Indianapolis Motor Speedway celebrates 100th year
Published: Apr 4, 2009
Home of “the greatest spectacle in racing,” the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year celebrates 100 years of motor sports. Since 1911, the Brickyard — as the race track was nicknamed in 1909 when the course was paved in bricks —has been home to the Indianapolis 500, its greatest claim to fame.
The Indy 500 is run each year on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. The Indy Motor Speedway is the highest-capacity sports facility in the world, and it accommodates up to 400,000 for one of the world's premiere auto races.
Since 1994, the Indy Motor Speedway has been home to what's now called NASCAR's Allstate Brickyard 400, held in late July. It was the first race, other than the Indy 500, run at the race track since 1916. In 2008, the track added the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, a Moto GP event scheduled for late August. That truly makes the Indianapolis Motor Speedway “the racing capital of the world”!
The Brickyard — which still has those bricks under the race course's asphalt — was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Tourists can take bus tours of the historic 2.5-mile Speedway oval race course. Check details here.
Every year 250,000 tourists visit the Speedway's Hall of Fame Museum, located within the oval, and delight in the more than 75 cars on display — including the first car ever to win the Indy 500, a Marmon "Wasp." Click here for details on the museum or call (317) 492-6784. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day of the year except Christmas Day. Admission is $3 for adults, $1 for kids ages 6–15, and free for kids 5 and younger. The Speedway also has a gift shop.
Indiana entrepreneurs Carl G. Fisher, James A. Allison, Arthur C. Newby and Frank H. Wheeler jointly founded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909 as an automotive testing facility, in part as a way to support this new and growing industry in the state. The focus of the Speedway soon turned to racing, with Ray Harroun winning the inaugural Indianapolis 500 on May 30, 1911, in his Marmon "Wasp."
- by Jim Brown , Indianapolis Reporter for HelloMetro
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