With help from a scissor lift 'sky box,' a Columbus man keeps his 54

It's gonna take a 43-foot, diesel-powered scissor lift, but Tom Carpenter, a car dealer from Columbus, is determined to watch his 54th consecutive Kentucky Derby — live.

"It's the tallest one I could find to rent in the state of Kentucky," he said. "We're calling it a sky box."

Carpenter, his wife and a few of their friends made the cut when Churchill Downs still had plans to host 23,000 fans. They were ready to cheer on Tiz the Law from their first-floor clubhouse box near the finish line.

Carpenter was crestfallen when racetrack officials announced thoroughbreds would Run for the Roses without fans in the stands.

Carpenter has been to every Kentucky Derby since he was junior at the University of North Carolina in 1967, when Proud Clarion won under stormy skies on a fast track. He fell in love with the crowd, the hats, the grandeur.

"We just caught the Derby fever, and we wouldn't miss it for the world," he said.

Carpenter was there when Secretariat won the fastest Kentucky Derby ever recorded and for the 100th anniversary of the race. He cheered on American Pharoah and Justify — 3-year-olds who went on to win the Triple Crown. He was even in the stands once when it snowed, back in 1989.

So Carpenter was determined to keep his streak alive. But he had to get creative. And fast.

He had just two weeks to work out a way to see the race — an event he has planned his entire spring around for the past half a century.

Then he saw a story about an Indy 500 super fan who paid a homeowner near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to build a platform in his tree some 40-feet high so he could watch the race.

That's how Carpenter got the idea of a scissor lift with a 7-by-16-½-foot platform. It can comfortably fit eight people "as long as we don't have any football lineman," Carpenter said.

But where to put it? There are no trees overlooking Churchill.

He first tried Wagner's Pharmacy, but track officials nixed that because of security reasons, he said.

So he called the woman whose yard he's parked in on Dresden Avenue for more than 30 years. He thought maybe she'd have ideas. He needed a safe spot on private property with a flat, concrete surface. Grass would be too unsteady for the machine.

She suggested VFW Post 6182. It's on Longfield Avenue, on the backside clear across the parking lot, but there's a sight line inside the track.

Carpenter called the post, and a bartender answered the phone. He thought it was a hoot, but any scheme like that would be up to the quartermaster. A couple of days later, Quartermaster Melvin Reed called Carpenter back.

"I couldn't get it through my head what he wanted to do at first," he said.

But Reed agreed to haul a step ladder outside and take some photos of the view. (A quick check on Google map shows it's about 400 yards from the first turn.) But from the VFW sidewalk he can see people in the grandstands, the front straightaway, turn one and can halfway make out the chute Churchill uses for short races, he said.

"We're as close as you can get — around here, anyway," Reed said.

Once Carpenter saw the photos, he was sold. He'd make a donation to the VFW, and unfurl an American flag down one side of the scissor lift and attach a banner that says: "We Salute Our Vets." He'd charge $20 a piece for anybody who wanted to go up to see the view.

All of that money will go to the post. And veterans go up for free.

Anything will help, because with food, drinks and parking fees during a typical Derby Week, the VFW usually brings in $30,000. That's enough to pay utilities for the whole year, and helps veterans out, too.

Carpenter and his wife won't wear fancy attire this year. They'll be in matching Tiz the Law T-shirts.

"It'll probably the most fun of any Derby to date," he said.

But he has invited two special guests to join them.

Nancy Stone, one of the 30-some owners of Tiz the Law, wasn't sure she could get into the track because of limited seating. She was grateful Carpenter offered a spot in his own sky box, as it were, so she wasn't watching the race in her hotel room alone.

She'll have fun no matter what happens, she said.

"My new expression —especially in 2020 when nothing is a surprise — is 'It Tiz what it Tiz,'" she said.

And then there's John Sutton, a Louisville man who has been to 80 Kentucky Derby races in a row. Carpenter invited him, too. Sutton started when he was 8 years old with his father.

"It's the craziest thing I believe I ever heard," Sutton said. "I'm a little bit flabbergasted to tell you the truth about it."

Sutton isn't sure where he'll be on Derby Day, but added:

"That's mighty generous of him to make that offer."

Carpenter didn't want Sutton to break his streak, either.

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