After two years of what I considered little more than sentry duty, covering the south end of the pit lane during the Indianapolis 500, I finally got to do some writing.

I got to watch the 1972 race from the press box, an open-air trough hanging below the upper deck on the outside of the track. To get to the box, you had to walk through a tunnel under the racetrack, then climb several flights of stairs on the outside of the structure, walk down through the upper deck and climb down another short set of stairs to the press area.

It was an exciting time on race morning as I waited in the media center to make the walk through the tunnel with the other AP people who were going to work "upstairs." One of them was Jim Davis, a tech who would take our stories and transfer them onto tape to be fed into the teletypes for transmission to the members.

I have always had a fear of heights, so the steel stairs, with metal railings that had wide openings, were a bit daunting. But Jim's fear of heights was far worse than mine. We nearly got to the top of the first set of stairs and Jim, who was behind me, suddenly stopped. His hands were gripping the railings on both sides of the stairs so tightly, his knuckles were white. His face was sheer terror.

It was early, so the foot traffic wasn't too heavy. But, still, fans and media people were beginning to crowd in behind Jim, who was blocking the way. I tried to talk him into moving, but he was stone-faced and ashen.

 Steve Herman, who was going to write the running account of the race, was just behind Jim and the two of us managed to pry his hands free and walk him up the rest of the way.

Once in the box, Jim began to breathe freely and the color returned to his face. I didn't want to think about going back down after the race, although it turned out that going down was easier for him than going up - thankfully.

I was delighted to be in the press box for the race, although this was years before live TV and we had no video feed. We could see the entire pit lane and into turns one and four. But the rest of the 2 1/2-mile oval was invisible to us. We had to rely on spotters placed around the track with telephones to keep us informed of events out of our sight. And hearing anything on the phones with the engines roaring was not easy.

We did have headphone radios tuned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Network broadcast, which filled in a lot of the action and gave us access to quotes from the drivers as they left the race because of mechanical problems or accidents.

The crowd that day was more than 300,000 people _ the attendance was never announced at Indy, which was part of the mystique _ and the usual pre-race feeling in the air, like an electrical charge, was even more apparent from that high perch than from trackside.

The start of the race, as always, was thrilling, with the 33 colorful rocket-like cars zooming into the narrow left turn at the end of the front straightaway.

Three-time Indy winner Johnny Rutherford once described driving into turn one at Indy as "making a left turn at 200 miles an hour into a closet."

This time, they all made it through and the rest of the race that lasted just over three hours was pretty routine.

Mark Donohue gave team owner Roger Penske the first of his record 18 Indy 500 victories and I got to spend the race taking notes and watching the the action unfold before writing the main story for the next afternoon's papers. In those days, there were hundreds of newspapers that published afternoon editions.

For what we called the PMs Cycle, the idea was to write a story with a feature angle and more quotes and color than what had been sent out for the AMs cycle (the morning papers).

The best part about writing PMs was you could take your time, digest all the material you could collect and write at your leisure since the story didn't move on the wire until after midnight. It was a

great way to move into the media mainstream at Indy.

The lead story that year was written by Bloys Britt, AP's Motorsports Writer. Living in Charlotte, N.C., Bloys had started covering NASCAR events many years earlier. Eventually, he added major events like Indy and the America's Cup Yacht Race. The powers that be at the AP decided to make it official in 1969, naming him the company's first Auto Racing Writer.

But, during the winter of 1972, Bloys, who was in his early 60s, had a stroke. It was originally thought he would be back for the race the next May, but that wasn't to be. It turned out his days on the road were over.

Several weeks before the start of practice at Indy in 1973, I was told that I was going to write the main lead and oversee coverage of the race. I was thrilled. There was no way to know what a disaster the race was going to be.

Things got off to a good start, though a pattern of wet weather was setting in. Then, on the first day of qualifying, the second Saturday of the month, I was walking the pit lane prior to the morning practice and wound up chatting with veteran racer Art Pollard.

We sat on the pit wall and talked about Indianapolis restaurants and a birthday party for a family member of his that had gone awry. The track was about to open for practice and Art was putting on his helmet and we were both chuckling as I walked away.

Less than 10 minutes later, Art was fatally injured in a fiery crash. The Indy cars held 70 gallons of gas in two tanks surrounding the driver and fire was by far the most dangerous possibility in any crash.

I was shocked and saddened, but that was only the start of a very tragic time.

I now knew first-hand how quickly things could go south at Indy. But the soul is resilient and, even with Art's death still fresh in my mind, I was excited to be writing the main story on race day.

A thunderstorm moved through the area in the morning, postponing the start of the race from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Finally, the race began and, as the pace car pulled into the pits, all hell broke loose on the main straightaway.

Steve Krisiloff, who was on the inside of the third three-car row, slowed with an engine problem, bunching up the field behind him. Salt Walther and Jerry Grant, both in the sixth row, touched wheels and Walther's car was launched into the catch fence on the outside of the track at full speed.

The fence sheared off the nose of Walther's car and his fuel tanks were punctured, spraying flaming fuel over the spectators in the grandstand. Eleven spectators were injured, nine of them seriously.

Walther's car flew back onto the track, where it was hit by several other cars. The lasting picture of that crash is Walther's car coming to rest near the pit exit, the nose cone gone and the driver's legs hanging out. Somehow, he survived and, after many months of treatment for burns and other injuries, made a full recovery.

Rain began falling again before the cleanup of the 11-car accident was complete and, after less than one green-flag lap, the race was postponed to the next morning.

After a heated early morning meeting with drivers and officials, it was decided to let all the damaged cars be repaired and restart the race from the beginning. Thirty-two of the 33 cars that started the day before, minus Walther's, were on the track when the pace laps began at 10 a.m. But rain began to fall on the second pace lap and that was it for the second day.

I had already written thousands of words for the wire and we had not yet completed an official lap. About the only excitement was counting the laps of the safety vehicles that were out trying to dry the track and watching for streakers _ beered up spectators who took off their clothes and ran across the track for fun.

We came back on Wednesday to find a desolate Speedway. More rain was in the forecast. There was trash strewn everywhere. Mud covered much of the infield and the restrooms were nearly unusable. But the show must go on.

The 9 a.m. start of the race was delayed because of standing water on the track. But the sun finally shone through at around noon and the track dried in time for a 2 p.m. start. There were maybe 20,000 people scattered through the massive grandstands when the cars came to life.

The first part of the race was pretty routine, although there was a lot of attrition from mechanical and engine problems and two minor accidents.

On lap 59, Swede Savage, who had pitted several laps earlier and had a full load of fuel onboard, lost control coming out of turn four. He slammed into the inside retaining wall near the entrance to pit lane at almost full speed. The car exploded into a fireball and tumbled end-over-end into the pit lane then back across the track, still in flames with Savage belted into his seat.

I heard the crash and looked up from my typewriter in time to see the fireball, but I didn't know who was in the car or what had happened. Darrell Christian, who was my editor that day, said, "I'll feed you information as quick as I can, just start writing."

I did just that until, moments later, I heard a sickening thud and looked up to see the body of a man flying through the air. Armando Teran, a 22-year-old pit board man, tried to run across the pit lane to see what had happened and was hit by a fire truck speeding toward the crash, going the wrong way on pit lane. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The next 30 minutes or so have never registered in my mind. According to Darrell and Steve I just kept writing as they fed me information about the accidents. Finally, Darrell reached over and patted me on the arm and said, "Okay, take a break. I think we're good."

I sat back and realized the front of my shirt and pants were soaking wet. I had been sitting there, writing furiously with tears running down my face.

The race restarted and then ended, fittingly cut short by rain after 133 of the scheduled 200 laps, with winner Gordon Johncock sliding,  skidding and barely making it to the finish line under caution on the soaked track. The victory celebration was short and had little joy and the traditional victory banquet was cancelled.

Savage, amazingly, was on his way to recovery before getting a tainted plasma transfusion. He died 33 days after the race was finally run, the result of contracting Hepatitis B.

The tragic race resulted in some life-saving rule changes before the next 500. The on-board fuel maximum was cut from 70 gallons to 40 with only one fuel cell.Wings were made smaller in an effort to slow the cars. Safety vehicles were no longer allowed to drive the wrong way on pit lane and pit board crewmen had to remain in their positions for the duration of the race. Retaining walls and catch fences were reinforced, the wall that Savage hit was removed and the pit lane entrance was widened.

At the same time, a rubber fuel cell that Goodyear had developed for helicopters in Vietnam, was adapted for the Indy cars before the 1974 race, virtually eliminating the threat of major fires in crashes.

All those changes and more in the intervening years have made racing safer. But you must always be aware that tragedy, in racing, is always only an instant away.

As far as I was concerned, I had had enough of Indy car racing after that May. But rest and time were healing and, by May of 1974, I was ready to go back to the Speedway.