“But I’m trying to figure this out, where I’m going in life, because I know Father Time’s against me. It is pathetic. I come out here, and I ache and I hurt. It is getting tougher,” he said. “But I owe this sport for so much.”



Besides, Force does like all the noise-noise-noise-noise.

“I’ve got 151 victories. When do you walk out the door?” Force asked. “Someday I’ve got to go out that door. And I said two things: It’d sure be nice to win a championship. And it’d sure be nice to win Indy one more time. This race really meant a lot,” Force said.

“I just didn’t think I would get the chance again. I didn’t think I could get that good with the right team that supported me when I have failed so much,” he said. “Somebody up there liked me better on this day. I almost feel bad. How is an old piece of s— like me able to beat these kids?



“I’m going to run until I drop, because if I stop, I’ll die. And that is what I’m afraid of,” Force said.

That urge to retire comes in waves, he said. “Every time I think it is now, it passes. I thought about it in Seattle: ‘Just walk out.’ And I even said [after winning at Indianapolis], ‘If you [win] at Indy, walk out.’ But I couldn’t do it. I stood there and said, ‘You are going to have a heart attack. You are going to die here, like you always say.’ I don’t mean I want to die.”

Then that Grinch, guilt, crept in.



“I started and I didn’t know my kids. I don’t know my wife anymore,” Force said. “I just go down this road and do this stuff because it is the greatest sport in the world.”

But Force couldn’t stop worrying.

“I’m in the wrong generation. My window has passed. I don’t belong here anymore against these young guns. I’m not quitting, but it just ain’t making any sense,” he said.

“I go out here with these kids that want to win so bad, and I keep thinking, ‘Is there a plan for me?’ Racing is what I love to do,” he said, “but I have looked at different directions in life to go. I have a job to do, to raise money to keep this ship afloat for well over 120 employees. I am trying to figure out where I am going in life.

“I’m so lost,” Force said.

At that point, Little Cindy-Lou Who, who was not more than two, would have said in her tiny voice that sounded like the coo of a dove, “Why? Why are you taking away your joy? Why?”



Force would have had a ready answer: “I am just having an emotional day because I won Indy.”

As weepy and overly sentimental as he was in the media center, before the television cameras at the top end just minutes earlier, he was inspirational and animated, almost as manic as he was Aug. 4 when he finally recorded his 150th victory at Seattle.

He looked into the lens and told people to “get off that couch” and find their passion and act on it. “Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do it. Don’t let anybody tell you you’re too old,” he said.