INDIANAPOLIS — Alex Lloyd’s most important race this weekend might not come at the Indianapolis 500.
It could be rushing his expectant wife safely to the hospital. Or making that mad dash on a golf cart to the track’s infield medical center. Or helping her deliver their second child.
Fathers around the world know this drill well: Stay on high alert, be prepared for a surprise and when the call comes, don’t ask questions. Just drive.
So as Lloyd prepares for the biggest event of the IndyCar season, his wife, Samantha, will be sitting patiently and quietly along pit road hoping the doctors got that May 24 due date wrong.
“When they told us, I thought, it’s just typical,” Samantha Lloyd said, laughing in her husband’s garage. “We already have a name picked out, Bethany. But if she arrives on race day, we’ll probably have to switch and go with something with a little more racing flavor.”
The convergence of a due date and race date may be unprecedented in Indianapolis’ 100-year history, at least among drivers’ families.
Longtime track historian Donald Davidson said he could not recall any babies being delivered at the 2.5-mile oval, but speedway officials do not have documents to verify whether it would be a new track record.
Regardless, the Lloyds are prepared for all contingencies.
The 24-year-old Englishman has not lined up a relief driver and does not intend to look for one before race day. He does not want crew members providing in-race updates if Samantha suddenly goes into labor, and he’s comfortable with somebody else making the quarter-mile journey from pit road to the medical center, if necessary. There are no plans to induce labor.
After the race, Lloyd will immediately focus on his fatherly duties.
“I’m just going to drive faster and when I get the checkered flag, then they can tell me if something has happened,” he said. “If they tell me, I’m just going to tell them to open the gates and let me go because I can get there in this car a lot faster than I can in another car.”
Samantha Lloyd thinks it’s much ado about nothing because she’s convinced the doctors are wrong about the date.
After watching his wife endure 28 hours of labor when their first child, Ava, was born in October 2007, Lloyd figures he has plenty of time to finish the race and get to the hospital.
“I’d probably have time to finish the race, chill out, have a cup of tea and still have 12 hours to go,” he said, likely drawing the ire of pregnant women everywhere.
Just don’t tell Lloyd how much quicker those second births can go.
Whatever happens, Samantha Lloyd has promised not to speak on the radio Sunday. She doesn’t want anything — even the impending birth — to distract her husband from his job.
Lloyd will start 11th Sunday, the middle of Row 4 between Danica Patrick on the inside and rookie Raphael Matos on the outside, after qualifying with a four-lap average of 222.622 mph.
That’s a big jump from starting 19th last year, when he finished 25th as an Indy rookie.
“I’m just going to sit and listen, hoping (the baby) stays in there,” Samantha Lloyd said. “I’m hoping to see the whole thing, and I don’t want them (the crew) to say a single word until he’s out of the race.”
Should Lloyd have to make that dash from racetrack to hospital, he will at least be appropriately dressed.
His pink No. 99 car and bright pink fire suit, courtesy of sponsor HER Energy drink, has created a buzz around Gasoline Alley. Dario Franchitti, the 2007 Indy winner and series champion, has dubbed him Pink Lloyd in a pun on the name of the English rock group Pink Floyd.
“I think it’s perfect because my daughter and I can pick out clothes to match his fire suit,” Samantha Lloyd said.
By next week, all four Lloyds could be wearing pink.
They’re just hoping the baby waits until after Sunday’s race to arrive.
“It’s going to be in the next week or two, hopefully not this week,” Alex Lloyd said. “I’m hoping it’s one day later (than the due date).”
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