My career was dotted throughout with wonderful dinners and parties. One of the most memorable of those events came in May of 1982 in Indianapolis during the lead-in to that year's Indy 500.

Most of my colleagues and I received an invitation from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to attend a gala at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Indianapolis to celebrate the announcement that the CART series would replace Formula One in the grand prix in Las Vegas, beginning in 1983.

Caesars Palace turned the ballroom of the Hyatt into a casino, flying in gaming tables and dealers as well as a few of the beautiful, leggy showgirls that are always part of the Vegas glitz and glamour.

As we walked into the ballroom, one of the showgirls handed each of us a gold, cloth bag with $500 worth of gambling chips. Of course, you couldn't gamble legally for cash in Indiana, but Caesars had set up a booth with all kinds of racing paraphernalia.

You could play the games with the chips and cash them in for things like jackets, hats and sun glasses at any time.

Of course, there was also plenty of food and drink available, with several different stations _ shrimp and crab legs, sushi, roast beef, etc. It was like a Vegas hotel buffet.

Shortly after arriving at the party, I was approached by an older, dapper man in a tuxedo who introduced himself as Harry Wald, the president of Caesars Palace. Mr. Wald knew members of my family from Cleveland and had been asked to say hi.

We talked for several minutes about mutual acquaintances and history before he said, "Go have some fun, Mike. I'll talk to you later."

Fifteen minutes later, I was almost flat broke (at least in terms of casino chips). I couldn't buy a winning hand in 21 and the young lady who was dealing, despite being pretty and pleasant, was running out of nice ways to say "sorry you lost."

Just then, Mr. Wald walked up to the table and asked, "How are you doing, Mike?"

My reply: "I'm losing my ass."

He turned to the dealer and said, "Young lady, this is Mr. Harris from The Associated Press. He's a very important man and I really hate to see him losing."

She replied: "I'm sorry, Mr. Wald. But the cards just aren't going his way right now."

He smiled brightly and said, "Well, we can only hope that changes soon."

Mr. Wald walked away and I proceeded to win eleven straight hands with the lovely dealer smiling and seemingly doing nothing different. Since that night, I no longer play blackjack. My game of choice at the casinos is video poker.

After my last win - a blackjack, of course - I took my chips and went to "buy" Judy one of the cool, silver satin Caesars Palace jackets. I was pleased with the purchase, but I don't think she ever wore it.

Meanwhile, my friend Dave Hederich, the racing PR man for Goodyear, had gotten a full head of steam at the craps table. He was winning steadily and didn't want to stop playing - not even long enough to eat. He played for so long that, by the time he decided to cash in his huge stack of chips for some souvenirs, there was nothing left but key rings.

Dave and I had a lot of great adventures together.

He earned the nickname "A.R. (alternate route) because Dave never liked to go the same way twice, if he could help it.

One year, when we were in Sebring, Fla., for the 12 Hours of Sebring, we decided to sneak away from the track for dinner at a very good seafood restaurant called The Pepper Mill. It was in a rural area, about halfway between the town of Sebring and the race track. And it was a little tricky to find at night.

Dave was driving and we soon found ourselves making our way down a dirt road through an orange grove that Dave was certain was a short cut to the restaurant. We eventually came to railroad tracks and, as we looked down the tracks, we could see the lights of the restaurant in the distance.

So Dave drove onto the railroad bed and bumped along the tracks for a couple of hundred yards to the restaurant parking lot. I'm not sure that rental car was ever the same.

We took a more conventional way back to the track after dinner.

Sebring was always an interesting and fun racing venue. The race, run on the runways and taxiways of a World War II training base for the U.S. Army Air Force that was later turned into a regional airport, began on Saturday at 10 a.m. and ran until 10 p.m.

Sports car racing always attracted a lot of celebrities and one of the better racers among them was actor James Brolin, who later gained fame by marrying Barbra Streisand.

He was a nice guy who only wanted to talk about racing at the track. One night at Sebring, during a practice session, he narrowly avoided disaster. A wild boar was unfortunate enough to cross the tracks as James hurtled down one of the long, dark straightaways at nearly 200 mph.

The resulting collision wrecked the front end of his Porsche 934 and turned the poor pig into little more than ground pork.

After he was checked out at the medical tent, Brolin returned to the pits and the only thing he would say about the accident was "poor pig." Brolin's team went on to finish 12th in the race the next day in the repaired car.

There were a lot of fun times for me at Sebring and several of them involved the Goodyear blimp.

My second year at Sebring, Dave said there was room on the blimp if I wanted to take another ride. It was pretty cool gliding over the sprawling Sebring layout in the quiet of the airship.

Even better, though, the next day Dave walked up to me in the media center and said, "Come outside with me."

After we walked out onto the balcony behind the media center, Dave pointed up at the blimp and said, "What do you think?"

There, in huge letters blinking across its enormous screen was the message, "Hi Mike Harris!" Very few people who saw it would have had any idea who Mike Harris was but, because I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Goodyear blimp, it was thrilling for me.

One of the racing photographers was kind enough to take a picture for me and that picture now hangs on my office wall, along with my awards and a lot of other memories.

And, talking about the blimp this week, Judy reminded me of the time she and her girlfriend Anni Higgins got to take a ride at Indianapolis.

Anni and then-husband Jim, the head keeper at the Ape House at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, came to visit us in Indy sometime in the late 70's.

That week, I got an invitation from the Goodyear PR person, before Dave, to take a ride on the blimp. I was told that some customers scheduled to take rides that week had canceled their visit to Indy.

The only time that was available coincided with a press conference at the track, so I turned down the ride. But I asked if possibly my wife could take my place? He said yes and gave me the information.

When I told Judy about it, she said sadly, "I can't go. I'm working." But Jim said, "Hey, I'll do your area. You and Anni go take the blimp ride."

I called the PR person and he said Anni was welcome, too.

At that point, Judy had to get permission for Jim to replace her for the day. Of course, he was qualified. But her zoo partner, another Jim, had to be talked into it. Judy can be pretty convincing when she wants something and everyone agreed to the switch.

Judy and Anni took the blimp ride and loved it. Meanwhile, Jim worked her area, which included the big cats, her young chimp, DOC, and a baby elephant.

The only incident was when the chimp, seeing the new keeper, decided to challenge Jim, hooting and banging on its chest. Jim answered by channeling one of his adult chimps from Lincoln Park, roaring back at DOC and scaring the little girl so much she ran to a corner and pooped.

Another fun thing about the Sebring weekends was that they usually fell during the NCAA basketball tournament's sectional weekend. A whole group of media people and PR reps stayed in the same apartment complex during the race weekend and it wound up being a really big party, particularly on Thursday night, before most of us had obligations at the track.

We brought in all kinds of food and drink, turned on the TV and watched basketball until the wee hours. There were a lot of games and almost everyone had a rooting interest. Some money changed hands but, mostly, it was just fun.