INDIANAPOLIS — Laughter may be the best medicine for some folks, but for many Hoosiers, it's speed in racing.
The annual Methodist Hospital bed race captured the best of both worlds in the late 1980s through the 1990s. The annual race that later became known as the Backyard 200 was a fundraiser for the United Way of Central Indiana.
WRTV reporter Barbara Lewis was assigned to cover the race 35 years ago.
According to Lewis, the hospital bed race rules were simple. A team of four was required to look silly and have fun all while pushing a patient (or victim) in a hospital gurney along a makeshift 200-foot-long track outside Methodist Hospital.
“I wasn’t going to look,” one participant told Lewis. “ It felt crazy. It felt like I was going to fall off.”
Former WRTV sports director Ed Sorensen even served as the track announcer for a couple of races including in 1996 when he was joined by budding IRL star Tyce Carlson who served as the grand marshal and expert analyst. United Way of Central Indiana says Methodist employees raised $15,000 that year.
