Hospice Patient Gets Final Wish for a Hot Lap Around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Most days, 64-year-old hospice patient Doug Smith drives a decked-out blue scooter outside Morning Light Home in Indiana.

“It goes about 13 miles an hour,” he boasts.

On this crisp Wednesday morning, however, Smith was going much, much faster, savoring the thunderous growl of a blue C8 Corvette E-Ray roaring around Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Riding shotgun at 115 mph, Smith flashed a huge grin as the car hugged each turn.

As he heads down the home stretch in his battle with prostate and lung cancer, the visit to the legendary track fulfilled Smith’s final wish to take a few laps there.

He grew up on the west side of Indianapolis, not far from the speedway. As a teen, he became a big fan of racecar driver Bill Elliott. “You can’t match the thrill of just being there and the feel and the roar of hearing it,” he said.

When doctors told Smith he had months to live and the staff at Morning Light asked him for his wish as part of their Making Memories campaign, Smith knew what he wanted to do.

“It took me a couple days to come up with it, but my wish is to go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and take a couple hot laps around in a NASCAR or an IndyCar, whichever one they happen to be running. I’d like to do both, actually,” Smith said.

Morning Light Executive Director Madison Wood-Gonzalez and her team went to work to make it happen, eventually coming up with a ride in the next best thing to an actual race car – an eighth-generation Corvette E-Ray.

“I just hope that you realize that you are making someone’s final wish come true,” Wood-Gonzalez said. “Adults have wishes too. A lot of the time for our residents, this is one of the first times that they feel embraced by the community and that’s what we’re asking you to do, is to embrace this individual and help his dream come true.”

“Man, help me have a dream, because I have wanted to do this for forever,” Smith said.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles read about Smith’s wish on social media and volunteered to pilot the Corvette around the track. In Smith’s hands was a handmade sign reading “Live life as if it’s your last lap.”

As they crossed the famous “Yard of Bricks,” Smith leaned forward, planted a gentle kiss on the track’s historic centerpiece and closed his eyes. In that moment, he honored both his passion for racing and the memory of his late wife, his greatest supporter.

Smith calls Morning Light Home—an Indianapolis nonprofit hospice—his refuge. Nestled near Keystone Avenue and East 52nd Street, the facility offers residents 24-hour care, home-cooked meals and a tight-knit community free of charge. Staff encourage every resident to share a final wish, then rally to make it happen.

Smith gave a triumphant thumbs-up as the Corvette coasted to a stop. For a man racing the clock, this day’s final lap was victory enough.

Source:
wishtv.com

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