A local gets to fulfill his dream of racing in the Indianapolis 500 this Sunday.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The first auto race Townsend Bell ever attended was the Indianapolis 500, as a 10-year-old with his father in 1986. The San Luis Obispo and Santa Monica resident returns to the track 20 years later as one of the 33 drivers who will compete in the race on Sunday.
“The Indy 500 is the Super Bowl of open-wheel racing,” said Bell, speaking this week on the telephone from the temporary Indianapolis home where he’s been living with his family while preparing for the race. “I’m coming off not having played for a while to playing in the Super Bowl. And that’s pretty cool.”
After his experience as a child at the Indianapolis 500, Bell became enthused with auto racing and soon began competing in kart racing competitions, eventually graduating to real cars. He raced in various leagues throughout North America and Europe. At one point, Bell was being considered as a possible candidate to race in Formula 1, the top level of racing in the world. But for the past few years, Bell has not been racing full-time, and recently has been concentrating on an automotive consulting business, RWB Sports, which he started with his father-in-law, Malibu resident Rod Campbell.
Then in March, Malibu resident Colin Dyne suggested Bell try racing in the Indianapolis 500.
“I said, ‘Well, I haven’t been racing full-time for a while.’ But with his encouragement, I called up Tony George [the CEO of Indianapolis Motor Speedway who also owns the racing team, Vision Racing], who I’ve known for years. I asked what the chances were of [me racing] in the Indianapolis 500. It turned out I didn’t need to try so hard, and Tony signed me up for the drive.”
Bell soon got Los Angeles-based denim clothes designer Rock & Republic to sponsor his car.
“I kind of pinch myself,” Bell said. “It hasn’t happened the way it should. It seems to have been an easy-sort of an L.A. deal-making kind of thing.”
Last month, Bell came out to Indianapolis with his wife, Heather, and their sons, Jaxon and Jensen, to make the city their temporary home as he prepared for the race.
A great deal goes into an auto race, with the driver being only one piece of the puzzle. There are many people behind the scenes who work on the car, and there are people who work in the pit crew and make adjustments to the vehicle. But in the end, the driver is the one who must do the racing.
“It’s nice to be the leader,” Bell said. “It’s a role I really enjoy. None of us would be doing this job if we didn’t want to put ourselves in that position. It’s no different than when a baseball player gets up to bat and the whole team is depending on him to hit the home run.”
Qualifying for the Indy came on Saturday, and Bell placed 15th. He said he was disappointed he didn’t qualify higher, but now he and the rest of the team are focused on race day.
Cheering him on during Sunday’s race will be his family, including father-in-law Campbell.
“When I heard he was planning to race in the Indy 500, I received the information with mixed emotions,” Campbell said. “He and I have started an automotive consulting business. I knew I was going to lose him to the Indy race. And it’s a fairly high-risk activity. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
Minor injuries are frequent in auto racing, but major injuries and death have become rarer with the increase in safety technology. That is not to say they are no longer part of the sport. Earlier this year, during a practice run prior to the first race of the Indy Racing League season, rookie Paul Dana was killed in a crash.
“All of these guys that race cars I think are a bit crazy to want to do what they do,” said Campbell, who raced cars as an amateur earlier in his life and has been involved in the automotive business for many years. “It’s like the guys who fly jets or are astronauts. I assume they are looking for some kind of a special thrill that these people get. They are usually intelligent people who do crazy things.”
But Campbell said his son-in-law is a good driver and he looks forward to watching him do great things on Sunday.
Bell said racing in a car that is going at some points faster than 220 mph is an opportunity to push himself and the car to the very edge of the envelope, something with which he said he finds a great level of comfort.
“Anybody can go straight at 200 mph, there’s nothing to that,” Bell said.
“To turn four corners at that speed, that’s the difference. It has a thrill, but it makes me focus more than anything I do. That’s because the stakes are high and you have to get everything right. Small errors have a high price.”
Bell said there is repetition in racing. As one goes through the same laps many times (200 in the case of the Indianapolis 500), the person finds a rhythm as the driver goes through the sequence of things that must be done with the hands and the feet.
“It flows like a sheet of music,” Bell said. “It requires total focus and total commitment.”
Bell has a ride for the Indianapolis 500 this year, but as to whether that will lead to becoming a regular driver on the Indy Racing League circuit, Bell said he would have to see where opportunity leads.
“Three months ago, I didn’t expect I’d be in Indy,” Bell said. “You can never be prepared for what will be around the corner. It’s a major commitment to go racing full-time. That is something about which I would have to consult with the people in my world. We’d have to make a decision. But I’d love to have that problem.”