By Bob Markus

Watching the Indianapolis 500 on television Sunday, I couldn't help remembering another Indy 500, exactly 20 years ago, when I had a much better seat. Well, it wasn't a seat actually. I was standing behind a wall of tires in the pit of Teo Fabi, a cherub-faced Italian driver who had set the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on its ear five years previously when he won the pole as a rookie. This time he was starting smack dab in the middle of the field and the only thing remarkable about his car was its last name--Porsche.

The German auto company, whose name was synonymous with speed, had taken what seemed at the time a perfectly logical step. It had entered a car for the first time in the world's most famous race. It had hired veteran sports car driver Al Holbert as director of racing and he had hired Fabi to pilot the green (in more ways than one) race car. I was invited along for the ride. So there I was, water hose in one hand, stop sign in the other, standing just behind the pit wall, waiting to do my part in the Indianapolis 500.

I had attended 15 previous Indy 500s as a writer, which made me a quasi-participant. But this time I was a member of the pit crew for Fabi's Quaker State-Porsche, a real participant.. It was, except for my wedding day, the greatest day of my life. Here's how it happened. I was working at home one day in the winter of 1988 when I received a phone call from Michael Knight, a workaholic former sports writer who became one of the best auto racing p.r. men around. Knight had just been named public relations director for the new team and he had a proposition for me.

"We're going to let one writer in the pits for each race," he said, "and we want to give you the first chance to be in our pits on race day at Indianapolis." I thought about it for a moment and came back with "is there any chance I could work with the team for the whole month? Knight, of course, was delighted with the prospect of having the Midwest's leading newspaper print a story on his team every day for three weeks.

Tribune sports editor Gene Quinn was agreeable, but "I have two reservations," he cautioned. "I don't want you to do anything that will get you hurt and I don't want you to do anything that will affect the outcome of the race." I crossed my fingers behind my back and promised I'd be the very model of circumspection.

The reality was, of course, that auto racing is an inherently dangerous activity. I had almost always covered the race from the pits, usually standing just ahead of the first pit entering turn one. Once, Wally Dallenbach's car caught fire right in front of me on three different occasions. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray happened to be there, too, and that might have been the inspirtion for his famous lead, "Gentlemen, start your coffins."

For three weeks I worked about 10 hours a day doing various chores for the team and then repairing to the press room to write and file my daily story. I loved every minute of it. My first job was to time the cars on the front straightaway with a speed gun that, more often than not, was as balky as our race car. The latter was, strictly speaking, not actually a Porsche, since the chassis the German company had designed turned out to be a dud. With no time to come up with a competitive chassis, the team bought a new March chassis and bolted a Porsche engine into it.

Alas, not even the March engineers could figure out why the car was as hard to handle as a rodeo bull and the German engineers were equally as puzzled about why their engine was about as frisky as a drugged lizard. Eventually, the determined Fabi managed to get the car up to 209 m.p.h. Since my speed gun had him going only 216 down the straightaway it was obvious that the little Italian was doing it all on his own.

Eventually, Teo managed to coax a four-lap average of 207.244 mph out of our reluctant dragon. That was almost identical to his pole winning speed in 1983, but "it was so easy then and it's so hard now," Fabi noted. Harder yet was the agonizing wait through three more days of qualifications to see if the speed would get us into the race. I prayed as hard as anyone, since I'd have nothing to write about for a week if we didn't make it. About 5:30 in the afternoon of the final qualifying day Johnny Parsons stuffed one of A.J. Foyt's car into the wall and we were safe.

During the week before the race, I was given my race day assignments. I had thought I might get the job of holding the pit board at the track wall for Teo to see his times as he flashed past, a job I'd become familiar with. But, since our pits were not too far from the pit entrance and out of control cars had been known to enter pit road and come down that far, that was deemed a little too dangerous. So I was assigned to hold the stop sign out for Fabi when he came in for a pit stop. The sign is attached to a long pole and the object is to get the driver to stop just behind the line marking the front end of the pit.

That didn't seem too hard, but, then, on Thursday, Crew Chief Steve Erickson came to me and said, "we need someone on the water hose when we refuel, so you can do that, too." The first reaction of a guy who has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, was "will I be able to pull back the stop sign and still have time to man the water hose?" Erickson assured me it would be no problem, but I wasn't convinced.

The job entailed splashing water on the fuel cell opening after the fuelers had pulled the hose out and, although it couldn't have been more than 10 feet away, I was well aware that if my aim wasn't precise enough I could hit the driver sitting in the open cockpit. Moreover I would have no chance to practice before our first pit stop in the race itself.

I was worried enough about the job that the night before the race I was like a kid on the night before Christmas, waking up every hour thinking it must be time to get up. I was supposed to meet team manager Tony Fox at 4 a.m. and ride out to the track with him. So I set my alarm for 3:35, but by 3:20 I gave up and got ready. When I arrived at the motel lobby 10 minutes early, Fox was waiting for me.

The morning passed quickly enough, but by 9 a.m. when I changed into my Nomex fire suit, the Indiana sun already was beating down mercilessly and I knew it was going to be a tough day. I have always been moved by the pre-race pageantry at Indianapolis, but to actually be a part of it, standing next to MY car as 300,000 fans sang the national anthem moved me almost to tears. I have heard the anthem sung at a thousand sporting events and have sometimes waited impatiently for some rock star to finish mauling the lyrics, but this time it really got to me.

Then came those magic words, "Gentlemen start your engines," and we sent Teo on his way. Then we all sprinted back up pit road to our pit stall and waited for the race to begin. Almost immediately after the start we heard announcer Tom Carnegie describe a two-car crash in turn 2. Nobody knew who was involved and we all stared anxiously at the track until we finally spotted Teo's green and white No. 8.

Despite all the previous problems, it appeared that the Quaker State-Porsche was handling a bit better in traffic. By the time he came in for his first stop, Fabi had moved from his 17th starting position to 10th. Teo came in much hotter than he had when we practised Thursday on carburetion day, and I might have lifted the stop sign a little prematurely, but he stopped in the right spot, anyway. I grabbed the hose and focused on fueler John Miller and when he jerked back, I squeezed the trigger. It wasn't a bullseye but it did hit the target at 2 o'clock and I was feeling pretty good about it.

I turned away to hang up my water hose and heard a shout and saw that everyone was looking in the opposite direction. It reminded me of the tennis scene in "Strangers on a Train." I swiveled my head in time to see a tire fly into the air. It was only later that I found out what happened. Erickson had waved Fabi out of the pits while Herbert Spier, the left rear tire changer, was still struggling to secure the fresh tire. The tire fell off and Fabi spun into the pit wall. After just 30 laps the Indianapolis 500 was over for our team.

There was only one thing left to do. I saw four of our crew men starting to push the car back to the garage and I ran after them. I caught up to the car and ran along behind it, pushing the left rear wheel along like a 10-year old boy rolling a hoop. For 500 yards I ran and pushed, a man in advanced middle age committing an act of lunacy in all that heat.

A few months later Al Holbert died in a crash of his private plane. With Derrick Walker in command, the team went on for another year and even won a race. Then Porsche pulled the plug and the Quaker State-Porsche became just an obscure footnote in racing car history. But it will always mean more than that to me. I still have the green and white uniform I wore that day and the team picture that was taken after Teo qualified the car. I still have my memories.