Truly "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing"

When I was growing up in Indianapolis in the 60s and 70s, the Indianapolis 500 was in what some consider to have been its peak years. It was the days of the Unsers, Rick Mears, A.J. Foyt, and Mario Andretti. Names that even non-race fans still recognize years after-the-fact.

We never went to the race when I was a kid and it wasn't (still isn't) broadcast live on television in the Indianapolis area.  We either went on a little vacation that weekend to Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, or Ohio and watched it on TV or we did what people all over the world had done for years before the event was televised - we listened to it on the radio. I vividly remember my mom sitting in a lawnchair with a glass of iced tea and the scorecard from the "Indianapolis Star" newspaper, tracking positions of the drivers at key laps during the race.

The first race I actually attended was with a high school friend and her family in 1979. Rick Mears won the first of his eventual four victories that year. (Only Mears, Foyt and Al Unser have won the Indianapolis 500 four times.) I was immediately taken by the grandeur of it all. It's almost indescribable to be in the same place with  400,000 other people (the Speedway doesn't release actual attendance numbers, but those were the estimates during those peak years - now it's probably closer to 300,000 - which is still also amazing) watching the same event. It's difficult to understand the enormity of the 2-1/2 mile oval and all of the grandstands. But the thing that makes it the Indianapolis 500, and the thing that NASCAR and other sporting events have tried to copy but have never been able to quite replicate, is the tradition and beauty of the pre- and post-race ceremonies.

Until you've been there in person, you have no idea how moving it is to feel the pride when the trucks and trucks of service men and women take their laps to a cheering standing ovation, witness the 21 gun salute, hear the playing of taps, actually hear the crowd roar with appreciation when Jim Nabors sings "Back Home Again in Indiana," and feel the tears in your eyes and rumble in your chest during the military flyover that goes straight down the front straightaway and across the yard of bricks. 

Then after the race, the winning driver moves to the victory circle where he wears the victory wreath and drinks the milk.


2011 Indy 500 winner, Dan Wheldon, takes a bath
in the milk after taking his swig from the bottle.
(c) Indianapolis Star

Why milk, you ask? Apparently, in the 1930s, Louis Meyer won his second Indianapolis 500, and asked for a bottle of buttermilk following the race. Odd as it seems, this was apparently his beverage of choice. He did the same following his third victory a few years later and a news photographer captured the moment of him swigging from the bottle and holding up three fingers for his third victory. The dairy industry jumped on the marketing possibility and the winner has been provided with his choice of skim, 1%, 2%, or whole milk every year since.

The past decade has been tough for open wheel racing. The league split into two different warring factions (CART and the IRL) for awhile, leaving neither circuit with true superstars that people could get excited about and sometimes making it difficult for even the Indy 500 to fill a field of 33 drivers. NASCAR picked up the slack in fan support while open wheel racing floundered. But the split is now mended. The big racing teams (like Penske, Ganassi, Andretti) are all back with multiple drivers. Some of those drivers actually have names that are recognizable, due either to good PR moves (i.e., Helio Castroneves and Danica Patrick), success, or because they're second or third generation drivers like Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti.

It's easy to forget that this race in the little town of Speedway, Indiana (now surrounded by Indianapolis) was the single-most important sporting event in the entire world for years, beginning in 1911.

The Marmon Wasp that won the first Indianapolis 500
race in 1911 was on display prior to the 2011 race (and actually
made several laps during the pre-race ceremonies).

This year was the 100th anniversary of the race, so the nostalgia and ceremony was even more pronounced. (It's important to note that it wasn't actually the 100th running of the race. It was the 95th running. There were no races during WWII.) Legendary drivers like Mears, Bobby and Al Unser, Johnny Rutherford, and Arie Luyendyk made laps in old pace cars and antique race cars. A.J. Foyt drove the pace car for the start of the race. 

We don't get to attend every year, but my husband and I wanted to make sure we were there for this one and I'm glad we were. It was everything the Indianapolis 500 used to be and more.

If you're any kind of sports fan at all, the Indianapolis 500 is something you need to attend in person once in your life. It has rightfully earned its titles of the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" and the "largest single-day sporting event in the world."