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Deepu Sondhe
About this episode
Deepu Sondhe shares his lifelong passion for IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, sparked by his proximity to the track and admiration for racing legend Rick Mears. He discusses the evolution of IndyCar, praising its current resurgence and the electrifying atmosphere of the Indy 500 and qualifying days. Deepu also highlights the challenges of conveying the sport's excitement on TV versus live attendance. Additionally, he talks about a charity golf outing supporting blood drives and reflects on his memorable first conversation with Rick Mears. The episode blends personal stories, racing insights, and community efforts.
Topics:
indycar history
rick mears
indianapolis motor speedway
indy 500
qualifying excitement
motorsport fan experience
charity golf outing
blood donation
racing culture
sports broadcasting
Cars:
AMC Pacer
Deepu Sondhe moved to Indiana in the 1970s and immediately fell in love with the Indy 500 and Rick Mears. Then he tells us all about the 429 Golf Outing at IMS, supporting Hinch's Stop & Go Foundation.
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"Come on, mark. By the way, Pacers are gonna close out on Tuesday, which is tomorrow..."
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This is, Is off track.
Hello and welcome, uh, to a Tuesday episode of Off Track with Hi Rossi.
James is off in The Bahamas, so I'm gonna carry this one, uh, because Is that where he is?
Yeah. He just decided to go to The Bahamas because
He's gonna be there until they figure out his tax situation so well, And, uh, the guests, we have this, this, uh, this wonderful Tuesday is somebody that, um, if you're familiar with IMS and IndyCar and one Rick Mes, Rick Meers, um, yeah, you do know a Depu Sandi.
So, um, he's one of my closest friends.
He's a huge supporter of IndyCar of IMS of the city of Indianapolis.
And so he took some time out of his very busy day, I'm sure, clearly from the turn to sweet at IMS, uh, to join us.
So, depu, welcome.
Hey, I appreciate, appreciate you guys having me on here.
Yeah. Have you, just outta curiosity,
have you ever been on, uh, Connor's podcast?
I haven't. Um, So I'm the better friend. We have
Deep yeah's uh, let's, let's hope Connor doesn't hear that because I think he's, uh, oh, I'm gonna send it to him.
Upset. Yeah, I think that's right.
You know, he and I played in that pickleball tournament yesterday with a flow, and, and look, I'll be honest, we, uh, we should have gone deeper.
We, uh, we choked under Pressure.
Didn't, didn't you go home in the first round?
What you're forgetting to talk about is we made it through the group stage, right.
Which you don't want to fact check this, but I think everyone did.
I thought there was gonna be some elimination, but apparently everyone went through that.
Oh, okay. So, so you just made it through practice?
We made it through practice , right. wanna practice.
We were up seven one, uh, playing two 11 on serve, and we lost 11 eight.
So if that lets, you know, um, the, the wheels literally came off. It
Was.
So, um, we, we can talk about your, uh, pickle ability later, but I want to go back to the beginning for a young depot.
Yeah. Um, walk us through how a kid comes
to Indianapolis, um, whose family introduces him to the Indy 500, and you are now several decades removed from that.
Yeah. And just as in love with it as the beginning.
So walk us through how this whole thing came to be.
So, my dad, uh, had immigrated to America and was going to school at University of Cincinnati, and, uh, got two job offers outta school.
One was here in Indianapolis and one was in Seattle, which later in life became his favorite city in the world that he's ever been to.
But, uh, he only knew two people in America, and they both lived in ci.
So we moved to Indianapolis and we moved exactly a half mile from the track, uh, by first, so I moved here when I was four, and I ended up going to school.
Right. I think think it's like school,
public school 20 was like a number.
It wasn't even, you know, there's No Name, no name.
Right. Uh, they tried to hold me back
because I couldn't speak English.
Apparently. You need to have that skill in order to Sure.
Progress. I mean, uh, okay.
So I ended up, uh, they transferred me, my parents took me over to St.
Christopher here in Speedway, uh, where I, I spent kindergarten, first, and second grade.
So I'm a Speedway guy.
I mean, it just kind of ended up that way.
And the very first race I ever went to, uh, was in 1979 when my man, the greatest IndyCar driver in Speedway, motocross history one.
Uh, and that's where the love affair began.
So it all really ties back into, to Rick Mes, the love I have for this track goes back to Rick.
He was the greatest, he is the greatest of all time.
Four wins in three decades, over 13 years in what I would argue is the most competitive time of IndyCar history.
The eighties were completely lit, uh, right.
These guys were on Miami Vice.
These guys were doing, you know, McDonald's commercials, two at a time.
And Ricky was the best. He was, he was the goat then.
And I just felt like this would be a good time to bring him back, uh, into the 500.
He's only been, there's only two other guys that have won four, and he did his in 13 years. Where,
Who, who are those two other guys, by the way?
Uh, Al, Sr. And, and aj. The
Right.
Yeah. Some, some would say
that there's three other guys that have won four.
I mean, that's what the corporate media would like you to believe .
But unfortunately, uh, I'm a independent journalist part-time.
Sure. Um, launch a YouTube channel on this. Right.
But, uh, in, in oh two, you know, was my man the greatest Canadian of all time.
Sure. Paul Tracy, who's now converted into a
full on American patriot. So
Yeah, you're right.
I I only recognize the, the other two.
Uh, and, and so we'll just leave it at that.
Okay. So you, you were introduced
to the sport from a very young age.
You were going to school around the corner from the Speedway.
Yeah. Brick won at your first 500.
So like I get, I get where the passion came from. Right.
But now you are, I mean, shoot, we are 40 years removed from 1979.
Right. And why, why don't you tell our listeners like
where you have, like, where in your mind is the sport going?
What do you love to see about what's happening now in, in the current era of IndyCar and like what do you so badly wish was like it was when you first saw it?
So like, talk us through your favorites parts Yeah. And your least
Favorite parts.
So I would say as of right now, I think IndyCar's never been in a better spot, at least in the last 10 to 15 years.
I think you guys being with Fox, I think the level of talent that you guys have, the amount of money that's coming back into IndyCar, everything's on the upswing.
What I would like to see it get back to is kind of the times.
Uh, and a lot of people are like this too.
Just the times of the childhood.
Like my favorite day, obviously the best day in Indy car is the Indy 500.
You know what the second best day is for me is qualifications.
Agreed. It is insane for four laps.
It's you, the concrete wall and the asphalt.
You're a half inch off the ground with no power steering going 4, 245 into a corner, and you don't know what's gonna happen.
And it is electric and there used to be a hundred thousand fans out here.
So I think for people who choose to come out to the track, I know we have Fast Fridays, you guys have the, uh, uh, carb day and all those things.
Qualifications is absolutely electric.
And, uh, and it doesn't hurt that we have a sweet and turn to with everything hooked up here, but it is, that's where I would like to see it go back kind of into that. Uh,
Do you, do you feel that the current era of cars, even though you know, you're, we're still like last year was, um, the fastest field in Indy 500 history, right?
Yes. We're still a bit ways from Ari's lap record,
but it was a different time with different horsepower and different booths were allowed and all this sort of thing, right?
It was the fastest field in Indy 500 history.
Do you feel that the wow factor is still missing though?
Do you, do you, or does it still come across like it did? I
Think it still comes across okay, man.
Look, look at the last year's race that Joseph's passed on the last lap.
I mean, that's, that's an all time race.
There's still so much electricity.
I just think, uh, I, I think having a new TV partner, I don't wanna, you know, to talk bad about NBC, but I think the way you guys are covering it now, I think it's back.
Uh, I think having Will Buxton, honestly mm-hmm.
That got superstar. Mm-hmm .
Having him being on the call, having James, just the energy level around the 500 is something I haven't seen in, in decades.
And you can see it in ticket sales. Uh, you could see it in
What about You're very in that building down there right now. You're,
Your, your, your ears are to the ground in the, in the streets in Indianapolis.
Like that's fair. You know, what's going on. Yeah.
Is Is there a buzz about the Indy 500 Absolutely.
Coming back? Are people,
are the young people getting into it?
You know what? There is, uh, I, I've gotten a chance
to know a lot of, like, people that are kind of influenced, like, I don't know if you know Mantis, but like, he's kind of a younger guy who's on, uh, who has his own stuff on YouTube.
He's, he's coming out here with a ton of influencers that are gonna be, uh, that are gonna be out here for the race.
Uh, Bishoff actually had a, uh, a golf guy come out who's playing 50, uh, playing a whole, what was it, Bishop, 50, 50, 50 states in 30 days came here any course in Indiana, came here to do, uh, the, uh, to do his shot and left saying he couldn't believe that there's a Pete Die course in the middle of the greatest track of all time.
I mean, the energy level is, is there, I feel like, So, so that's the thing.
I feel like IndyCar we struggle so much with.
And, and it's, it's not just IndyCar, it's motorsports in general, right?
You talk to people that show up at a racetrack, whether it's IMS or not, but let's take IMS for example.
They're the, the wow factor, and they're just blown away by the magnitude of the event, of the scale of the facility, of the speed of the cars, everything.
And they're hooked, right?
It's, it's the people that see it on TV and passing, they're like, oh, okay, whatever.
It, because it doesn't do it justice.
So like we have to still continually with the marketing efforts and what we're doing from an advertising standpoint, get people through the door.
Because once that happens, they're fans for life. Just like what happened with you?
You know what? But that's not just limited to IndyCar.
Like I think hockey, I think baseball, I think there's a lot of sports that are so great live, but they aren't great on TV except for football.
The football is better on TV and the NBA playoffs And the NBA playoffs, obviously.
Um, although if we have courtside seats, then, you know, I would take notes Of that. Right. Obviously.
Um, which is kind of our hint as Shout out Mark Miles. Yeah,
Come on, mark.
By the way, Pacers are gonna close out on Tuesday, which is tomorrow 4 29, which is our golf outing, uh, for James', uh, foundation.
Stop and go. But, um, we're gonna be Cleveland as well,
and I think we're gonna take, I think we're gonna take Boston to at least game seven and see what, uh, what happens.
Absolutely not. But that, but that's nice. Um, okay.
I gotta, I have to ask on this.
You're doing a, a golf outing for James and Charity. Yeah.
And, and he <inaudible> off to The Bahamas instead of That's going to it.
Well, he'll be, he'll be back.
For all the goodness he's just making deep.
And Steven do all the work.
Is that what he'll be back? The obstruction
Noises are in the background.
Are you guys getting things ready Or what's Well, no.
Well, why don't, why don't you walk us through walk, walk us through what 4 29 Invitational is.
Walk us through what this golf outing is.
Walk us through the whole premise of what we're trying to do tomorrow.
Yeah. So tomorrow we are going to raise money for
James' Stop and go Foundation.
It is, uh, Benefiting the American Red Cross blood drives.
That's, that's right. Apparently.
Um, and I've talked to many leading medical professions.
Blood is essential to human life, right?
So, I mean, it might, it might surprise some, it might surprise some people, but it's true.
But we are, uh, we're looking to raise blood, I Believe what they want you to believe.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, at the end of the day, we're just trying to raise money for humanity.
Does that make us heroes? Kind of.
But we are, uh, we're raising money to get, get a blood drive going.
And we picked 4 29 because, uh, so 4 29 is a magical date for Magical Number for Rick Me's fans.
He won four Indy five hundreds, 29 cart races and cumulative laps led at the Indy 500 over the course of his career.
429.
So everything points to tomorrow, uh, being an incredible day.
Uh, I would like to say that James, uh, Steven and I put a lot of this together, but the, the real credit goes to, to Bishop.
He is knocked this thing outta the park.
We're gonna have one of the best, uh, golf outings, uh, that most people weren't invited to.
It was . Uh, we, we somehow sold it out in,
in basically a day.
Uh, so we never really put anything out there.
But, uh, you're gonna come in, there's going to be, uh, a couple food trucks to start the day.
Uh, we have a Red Bull, uh, truck with a DJ going in the morning.
Uh, we have an incredible, uh, sponsor for, uh, drinks by the name of Alex Rossi, uh, who, uh, put in some, uh, I've Been to many events where he sponsors the drinks.
They're usually just at his house. What? And it's me.
Uh, but you know, he, he always provides, well, yeah.
Yeah. They are. And by the way, we've got, uh,
eight pictures of Alex smiling, uh, everywhere on these, uh, posters.
It, it's, uh, we have 'em as, uh, one of Rick's favorite. Listen,
I smile.
I I smile when it's for, when it's for a good cause, you know? Yeah,
Yeah.
That's fair. And you know you That's right.
You don't give away chief smiles.
I walk around with a smile on my face all the time.
You gotta earn it from Alex.
Exactly. . Um, alright.
So, uh, I want to talk a little bit about, um, you, you've been a fan of Ricky forever.
That's right. You go around in, in a lot
of different social settings explaining the tales and the, the, the dominance and the records and the stats of Rick to anyone that'll listen.
That's right. But it wasn't until a couple years ago
where you had actually ever spoken to him. Is that correct? That's
Right. That's
Right.
So, so you got, I mean, I would imagine this is like meeting your idol, uh, virtually on the phone.
Um, walk us through how that came to be and what that was like.
You know what it was, uh, it was my birthday, uh, probably like three years ago.
And, uh, James and, and, and Bish came out and, um, Bish had grabbed my phone and, and programmed Ricky's, uh, phone number, uh, or sent my phone number to Ricky at, at noon.
I get a call and it just comes up and it's just, it's not his name.
It's just a goat emoji four times.
Uh, and I was like, I don't know what's going on.
So I answer it, and it's Rick Meers, who I've never spoken to in my life, ed.
Uh, he's like, Hey, depu, this is Frick.
You couldn't have find a nicer, more humble guy.
He's like, I just really appreciate you being my friend, or being my fan and, uh, being a fan, not my fan Ed.
Uh, just said all the nice things.
And then, um, he stopped talking and I talked for about six minutes straight.
Uh, right. Just professing my love to him.
I, I think I started off talking about how we should have had five, uh, he was over fueled in 82.
Sure. Um, which I'm still trying
to do the research on how that took place.
We never really got an answer on that.
But, uh, it was absolutely amazing.
Like, I don't know if any people get the opportunity to, to talk to Rick.
I know he, he still comes out to a lot of these races.
Uh, it is still around, but he's just the best and he's just the best.
And when you say talk about like his domination, people don't get it.
Like, he won four in five hundreds in 13 years.
He also won six poles. No one has ever won six poles.
I mean, it's not even in the ballpark.
And he stopped where he retired when he was 40.
AJ raced till he was 57. Yeah. You know, Alan Jr.
Raced till he was 54.
They had, which they're great champions.
I love them, but there's no one who's been as dominant at one track. So do you,
Do you think, do you think he had six pulls and, and has been able to do that so much better than everyone else?
'cause he was the only one that, you know, didn't lift?
Or like, how do you think, how do you think he did? Well,
I think that was, you know, I, I, I vish and I have talked about it, but if you go to the IMS museum and you look at his car, you're gonna find it's a little lighter because they never put brakes in it.
Right. They didn't need to. He didn't. Right.
So he just let the car do the work.
But yeah, he never had brakes. Never.
And that's the biggest problem that we see right now.
There's a lot of lifting, a Lot of, lot of lifting, lot of, lot of, lot of brake pedal presses, a lot of scared people. Right
Here on the apex of turn two is where a guy decides.
Does he want to go home and see his wife tonight or does he want to, uh, A chance at a poll?
You guys say it all the time, but in IndyCar at the 500, it's glory or the Wall.
There's really, and one thing I don't think people get a lot of is there's no shame in hitting the wall.
There's no, I mean, Ricky would say there's a little shame because he never did it except his last race and then he would resign.
But, uh, but like you guys lay it out.
That's what I'm telling you. Like, qualifications is
electric because it, and you can talk more about it, but like, it's not a race setup.
It's literally set up for you guys to, to go into a turn and just test, you know, the amount of testosterone you got in your body.
No, it's, it's not testosterone. It's, it's,
Yep.
Yep. I, you know, I know this is a family show. I was Yeah.
Not gonna well bite.
I mean, your <inaudible>. Yep, yep.
Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have him.
Yeah. I mean that's, I mean, later in his career,
Ricky had to have a wheelbarrow. Right,
Right. That makes sense.
'cause that's just, you know, I mean, six poles, bro. Six,
That's, that's a lot Insane. Six
Times. It's six more than I have.
Row one. Even the last race, he was here, 92, he started,
uh, outside of row one 11 up there.
Alright, so let's, let's fast forward to 2025.
Last question I got for you. Yeah.
What are your predictions? I'm just trying to
Figure out what I'm gonna have to bleep from that. I
Think all of it.
What are your, what are your predictions, uh, for, um, what are your predictions for poll?
What are your predictions for race win?
What's your got telling you? What do you got?
Alright, so let The people know For poll.
Uh, I'm gonna say you, um, you've always run well out here.
ECR has always been a monster on Pole Day.
I mean, I think they normally put all three cars in the top nine.
I think, uh, , I, I really, I I think this is your year, bro.
I mean, hell yeah. You're a hell of an oval driver.
ECR is a hell of a organization here at Indie.
So, you know, and no one else have, has ever invited me on their podcast, so I'm obviously I'm gonna go with, There you go, man.
There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Good shout. Good shout. I love it.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you for what you do to promote Indie Car.
Uh, thank you for promoting Rick.
Um, and also thank you for all the effort that you're doing for James' Charity.
Uh, it's gonna be a great outing tomorrow. Guys.
Stay tuned for a lot of, probably gonna be very funny pictures and videos that'll serve us on the internet, um, from people trying to play golf well and failing miserably, but all for a good cause.
Uh, and we will see y'all on Thursday.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
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