INDIANAPOLIS -- By modern standards, they drew a nice crowd at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the opening day of practice for the 2010 Indianapolis 500.

I was out there with them, walking the grounds of the Speedway and soaking it all in -- literally, when the rain later came -- with my almost-4-year-old son. We parked in the infield media lot, but that was as close as I got to being a member of the working press on Saturday.

It was a great day for an emerging young car enthusiast, from the parade of shiny Camaro pace cars to the Indy cars screaming at 230 mph.

The first person we recognized while walking near the Garage Area was none other than Tony George, who was delighted that we had just purchased chocolate chip cookies from the nearby Clabber Girl stand. (spectacular cookies, by the way).

We sat in the pit lane grandstands right above the Target cars (Patrick's favorites), and moved on to watch from the Turn 1 infield.

Then we walked down Hulman Boulevard toward Turn 3 before doubling back to get ice cream and check out another grandstand vantage point.

Patrick wondered why Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon just sat in their cars in the pits for a long time, but when they were finally released, Dixon was over 225 mph in just three laps. Franchitti and Helio Castroneves both topped 226 mph, with defending race winner Castroneves' 226.603 leading all challengers.

At $5 admission, any practice day at the Speedway remains one of sport's great bargains, and opening day drew a diverse, family-oriented audience. There's plenty to see and do at the track, and although courtesy transportation trams are provided, there's plenty of walking, too.

Spending the day at IMS with my son brought back memories of my earliest days at the famous track, starting when I was about 10 years old. But I can't talk about any of that right now. I've got a young race fan asking whether we can go out to the Speedway again today. How can I refuse?