dangerously unhealthy relationship with alcohol that should really be addressed at some point? I couldn't tell you. That would require introspection, and the SEC outlawed that kind of critical thinking years ago, along with any commentary on other criticisms the haters lodge at SEC schools over their "history" and "problematic coaches." But a party? The SEC knows how to win a party. If you can't handle tailgating for at least 12 hours before an evening kickoff, you just aren't ready. Not when we have Atlanta, New Orleans, and the entire state of Florida. You can party too hard in Indianapolis, sure, but has anyone in Indiana ever partied so hard that they got eaten by an alligator? I don't think so. Defend the debauchery inside the Speedway all you want, but don't tell me it has gators. There were no gators. I like not having to worry about gators, though. A complete lack of gators makes every event more enjoyable for me. A track experience that matched the debauchery of Georgia-Florida weekend would be miserable. That's not a thing I want or enjoy anymore in any capacity, but especially not while I'm on a work trip over a holiday weekend and trying to enjoy a race without my body falling apart on me again. Being able to enjoy myself without too much effort was a good thing. If you're a normal person just looking for a fun weekend with your family, I promise you'll find plenty of that at the next Indy 500. At least as long as the people sitting next to you don't roll in fresh off a couple of days of partying in the Coke lot. Because, oh yes, I know about the Coke lot. I didn't get to see it this time, but I now know about it. Turns out, the real party happens outside the track, and I missed it. Which is probably a good thing. I don't need anything the Coke lot has to offer. So why does it call to me? Why does it beckon? Why do I feel like I need to go back and see just how big a party they really throw in the lot that allegedly makes the Snake Pit look tame? I think deep down, I just want Indy and the Big Ten to show me they know how to party.