‘God has a sense of humor:’ Allison Melangton’s first grandbaby’s due on Indy 500 race day

INDIANAPOLIS — Allison Melangton knew immediately something was awry. There she was standing in the kitchen learning she’d be a grandmother for the first time, staring at her only son Cameron and his wife Taylor as they revealed the joyful news.

But something didn’t seem so joyful. Taylor was saying the words, “We’re pregnant,” but she and Cameron weren’t effusive or giddy. They seemed cautious.

“Is everything OK with the baby?” Melangton asked. “What? What is going on?”

Taylor finally spit it out. “We’re due on race day.”

Race day. As in May 26, 2024, the day of the Indianapolis 500. To any other family, even diehard race fans, a first grandbaby due on that date could be taken in stride.

But for Melangton, senior vice president of Penske Entertainment, which owns IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, race day is the only square on the calendar circled in bold red. The only day she cannot be anywhere other than IMS.

“Well, God has a sense of humor,” Melangton said. “Really any other day than race day, which is 364 days of the year, any other day works. It’s the one day. That one day.”

And so today, 100 days out from the greatest spectacle in racing, Melangton is hoping her first grandbaby does what most babies do and does not arrive on its due date. But if it does? Well, Melangton has been thinking about that a lot.

“I need to be here race day for sure to get everything going,” she said. “If it’s in the middle of the race, I can leave. If it’s right after the race, I’ll have to get a helicopter.” Traffic would be horrific.

The wheels are spinning inside Melangton’s head as she stood overlooking the track inside the pagoda last week, considering the drive from West 16th Street to Ascension St. Vincent hospital in Carmel.

“It’s going to work out,” Melangton finally says. “That’s how I feel about it. It’s going to work out.”

The rumor about no pants? It’s true

To understand just why her grandchild’s due date is such a big deal for Melangton, people have to understand how seriously she takes her job at Penske and any other job she has held — from being the president of Indiana Sports Corp. to president of Indy’s Super Bowl Host Committee to associate producer for gymnastics with NBC Sports to working at just about every major sporting event that has ever made its way to the city.

Which brings us to the prime example of just how seriously Melangton takes her job. It was 1996 and the Olympic swimming trials were being held at the IUPUI Natatorium. Cameron was three years old and Melangton was senior vice president of Indiana Sports Corp.

“I was working more than full time. I’d been traveling a ton and those swimmers are nuts, right?” Melangton said. “They start warming up at 5 a.m. and they cool down after races until midnight.”

It was the ninth day of the 10-day event and Melangton said she had gotten three hours of sleep for nine nights straight. She left the natatorium, got home at 2 a.m., threw her shorts and event polo in the washer and went to bed ready for the final 10th day.

She woke up at the crack of dawn, less than three hours later, and threw her clothes into the dryer. She had two athletes she was picking up at a hotel to take to a television station for an interview at 5:45 a.m. Melangton took a shower, then started doing her hair and makeup.

When she went to get her clothes out of the dryer, the waistband on her shorts was still wet, so she put on the polo, finished her hair and makeup, put on her shoes, put on her fanny pack and left the house.

Melangton drove all the way to the hotel downtown and walked inside the lobby of the Marriott. She didn’t notice any particular cool breeze. it was hot. It was July. And she had on cotton briefs.

“When I walked in, the bellman came walking very briskly over to me and said, ‘Ma’am, are you OK?’” Melangton said. “I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, I look bad. I’m a little tired, but I’m good.’ And he said, ‘Are you sure?’”

Melangton will never forget what happened next. That bellman’s eyes started at her forehead and slowly made their way down her body and stopped at her waist.

“And I followed his eyes and looked down,” she said, “and I was standing in the lobby in my underwear.”

Melangton rushed out of the hotel and promptly drove home, calling on backup to get her athletes to the station.

“I travel with pants in my car now and I always tell her to have extra pants,” Melangton said, pointing to Taylor.

Race day and the days leading up to the Indy 500, after all, are one of Taylor’s busiest times of the year, too.

A sudden interest in the 500 Festival Princess program

Taylor is the events and communications manager at Visit Indy, a nonprofit that serves as the official sales and marketing arm for Indianapolis and the Indiana Convention Center. She spends race day and the days leading up to the event with clients.

She hosts them, wines and dines them and showcases the city to them in hopes they will bring their event here, too.

It’s a dream job for Taylor, who grew up on the south side of Indy and went to Roncalli. She was an avid race fan long before she met the Melangtons because her mother, Kim Wong, is an even bigger race fan.

Wong spends all her PTO days at the track and from the time Taylor was tiny, she has been sitting with her mom inside the magical raceway of IMS.

One year, when she was just a little girl, Taylor went to the 500 Festival parade and saw the princesses. “I’m going to be a princess one day,” she said to Kim. While she was in college at Ball State that dream came true and who was assigned to be her program mentor? Melangton, of course.

Before Taylor came into the picture, Cameron had shown zero interest in the 500 Festival Princess program. But suddenly, he was going to its events. He was going even when Melangton couldn’t be there.

One night, after Taylor stood up and gave her pitch on why she should be the queen, talking about running the Mini Marathon, nothing too deep, Melangton got a text from Cameron. “Our princess this year is amazing,” he wrote. “She did the best job of anybody.”

Eventually, when it was appropriate and Melangton wasn’t mentoring Taylor any longer, Cameron asked her out. And from there, the two’s love story began.

And it began to become ever more intertwined with IMS.

‘August? That’s safe, right?’

They didn’t mean to get married on qualification day. When Cameron proposed to Taylor in 2019 in Maine on a rock by a lake where he and his grandfather used to fish, they set a date of Aug. 15, 2020.

“August? That’s safe right?” Melangton said, laughing. “The only weekend there was nothing going on at the track.”

The couple sent out invitations, booked everything for their August wedding and then COVID hit.

“Then the whole race was moved. Everything moved. I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Melangton said. “There’s like two days a year I can’t be at a wedding, and this is one of them.”

But Roger Penske and Mark Miles agreed. This was a day Melangton could be at a wedding, her son’s wedding. Miles took over her duties and showed up for the wedding after qualifications were finished.

And now, their baby is due on race day.

Of course, the worry about the due date isn’t really that serious. The entire family, both sides, are ecstatic for the impending birth. The baby will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family.

“Everybody’s over the moon,” said Taylor.

But the due date has brought with it a lot of jokes and suggestions. Many have told Cameron, a financial investment analyst, and Taylor they should go to the race and have the baby at the IMS medical center. Others have said whenever the baby is born, its middle name should be the name of the winning driver.

Others are predicting that because Takuma Sato won the Indy 500 in 2017, when Cameron and Taylor met, and again in 2020, when they were married, that he will definitely be the winner of the 2024 race.

“I like that it’s a full circle moment in our story. It’s fitting,” said Taylor. “We were definitely like, ‘Oh crap,’ but also we just think it’s amazing.”

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com