Navigating Life's Race: Angela Savage's Tribute to her Father and Embracing Adventures

I have been looking forward to my road trip conversation for several weeks . My guest is Angela Savage . She is the daughter of Swede Savage . Swede was a racer in the 60s and 70s . He was involved in a horrific crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Indy 500 in 1973 . He died later in the hospital from that crash .

For Angela , she never had the opportunity to meet her dad , talk to her dad be held by her dad because at the time , her mom was expecting her .

I hope you'll listen to the entire episode and learn how Angela overcome the trauma of losing her father returning to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2014 , and the advice she offers for anyone dealing with trauma in their lives . Welcome to the show , angela .

He raced at Ascot and the Springfield Mile and the Peoria TT and some other very famous motorcycle race tracks . Then he moved his way into he did stock car racing , he did NASCAR racing , he raced a Ferrari . He did all kinds of wonderful things . Then he finally reached his goal is to get into IndyCar with the famous Dan Gurney . He was Dan Gurney's protogé .

He raced in the 1972 and the 1973 Indy 500 and I'm just extremely proud to be his daughter . I am carrying on his legacy for him . I have a beautiful family . I have a husband's spot and two beautiful children , two sons my oldest son , chance .

He is a senior in high school , he's 17 , and my younger son , cruz , is in sixth grade and they are just two really amazing boys . They're actually my very best friends .

When I was 16 , I moved down to Laguna Beach , california , where I finished up high school and lived there until about 2005 . I'm a beach girl . I'm definitely used to being in the warmer , sunny weather . I used to jump in the ocean 365 days a year , rain or shine , of course . We know it never rained down there .

I say rain and shine , but that wasn't a whole lot of rain . I used to jump in in the ocean . But today here in Kamal it's about 40 degrees and it's rainy and it's definitely different here in the Midwest . But I really love the four seasons . One thing about Southern California is it is always beautiful , but it's always the same .

And something that's really nice about being in the Midwest is you get the four seasons . You actually get to put on your fun jackets and your boots . Snows for Christmas time , so you get your white Christmas . It's beautiful here in the Midwest .

Honestly , I moved here because I had two boys growing up and I really didn't want to raise them in Southern California . When I was in Southern California it just seemed like you had to grow up so super fast and I wanted kind of a more hometown vibe for my boys to be raised in .

That's one of the main reasons I moved here to the Midwest is to raise my kids here , and I'm really glad that I did . They're in the Carmel Place school system , which is some of the best schools in the nation . They're doing very well and they're growing up nice and slow , just the way I like it .

He actually got the ride that my dad was in after my dad passed , which was driving for Pat Patrick in the STP cars , and so he ended up in the 40 STP car after my dad and he immediately won a race , like one of the first races he was in in that car . He won and because he's such a wonderful gentleman , I love the Dallinbach family , all of them .

He won and he took some of his prize money and he put it in a little account for me , and so what happened was that money ended up buying me my very first car . I like to give Wally Dallinbach credit for my very first car , which was a Honda Accord , and I used to put all my friends in there and have way too much fun .

I met a friend at Lewis and Paris and he asked me if I would house it in his flat for him and because he was leaving town . So I ended up in this beautiful flat and I remember that there was a wonderful bathtub and had these shutter , like when windows that opened up right to the Eiffel Tower was my view right outside of the window .

And I remember thinking to myself Angela , you must be pretty smart . I don't know how you ended up here , but you ended up here and this is going to be a moment that I'll never forget . And I'll tell you what . I never forgot it . That trip was so amazing to me .

Now in Spain , I actually went to the San Framon in Pamplona , spain , which is the running of the Bulls Festival .

I said now , angela , you know , what kind of person are you going to be in this world ? Are you going to be a viewer or are you going to be a runner ? And so , at the very last minute , I hopped that fence and the gun went off and I ran with the bulls .

At some point 12 humongous bulls are going to pass you and you have to hope that you're not in their way . I remember everything went into slow motion . I can hear the you know the bulls coming up close behind me on the cobblestone .

Actually , the guy that was right next to me took one of the horns right in his backside and I don't even know if he survived that or not . Because you're not going to stop and find out , you're going to keep on running .

So you go in there and there was this huge roar of the people that were already there waiting for the runners to come in , and then they shut the doors behind you and so the next phase of this ritual really you know the next part is the , the , the .

The viewers just watch as the bulls kind of run around and chase the runners in this enclosed circle , in this coliseum type place , and so the brave , the brave thing to do is to grab , like a newspaper , and swap the bulls on the butt or whatever you know , kind of tease them and that sort of thing , and the bulls are angry , so they're trying to just kind

of get get you , you know . So you're really just kind of trapped in this little trap with all these bulls . And then I remembered that that same day there was a hot air balloon race . And just as at the finish of this , of this running , I looked up and there were these beautiful hot air balloons going up over the coliseum .

And you know , at that moment I , I fell to my knees and I thanks God , I just thanks God for keeping me safe . You know , I , I , I grabbed one of the newspapers that people were using to swat the bulls with and I took some of that sand and I wrapped it up in a newspaper and I stuck it in my back pocket . And so what I ended up doing ?

When I got home , I wrote a story about this whole running with the bulls thing and I bought these little tiny jars and I filled them up with with the sand from , you know , from the arena , and I , I wrote the story in kind of a scroll manner Remember in the 70s and 80s , the right stories and then burn the edges of the paper .

And I handed those out to some of my very favorite people .

And I'm just , I really want to just hear about your first impressions when you went back , why it took you so long and and just a little bit on that , if you would .

But I'm a really good friend of mine named Paul Powell and a few other people started this kind of movement thing and called it let's get Angela Savage to the Indian 500 in 2014 . So a bunch of my dad's fans put money in the pot and then I am joined in Doug Bowles . God bless him , his president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway .

He picked up on it too and helped out with plane tickets and you know sweet tickets , hotels and stuff . So , lo and behold , I was coming back to the Indianapolis 500 in 2014 . My husband and I came , and I even extended the invitation out to my dad's brother , bruce Savage , who ended up coming as well . But it was really a life changing moment for me .

I had no idea how big this race was and what IMS is like and how much energy is in that place , on race day especially , and I didn't know that people really knew my dad , you know , like they did . I certainly didn't know that . They knew who I was . You know , I had always heard that the racing community is a family .

You know , growing up I was like , yeah , whatever , you know . You know , I was just bitter a little bit because I kind of for obvious reasons , but I was able to find out firsthand that the racing community really is a family and they never do forget . And so I was open , I was welcomed with open arms and a lot of love .

It was really a pivotal moment in my life . I got to take a ride around the track . I have them stop at turn four , because I just wanted to have a minute there , sure , and I wanted to get out . And I remember they were like you know , they , they're like you want us to come with you , can we come with you ?

And I'm like , no , no , I just wanted to be alone there at turn four for a minute .

They dropped me off at turn four and they took off there , and so I had my moment with turn four and yelled at the wall and I actually spit on that wall and I kicked the wall and and then sorry , and then I forgave the wall , you know , I , I left , I left , I got on my anger out in that moment and then I forgave the wall for for for everything and

it was really sort of like I had been carrying around this backpack full of bricks , my entire lights of , just you know , sadness and and and trauma that didn't end with the crash , you know , really just seemed to be the beginning of a lot of traumatic events in my life . It was at that moment when you know it was .

It was like I had I just dropped off my backpack full of bricks right there at turn four and I've been lighter and happier and more healed and healthy person ever since then .

And we know , when you went to 2014 , you did some things with the , the speedway , but it seemed like prior to that , you had some moments .

And you know , we learned , actually while we were writing this book , that when a woman is is that pregnant and experiences a traumatic event like that , not only does she get end up with PTSD , but the baby gets PTSD too , but it really can affect the the development of the child in the womb .

So I was literally born with a broken heart and things just got worse . I struggled so much as a child just with depression and started drinking and and using drugs at a very young age 12 years old , 11 years old too young , too young . I remember by the time I was well , as I was getting older and living in the middle of each .

You know , I was struggling so bad with addiction and alcoholism and I had this moment where I was just like fed up with everything . I couldn't stand myself , I couldn't stand my life , I couldn't stand life in general , and I remember crying out to God , just crying out to God . God , you know , just give me a chance , please , please , give me a chance .

And it wasn't . Within the next couple of days I found out that I was with a child . I have to say that finding out I was going to have a baby was really the turning point in my life where I realized , okay , I'm going to be a mom , I'm going to give this child a good , happy life . There's no way I can be who I am now and be a good mom .

So it was at that time that I had to move out of the Boona Beach because I just had a lot of friends around me that were enabling a lot of my very bad behavior . So I had to get out of dodge and my mom had already moved to Las Vegas because my stepbrother , shane , lived in Las Vegas .

So I jumped in the car and moved to Las Vegas with my now husband . We weren't married at the time , in fact , we didn't hardly know each other really when we found out we were going to have a baby . So I told Scott I said you know I'm going to move to Las Vegas and I'm going to have this baby . I said you can come with me if you want .

If you don't want to , that's cool , that's fine , I won't bother you , but I'm going to have this baby . Scott dropped everything and came with me to Las Vegas and I ended up naming my son Chance because I realized that he was the chance that I was begging God for . I named him Chance His middle name is Savage . That was really . He is my angel baby .

He was the reason I finally you know pulled up my bootstraps and and got myself clean . Soddy and I didn't have any health at all . We rehabbed each other . He was in just as bad a shape as I was when we left Laguna Beach . We were both very much alcoholic and very much addicted to drugs .

We took off , we left town and we rehabbed each other and we both been clean and sober for a long time . Now we're still together . We have another beautiful sun cruise , but I have to say that that was really the pivotal time in my life when I learned that I was gonna have a baby and I wanted my child to have a better life than I was having .

So that was when I was able to put all the substances down , and alcohol too , and we became healthy so that we could have healthy kids . Now we do . We're still together , got it not only my husband , but he's my best friend . It's really just myself and him and our two boys here in Indiana . So we're really tight knit .

We're all best friends and everything turned out okay . But yeah , I named him Chance because I prayed to God for a chance and he's what I got .

It was right next to this huge waterfall and there's a village down below us . That was magic too , so I really have done a lot of cool things

. One thing on my bucket list that I really wanna do is I love horses . I love horses . I also love dolphins , the door to dolphins , and I also love the ocean . So I have it in my heart to go somewhere where I can actually ride a horse on the beach and in the water and have some dolphins around .

We would be driving in his very famous race car , the 1970-42 Plymouth Barracuda .

So I would love to just take a road trip with Swede Savage and that 42 Barracuda and drive to all the racetracks and have him tell me all of the stories and what he did there and we would drive to the Poconos and just keep on driving into the sunset until eternity .

He could never master the unicycle and that drove him nuts .

And so the lady that was fitting me for my glasses says who do I have a story for you ? And there was this place , there was this hotel where all the racers , all the drivers used to hang out , get drinks and whatever , tell stories and shoot the shit . Pardon my language .

They were always messing with her and one time she was waiting on my dad and somebody snatched her on the butt and he stood up and he got in that person's face and he said if I ever , ever see you treat a woman like that again in front of me , we're going to go outside . I take a lot of pride in the fact that my father was a gentleman .

My dad's motorcycle gang would pull up and grab the guy and put him on the back of the bike and they rode off and the guy didn't get beat up because my dad pulled up in his motorcycle gang and saved him .

So he was always kind of a team underdog and he was always the first one to make sure there wasn't any funny business going on , and I just think that's something that's really cool about my dad . I also like with the fans .

I can't tell you how many people say , oh my gosh , I was just a little boy and I asked him for his autograph and not only did he give me his autograph , but he took me back to the garage and let me sit in the car or he let me help him . He would always really engage . The fans , especially the kids , sometimes would spend an hour with them .

I've heard this so many times he spent . Maybe it wasn't an hour . Maybe it seemed like an hour to the kid , but he would always go out of his way to make them feel very special and I still have a lot of people that come to me and want to tell me that today .

If you could just leave a piece of advice for people listening on dealing with trauma , what would you tell them ?

You have to face that dragon or that fire or whatever you , whatever you want to call it . But trying to pretend like it didn't happen , sucking it up by the top and keeping your chin up or being steric and pretending like it doesn't hurt you , that does not work . You must deal with it .

You must stop and turn around and face that dragon , otherwise it will come out in awful ways . And besides that , there's this thing called epigenetics and your body has memory . Your DNA has memory . If you have trauma in your life and you don't deal with it , that can be passed down as memory to your kids .

So unless you're willing to do the work , do the shadow work and face your trauma and work it out , it will just continue . It can continue down through generations , to your kids , to your grandkids and their kids . And you have to be brave and it takes a lot of work , but you can't run from it , you can't pretend like it didn't happen .

You have to stop , turn around and face that dragon .

Be prepared for a deep dive , but all of the things that are in that book were really things I thought I would take to the grave with me , but it became too heavy to carry , too much of a burden to carry and it was literally making me sick .

I like to prepare people in advance for that , because it does have a lot to do with dealing with trauma and healing some addictions and afflictions . You can find Savage Angel at savage42.com . There's also some really nice merchandise and sweet savage merchandise there , so definitely come to savage42.com .

Just me I self-published , I see the orders and I know exactly who's buying them and I really appreciate the support .

Come on over , and Christmas is coming too , so it might make a really nice gift , not only for your race fans , friends and family , but maybe for some people that are going through some tough times and just need some encouragement and need to know that it doesn't matter how deep you are in the pit of hell .

You can still climb your way out if you're willing to do the work and if you're willing to face some of the things

that you did .