Why treacherous Indy is so special

My first visit to the Indianapolis 500 was back in 1981, when Bobby Unser, then 47 years old, won the race for the third time. It must be said that his victory was a contentious one, Unser being accused of passing several cars 'under yellow' as he rejoined the track after a pitstop, and the following day he was given a 'one-place' penalty.

That morning I was on a flight to New York when the pilot, learning of the United States Auto Club's decision, immediately decided to share it with his passengers. "So therefore, ladies and gentlemen," he concluded, "the winner of the Indy 500 is... Mario Andretti!"

I can still hear the whoop of delight through the cabin, and the following weekend, in Monaco, Andretti - congratulated by one and all - was still understandably high on it. Months later, though, after a protest by Unser's Penske team, USAC - somewhat curiously - reversed its decision, and 36 years on Mario is still sore about it.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a very different place back then. For one thing, the old Gasoline Alley was still there, and I'll always be glad I experienced it; for another, Indycar - or 'championship racing', as it was traditionally known - was anything but a one-make series; for another yet, the track's daunting perimeter wall was as it had always been: concrete.

Shortly before half-distance, Danny Ongais's beautiful Interscope - racing for the first and last time - went off at Turn 3, and it was one of those accidents to make the crowd silent. Ongais somehow survived, but terrible leg injuries effectively ended his career.

In preparation for leaving for Indianapolis, last weekend I watched qualifying on TV, and a pattern comfortably established itself, the commentators doing their thing as a succession of drivers reeled off their four timed laps.

Everything was proceeding smoothly enough until Sebastien Bourdais - clearly faster than the rest on his first couple of laps - got loose at the entry to Turn 2, tried with his road racer's instinct to correct the slide, and speared into the wall with extraordinary force.

In a brutal second, one was reminded of the consequences of a mistake at 230mph.

In terms of violence, of the angle of impact with the wall, I confess that it immediately made me think of Gordon Smiley, who was killed during qualifying in 1982.

In terms of sheer violence, this was perhaps the most disturbingly horrible accident I have ever seen, and it didn't surprise me that Bourdais' shunt revived similar memories for many others, too.

How much, though, has changed in the matter of motor racing safety. Back in 1982, Rick Mears's pole speed was 207mph, compared with the 230mph-plus routinely seen today, but the cars are immeasurably stronger now than then. And if something does go wrong they hit not concrete, but SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barriers, which are reckoned to reduce g-force energy on impact by 50%.

Thus, while Smiley's life was lost in his disintegrating car all those years ago, Bourdais - while suffering pelvis and hip fractures, caused inevitably by his belts - will race again.

In the manifold improvements to safety that have come in recent times, not least the miraculous HANS device, it seems to me that none has had a more dramatic effect than the SAFER barrier, introduced at Indianapolis back in 2002, and now widely used across the world. The IMS authorities, who funded its initial development, cannot be too highly commended.

Thanks to the participation of Fernando Alonso, Indy is this year attracting way greater worldwide interest than for a very long time.

Half a century ago, when such as Jim Clark and Graham Hill raced - and won - at the Speedway, the 500 was an event very much in the British consciousness, and it was the same in the early 1990s, when Nigel Mansell briefly left Formula 1 to drive for Newman/Haas. In more recent times, though, it has ceased to mean much this side of the water, and it pleases me to see its status appreciated again.

The other day Alonso's former team-mate, Felipe Massa, said he thought it 'not correct' that Fernando was skipping the Monaco Grand Prix to compete in another series.

Quite what he meant by 'not correct', I have no idea, but his comment chimes with others from such as Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean and Christian Horner, all of whom have been critical of Alonso's venture to Indianapolis.

People have said that Ron Dennis would never have allowed Alonso to miss Monaco, let alone drive at Indy. And they're right, which goes a long way towards explaining why Fernando, for all the continuing frustrations of Honda's F1 engine programme, is so much happier to be working with Zak Brown.

Others have suggested that Bernie Ecclestone, were he still running Formula 1, would have found a way to block Alonso's path to the 500, but when I spoke to him the other week he said not so.

"Let's face it, when Clark and the others went to Indy in the '60s, it was mainly for the money - the chance of a good pay day when Formula 1 drivers didn't earn very much. Now Alonso's going to Indy, but you can't say he's doing it for the money - he doesn't need the money, so he's doing it purely because it's a new challenge.

"Remember when he did that demo in my old '51 Ferrari at Silverstone a while ago? Michael [Schumacher] drove it a few years earlier, but he really didn't want to - no seatbelts, etc. Fernando, though, drove the wheels off it - even did an extra lap he wasn't supposed to do - and I thought that was great.

"Fernando's more of a racer than any of them, isn't he? He's going to Indy purely because he wants to, and good luck to him. It's asking a lot on his first time there, but I hope he wins it..."