I’ve always loved the Sunday before Memorial Day.

That goes back to my pre-teen years in rural Albany when my father and I would unfailingly and breathlessly listen to the radio broadcast of the Indianapolis 500.

In those days, NASCAR racing was merely a regional sport (southeast USA) and the Indy 500 was, unchallenged, the most publicized race of the year.

Back then, Indianapolis officials had strict blackout rules where even tape of the race couldn’t be shown until at least 48 hours after the finish. That left us to see an abbreviated segment on ABC’s Wide World of Sports the following weekend.

It wasn’t until 1971 that the Indy 500 was televised on race day … an edited three-hour version that night.

Finally, in 1986, it was broadcast live to the country, though it’s still blacked out in Indianapolis — there’s a ridiculous fear that the live gate would be affected — however this year residents could access the telecast via live stream.

SO, AS USUAL, on Sunday, I settled in for over eight hours of TV auto racing vegetation, Indy in the afternoon, followed by the Coca Cola 600 that evening from Charlotte.

It also gave me plenty of time to ponder the vast differences between tense Indycar racing and the slam-bang action of NASCAR Cup.

The Indy 500 features open-wheeled cars traveling between 220-230 mph and even the slightest contact can lead to a devastating crash.

For the fourth year, NBC carried the race with Mike Tirico, Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a booth above the pits anchoring the broadcast and Leigh Diffey and commentators Townsed Bell and James Heathcliffe, both nine-time Indy 500 drivers, calling the race.

To his credit, Tirico let Patrick and Earnhardt talk. The latter is a NASCAR guy whose late father was a stock car icon, but he’s still one of the country’s most popular drivers, even in retirement. And in his racing knowledge easily translates to Indycar.

Patrick was underused but, to be honest, I was distracted as the combination of her hairstyle and the huge black earphones made her look as if she was auditioning to be Princess Leia in a Star Wars revival.

The race itself was as clean as could be hoped with six, single-car crashes and no injuries. Four came in treacherous Turn 2, and Patrick, who drove in eight Indy 500s with six Top 10s including a third-place finish, explained why. The others were in Turn 3.

Otherwise, it was pretty much a seamless race.

THE COCA COLA 600 was anything but ordinary.

The appeal of stock racing is full-sized cars with tires protected by fenders giving drivers the freedom to bang doors, bump draft and deal with “dirty air.”

The 37-car field managed to produce 18 caution flags with a similar number of vehicles failing to finish. And since the race went to double overtime, it was the longest 600 — 619 miles — in distance and third in length of time, 5 hours, 13 minutes.

And while NASCAR’s addition of “stages” during races hasn’t produced the anticipated juice for fans, the green-white-checkers format to ensure there’s a green-flag finish even in races with predictable late-race cautions has been a rousing success.

The tension of restarts and the almost guaranteed mishaps in those final miles is must-see TV.

Late in Sunday’s race, Chris Buescher was minding his own business when he became embroiled in a seven-car crash. Amidst the slamming and banging, his car slid into the grass for a seemingly innocuous finish. Instead, when his car got to the turf, one of his wheels bent underneath and dug deep into the ground, flipping the car into a five-time barrel roll before landing on its roof.

It looked serious, but so did the spectacular crash Ryan Newman endured at the end of the 2020 Daytona 500 which left me convinced I had just witnessed a fatality on live TV.

Two days later he walked out of the hospital with a daughter holding each hand.

Buescher got himself out of the then-righted car and walked to the ambulance.

Ten minutes later he told a Fox-Sports interviewer, without a shred or irony, “That one hurt a little more than the flip I had at Talladega.”

That interview could never have happened in Indycar.

(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)