Tom Carnegie, the all-to-familiar mighty, thundering, barritone voice of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been silenced.
Tom Carnegie, the legendary chief announcer for the Speedway’s public address system for an incredible 61 years, died Friday. He was 91.
He served as the P/A announcer at the Speedway from 1946 to 2006, calling 61 Indy 500’s, 12 Brickyard 400’s, and 6 United States Grand Prix’s.
R.I.P sir and may your great voice and style never be forgotten.
back then–
Theatricks, voicewise, was part of the calling of the Indy 500 back then. And he did the part…all the way from the Time-Trials, to the Big Race.
Tom Carnegie would elevate the PACKED audience, on both of the previous weekend time trials, and the the subsequent Indy Races with his baritone, pause-and-step delivery of the most famous that I, or we, grew up with, listening to it on the Radio, or the tape-delayed TV version later that night.
I remember the PACKED Grandstands, merely for the first week of time-trials in 1967, and more time-trials up until 1979. My old-man could not afford the family of 6 to actually get into the race itself, but had enough dough to get us into the time-trials for years on end.
And then, listen to rce on the radio back home. That’s all there was back then, the Radio Indy 500. And then later on UHF TV (if you had enough foil on the the rabbit-ears).
[QUOTE=AB195;65584]Theatricks, voicewise, was part of the calling of the Indy 500 back then. And he did the part…all the way from the Time-Trials, to the Big Race.
Tom Carnegie would elevate the PACKED audience, on both of the previous weekend time trials, and the the subsequent Indy Races with his baritone, pause-and-step delivery of the most famous that I, or we, grew up with, listening to it on the Radio, or the tape-delayed TV version later that night.
I remember the PACKED Grandstands, merely for the first week of time-trials in 1967, and more time-trials up until 1979. My old-man could not afford the family of 6 to actually get into the race itself, but had enough dough to get us into the time-trials for years on end.
And then, listen to rce on the radio back home. That’s all there was back then, the Radio Indy 500. And then later on UHF TV (if you had enough foil on the the rabbit-ears).[/QUOTE]
I’ve never made it to the actual race but I remember sitting in a car on Memorial Day weekend, and listening to the race on the car radio. It wasn’t on TV at that time and, for some reason, I couldn’t listen to it on the radio in the house. The race has lost a lot of luster since then. I don’t even watch it on television any longer. However, I do remember the voice of Tom Carnegie with fond memories.