The Indianapolis 500

For more than a century, the Indianapolis 500 has been one of the greatest spectacles in all of sports. thirty three cars roar down the front stretch at speeds unimaginable to the people who first paved the track with bricks. It began as a proving ground for automobiles and became a Memorial Day tradition that's held at the world's largest motor speedway. Learn more about the Indianapolis 500 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Just search Night Falls on your favorite podcast app and let Jeffrey's soothing voice guide you to a restful night's sleep. To understand the Indianapolis 500, you first have to understand the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the city of Indianapolis was a major center of automobile manufacturing. Local entrepreneur Carl Fisher believed the industry needed a dedicated proving ground where cars could be tested at sustained speeds.

In 1909, Fisher and his partners James Allison, Arthur Newby, and Frank Wheeler founded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Company and built a two and a half mile oval on farmland outside of Indianapolis. in what is now the town of Speedway, Indiana. The first races at the Speedway in 1909 were not the polished spectacle that people know today. The original surface was crushed stone and tar, and it quickly proved to be dangerous.

During just the second race weekend, five fatalities occurred, prompting Fisher to finance a project to pave the track with 3.2 million bricks, which gave the Indianapolis Motor Speedway its nickname, The Brickyard. After two years of hosting multiple race meets, Speedway Management decided from 1911 onward to hold just one major racing event per year with the then fantastic marathon distance of 500 miles.

The first Indianapolis 500 was held on May 30th, 1911. It featured 40 cars and drew roughly 80,000 spectators. Ray Herand won the race driving the Marmon Wasp, a streamlined single-seat car that carried no riding mechanic, which was a thing at the time. His winning time was six hours and forty two minutes, the slowest winning time ever recorded. His victory was more than just winning a race. He also added two features that have stuck with cars ever since.

His car was the first to have a rear view mirror because it didn't have a passenger. The distinctive tail that gave his car the Marmon Wasp nickname was also one of the first attempts to try to introduce aerodynamic principles to the automobile. The race quickly became international. It attracted not only American car manufacturers, but also European brands such as Fiat Mercedes and Peugeot, as well as European drivers.

This was underscored in the early years when French drivers Jules Gou and Renee Thomas won in nineteen thirteen and nineteen fourteen. In its early years, the Indy five hundred was as much an engineering contest as a race. The automobile was still a developing technology, and Indianapolis became a public laboratory for engines, tires, aerodynamics, fuels, brakes, and endurance design.

Winning the Indianapolis 500 could prove that a car, engine, tire, or component was not just fast, but it was durable. By the time of World War I, the event had already established itself as America's premier motor race.

However, the brick surface proved unsuitable as speeds began to increase. The turns began being covered with asphalt in the nineteen thirties, with all four turns paved before the nineteen thirty seven Indianapolis five hundred. The remaining front stretch bricks lasted much longer. In October of nineteen sixty one, the final brick sections were covered with asphalt, leaving only a three-foot strip at the start-finish line, now known as the yard of brick.

The Borg Warner Trophy is the permanent trophy awarded to the winner of the Indianapolis 500. It was commissioned by the Borg Warner Automotive Company in 1935, designed by Robert J. Hill and made by Gorham Incorporated. It was unveiled in nineteen thirty six when Louis Mayer became its first recipient after winning his third Indianapolis five hundred.

The trophy is distinctive in all of sports because it features a sculpted relief of every winning driver's face, making it a living monument to the race's entire history. It's made of sterling silver, stands almost five feet tall, and has had new bases ordered over time as the number of winners has grown. The original trophy stays in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, but since nineteen eighty eight, winners have received a smaller replica nicknamed the Baby Board.

The same year the trophy was unveiled, another tradition was started. After winning in 1936, Louis Mare was photographed drinking buttermilk in Victory Lane, inadvertently starting the now iconic tradition of the winning driver drinking milk. The tradition faded over time, especially after World War two, but returned in nineteen fifty six when dairy groups began presenting milk to the winner as a formal victory lane ritual.

Today before the race, each driver is asked what kind of milk they would prefer in Victory Lane, which is usually whole two percent or skim, but some drivers have selected chocolate or strawberry milk. In nineteen forty one, a major fire destroyed half of Gasoline Alley, the garage area on the track, leading to the cancellation of the nineteen forty two Indianapolis five hundred.

The race was also not held during World War I and it was suspended again from nineteen forty three through nineteen forty five for World War two. By the end of the Second World War, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was in poor condition. To prevent the track from being turned into a housing development, three time winner Wilbur Shaw sought a buyer who would restore it. Tony Hulman, an Indiana businessman, purchased it in nineteen forty five and revived both the facility and the race.

That post-war rescue is one of the most important turning points in Indy 500 history. Hullman modernized the grounds, restored the event's prestige, and helped turn the 500 into a Memorial Day weekend ritual. The nineteen fifties were dominated by front engine roadsters and the powerful Offenhauer engine. The Offenhauer engine ultimately won twenty-seven times at Indianapolis, the most of any engine manufacturer in the race's history.

Curtis Kraft chassis won five straight races from nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty five, and drivers like Bill Vukovitch became household names. The nineteen sixties marked a revolutionary turning point with the British invasion, as exemplified by Jim Clark's Lotus Ford. The shift from front engine roadsters to sleek rear engine designs mimic Formula One cars, featuring lower profiles, wider tires, and sophisticated suspension systems.

Moving the engine from the front to the back fundamentally altered the car's physics, enabling lower profiles, superior balance, and the entire field of aerodynamics that followed. This era also brought Formula One legends to Indianapolis. European Formula One stars such as Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, and Graham Hill all entered the race. The nineteen seventies and eighties were arguably the golden age of the race when it saw the rise of the sport's most celebrated American drivers.

The race was broadcast to a huge audience and the field was filled with major American and international names. AJ Foyt became the first four time winner. El Anser matched that feat, and his nineteen eighty seven victory also made him the oldest winner in race history when he won just five days shy of his forty eighth birthday.

Rick Mears emerged as the defining driver of the nineteen eighties, and in nineteen eighty four he shattered speed records with an average speed of one hundred sixty three miles per hour. Mears would go on to win four times in total. The closest finish in race history came in 1992 when Al Unser Jr. beat Scott Goodyear by less than one-tenth of a second.

The nineteen nineties saw the race decline due to a civil war within the American open wheeled racing community. Before the split, the top level of indie car racing was run by CART, which stood for Championship Autor Racing Teams. CART was formed in 1979 by owners seeking more control over the sport. By the nineteen eighties and early nineties, CART was strong. It had famous drivers, major sponsorships, international races, powerful turbocharged cars, and many of the world's top teams.

The problem was that the Indianapolis five hundred, the biggest race on the cart calendar, was still owned separately by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The owner of the speedway, Tony George, believed that cart had moved too far away from its roots. He thought the series had become too expensive, too dominated by wealthy team owners, too international, and too focused on road and street courses.

He wanted more oval racing, lower costs, and more opportunities for American drivers and smaller teams. In nineteen ninety four, George announced the creation of a new series called the Indy Racing League, or IRL. It would be centered around oval tracks and most importantly around the Indianapolis 500. Beginning in 1996, George reserved 25 of the 33 Indy 500 starting spots for IRL regulars.

Cart teams saw this as an attempt to force them into Georgia's new series. Most of the major cart teams boycotted the nineteen ninety six Indianapolis five hundred and staged their own race on the same day, the US five hundred at Michigan International Speedway. And this was the moment the split became permanent. The result was a disaster for both sides. The Indy 500 still had the name and tradition, but many of the biggest stars and teams were missing.

CART had many of the best drivers and sponsors, but it no longer had the Indianapolis 500, the one race that gave the sport national visibility. Fans were forced to choose sides, sponsors became confused, television audiences shrank, and NASCAR took advantage of the chaos to become the dominant form of American motorsport.

Over time, CART weakened financially and eventually went bankrupt. The IRL survived because it controlled the Indianapolis 500, but it also struggled to gain the popularity CART had enjoyed before the split. The two sides finally reunited in two thousand eight under the IndyCar banner.

The nineteen nineties saw another major change. From nineteen sixteen to nineteen eighty eight, there had only been two winning drivers from outside the United States, British drivers Jim Clark in nineteen sixty five and Graham Hill in nineteen sixty six. But in nineteen eighty nine, Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi won, which began an inversion of the previous several decades. Over the last 37 years, international drivers have won the race twenty-six times.

Brazilian Elio Castro Nevis won his fourth Indianapolis five hundred in twenty twenty one, joining AJ Foyt, Al Unser, and Rick Mears as the only four time winners. No single force has shaped the modern era more than team owner Roger Penske, whose organization has won the race a remarkable 20 times between 1972 and 2024.

However, he went beyond being a team owner in 2020. The Hallman George family, which had controlled the speedway since Tony Hallman's 1945 purchase, sold the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar to Penske Entertainment. Pensey's ownership brought renewed investment in the facility, including improvements to fan areas, infrastructure, and presentation.

The Indianapolis 500 isn't as culturally relevant as it was in the 1970s and 80s, but it's still extremely popular. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the largest sports venue in the entire world with a capacity of two hundred fifty seven thousand three hundred and twenty five. However, on race day, the number of attendees can far exceed the venue's capacity.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway regularly draws around three hundred fifty thousand people on race day, including grandstands, suites, and the infield, making it larger in person than almost any other one day sporting event on the planet. Some estimates have placed its most popular years at approaching 400,000 attendees. That means that over one in every 1,000 people in the United States is in attendance on that day.

Its popularity has also been improving on television. The 2025 Indianapolis 500 drew about 7.1 million viewers, up about 41% from 2024, and was the most watched Indie 500 in 17 years. IndyCar racing is not as popular as Formula One or NASCAR, but the Indianapolis 500 as a single event is arguably more popular than any single race in any of the more popular racing series.

It has history and traditions that no other race can match. And it remains one of the few sporting events where history isn't just remembered, it's repeated every year at over two hundred miles per hour. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible.

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