INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An Indianapolis hospice patient has one final wish: to take a few laps around the track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway inside an IndyCar or NASCAR stock car. His caretakers are trying to turn his dream into a reality.

64-year-old Douglas Smith is living with both prostate and lung cancer. But, he’s determined to make his final days full of memories.

“Big box truck, down to a broken down lawn mower, I just like to drive,” Smith said.

These days, Smith is mostly driving his decked out blue scooter outside the cozy Morning Light home. It’s a free hospice home for low-income patients.

“It goes about 13 miles an hour,” Smith bragged.

He’s hoping to buckle in for a few laps around the big oval in a ride that goes a little faster than that.

“You know to get out there and maybe go 150 miles an hour or something like that. Yeah, let’s go. It’d be so cool,” Smith said.

It could be another lap in a lifelong love of racing.

Smith grew up on the west side of Indianapolis, just a stone’s throw away from the speedway. As a teenager, he came to love the renowned 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.

That’s why when doctors game him months to live and his caretakers at Morning Light asked him what he wanted his wish to be, as a part of their Making Memories campaign.

He had only one answer.

“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.

The home’s Executive Director Madison Wood-Gonzalez and their team is trying to make it happen.

“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.

More about Morning Light

Morning Light is a free home for the terminally ill in Indiana. The team serves everyone, including the unhoused or low-income. It’s the second largest home of its kind in the nation.

The home offers around-the-clock care and three home cooked meals everyday. Additionally, the home has 12 private rooms and communal spaces and gardens.

Having opened in 2004, the Morning Light team has cared for nearly 1,000 people.

The home partners with over 20 hospitals and hospice organizations.

Their “Making Memories” campaign works to create last wish events for their patients.

The home is a nonprofit and is funded entirely by donations and grants.

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