I am a firm believer that you always have to focus your sights on the future. If you spend your time trying to be like everyone else you will never know who you are.

In 2007 we have expansion plans for the Mecca of Speed. One of which is to finally get through our photo archives and get some of the great images of the past on the website for the rest of the world to view.

As we continue to work forward, I will occasionally give a nod to the past. Sometimes it’s where you come from that drives you to where you are going.

The first small addition to our gallery section is a group of photos from the 1999 Champ Car (then CART) season. In those photos I found photos that included the “Rat Pack.” I don’t recall who gave them the name, but if my memory is correct the Rat Pack consisted of Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti, Max Papis and Greg Moore.

What the Rat Pack had was something you can’t buy in any store. It was a chemistry of young drivers on the rise, a search for adventure and a friendship that comes along only now and then in racing.

You often see drivers kidding around at the track, but you would also find various combinations of the Rat Pack together away from the track.

Think of your favorite memories with friends, high school, college, post college, that feeling that you are ready to take over the world and no one could stop you because your friends had your back. That is what I saw in the Rat Pack.

Greg Moore was taken from us tragically in 1999. The other members of the Rat Pack now race in the IRL, ALMS and Grand Am. Just like the rest of the world they have moved on because you can’t live in the past, but it’s ok to look back now and again.