The Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened for practice this past weekend. The 94th Indy 500 is less than two weeks away. And the Centennial Era celebration brings up so many memories.

Thousands of past competitors and fans have shared their experiences as the countdown to the 100th 500-mile race continues. The tales are plentiful from names like Johncock, Mears, Rutherford, and Sneva.

Others have been around the storied speedway and offer tales from their own time at the Brickyard. The 75th Indy 500 anniversary milestone brought back smiles and wonderful memories from Bob Guerity a former Chrysler engineer who managed the pace car program in 1991 and assisted in introducing the world to the Dodge Viper.

I was in the last third of my 32-year career with Chrysler Corporation. I was a manager of Special Projects Engineering as a part of Vehicle Engineering said Guerity. I was an original member of Team Viper.

We were a group of 90 that designed and engineered a production version of the Viper show car. In the last year of development, we were asked to produce a production representative car that could be used to pace the 75th Indy 500 in 1991. I was assigned the responsibility to be pace car manager. I moved to Indy in early May with VP26, our internal designation for Viper Prototype number 26. Members of Team Viper would drive to Indy on weekends to participate as necessary Guerity said.

He described the process of taking the Viper idea on a sheet of paper to a display vehicle in only 60 days.

VP26 was built from the ground up using prototype parts from production intent suppliers and parts made in-house. It was the first Viper considered ready for public viewing and having a large percent of production intent parts, said Guerity.

Because VP26 was a prototype hand-built car and not a modified production car, we asked for and received Garage A-9. This would give us a facility where we could perform maintenance and testing on the vehicle. This put Guerity and the Chrysler project members between the teams of A.J. Foyt and Derek Walker.

Legendary Carroll Shelby was involved with the Viper project and became close friends with Guerity.

Carroll was a neat guy to spend a month with. He had just had his heart transplant so the meds were making him cranky sometimes. Carroll, Tom Gale, Chrysler's Design VP, and Bub Lutz, Chrysler's President, were credited with the idea of the car. It was the next incarnation of an American sports car following in the tracks of the Shelby Cobra Guerity said.

After any day was done and I had performed maintenance on VP26 and locked it in Garage A-9, Carroll would want to go to Cracker Barrel where he loved the food and would always make small talk with the waitresses revealed Guerity. Carroll loved the girls!

Another lasting memory for Guerity is the reaction he received from Indycar drivers showing interest in the new creation.

From Michael Andretti to Foyt, to who knows who, would come up and say Hey I need to take that for a ride. They were all just taken by the car.

Guerity recalled an evening that he was eating dinner by himself in a restaurant and he noticed a race driver out with his wife. The driver excused himself from his own table and pulled up a chair next to Guerity. He apologized for interrupting Gueritys meal and asked, Is that car as much fun to drive as it looks? That driver was Al Unser, Jr.

Little Al would go on to claim his first 500 win the following season over Scott Goodyear in what remains the closest finish in Indy history.

Guerity compared walking into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to entering the University of Michigan football stadium or Bristol Motor Speedway. There is something about standing inside there, getting an unbelievable awe of the facility.

That original Viper was donated to the Speedways museum in March of 1992.

He carried away new friendships with Shelby, Emerson Fittipaldi, and others.

A Shelby autograph to Guerity is valued to this day. Made out to a friend and ended with A job well done.

Asking Guerity about this year at the Speedway had him looking through notes and memorabilia that had been put away for many years. Once again the Indianapolis Motor Speedway provided a lasting memory to a member of the automotive world. I cant help but wonder about the countless other lives the speedway has touched and brought the experience of a lifetime to over the years.