Every so often, we pause to recognize an accomplishment by a JDOW colleague, in this case, Dr. Patrick Sullivan, whose name you ought to learn if you seriously enjoy auto racing, especially the open-wheel variety. Born in Kansas City, Pat is enshrined in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum in Knoxville, Iowa, for excellence as a historian, journalist and track announcer. You’d need several hands’ worth of fingers to count all the places he’s manned the mike, but we’ll stick here with fabled Indiana locales including Bloomington Speedway, the Terre Haute Action Track and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where Pat’s been part of the track’s news staff for years.
The Dave Olson photo we borrowed depicts another one of Pat’s distinctions, bestowed only last night at the Indiana Roof Ballroom in Indianapolis, during the same affair at which the United States Auto Club crowned its champions. Pat’s accolade is priceless, the USAC award named in honor of the late Dick Jordan, its esteemed and longtime publicist/statistician, basically bestowed for excellence in letting the world know about the drama of non-wing USAC racing. If you tune in to a USAC broadcast streamed live on FloRacing, especially of an Indiana event, you’ll likely hear Pat as part of the announcing team and can listen to his disciplined, unbroken and accurate stream of facts, history and color yourself. I knew Dick Jordan and guarantee he’d approve of USAC’s choice. Pat also holds a doctoral degree from the University of Kansas, and in his day job, is a professor of psychology at IUPUI, whose full name is Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Well done, professor.
Jim Donnelly On Wheels 