Indianapolis Motor Speedway: Inside the Brickyard
On the west side of Indianapolis, Indiana, sits a rectangle of asphalt so large that an entire town — fittingly named Speedway — grew up around it. Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909, which makes it one of the oldest purpose-built race tracks still in operation anywhere in the world. Its 2.5-mile oval has hosted the Indianapolis 500 since 1911, and a single yard of original brick still crosses the start-finish line as a reminder of why everyone simply calls the place the Brickyard. No other venue in American motorsport carries this much history in its surface.
From farmland to proving ground
The Speedway was the idea of Carl G. Fisher, an Indianapolis businessman and automobile promoter who believed the young American car industry needed a permanent testing ground. Together with partners James Allison, Arthur Newby and Frank Wheeler, he bought farmland northwest of Indianapolis and laid out an enormous oval. The intention was practical as much as sporting: manufacturers would prove their machines at speed, and spectators would pay to watch them do it. The very first event held on the grounds, in the summer of 1909, was not even a motor race but a gas balloon competition. Motorcycle and automobile races followed soon after — and they exposed a fatal flaw in the original design.
Why they call it the Brickyard
The track had been surfaced with a mixture of crushed stone and tar, and under racing loads it simply disintegrated. The first automobile meeting in August 1909 turned tragic, with the breaking surface contributing to fatal accidents among drivers, riding mechanics and spectators. Fisher's response was radical: in the autumn of 1909 the entire circuit was repaved with roughly 3.2 million paving bricks, laid by hand on a bed of sand. The nickname was inevitable, and it stuck. Over the following decades the bricks were gradually covered with asphalt, first in the rougher sections and eventually everywhere; by late 1961 the job was complete. Only a single 36-inch strip of the original bricks was left exposed at the start-finish line. That yard of bricks is now among the most famous pieces of real estate in racing, and winners kneel to kiss it — a tradition begun by NASCAR winner Dale Jarrett and his crew in 1996 and adopted since by champions of every series that visits.
The anatomy of a 2.5-mile oval
Part of what makes Indianapolis unique is that its layout has barely changed since 1909. The oval is really a rounded rectangle: two long straightaways of five-eighths of a mile each, two short straights — the north and south chutes — of an eighth of a mile each, and four essentially identical quarter-mile turns banked at a modest nine degrees and twelve minutes. Compare that with the high banks of later American superspeedways and the challenge becomes clear. Indianapolis gives drivers almost no banking to lean on, so the four corners must be driven with precision at speeds that today exceed 220 miles per hour in race trim. The pole qualifying record, a four-lap average of more than 236 miles per hour set by Arie Luyendyk in 1996, remains one of the most astonishing marks in the sport. Every corner looks the same on paper, yet drivers insist each of the four behaves differently depending on wind, temperature and the time of day.
The Greatest Spectacle in Racing
The first Indianapolis 500 was run in 1911, conceived as a single monumental event instead of a crowded calendar of shorter races. Ray Harroun won it in the Marmon Wasp at an average speed of just under 75 miles per hour, famously fitting a rear-view mirror so he could dispense with the customary riding mechanic. The formula — 500 miles, 200 laps, one day — proved irresistible. The race grew into what its promoters call the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, traditionally held on Memorial Day weekend in late May. Thirty-three cars start in eleven rows of three, a field size and formation that have become part of the event's identity. Race day at Indianapolis is routinely described as the largest single-day crowd in sport: the permanent grandstands seat well over 200,000 people, and with the infield open the total attendance climbs beyond 300,000.
Traditions thicker than the paint
Few sporting events are as ritualised as the 500. The winner drinks milk in victory lane, a custom traced back to Louis Meyer, who asked for buttermilk after his third victory in 1936 and unknowingly founded an institution. The winner's face is added in bas-relief to the Borg-Warner Trophy, which has accompanied the race since the 1930s and carries the likeness of every champion. The command to start engines, the singing of Back Home Again in Indiana before the green flag, the release of balloons before the start — and the month of May itself, with its long build-up of practice and qualifying, is treated in Indiana almost as a season of its own. Gasoline Alley, the garage area behind the pits, has lent its name to racing lore worldwide. Four drivers stand above all others here: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Rick Mears and Hélio Castroneves have each won the 500 four times, and every May the question is whether anyone will ever manage a fifth.
Decline, rescue and rebirth
The Speedway's survival was never guaranteed. It closed during both World Wars, serving as an aviation repair and refuelling depot during the First. By the end of the Second World War the neglected track was overgrown and close to being sold off for housing. Eddie Rickenbacker, the flying ace who had owned it since 1927, sold it in November 1945 to Tony Hulman, an Indiana businessman who restored the facility and revived the 500 in 1946. The Hulman-George family stewarded the Speedway for nearly three quarters of a century, adding modern grandstands, the iconic Pagoda control tower and a road course in the infield. In late 2019 the family agreed to sell the Speedway and the IndyCar Series to Roger Penske, whose teams had already won the 500 more often than anyone else. Under Penske Entertainment the facility has seen further heavy investment, and the 500 continues to sell out its centennial-era crowds.
More than the 500
For its first eight decades the Speedway hosted essentially one race a year, which only deepened the 500's mystique. That changed in 1994, when NASCAR arrived for the inaugural Brickyard 400, won by Indiana's own Jeff Gordon in front of an enormous crowd. Formula 1 followed: from 2000 to 2007 the United States Grand Prix was run on an infield road course that used part of the oval in reverse direction, an event remembered both for huge attendances and for the infamous six-car race of 2005. MotoGP visited from 2008 to 2015, meaning the Brickyard has hosted the top level of open-wheel, stock car, sports car, Formula 1 and Grand Prix motorcycle racing — a range no other circuit can easily match. The infield also contains the Speedway's museum, home to a remarkable collection of winning cars, and even holes of the Brickyard Crossing golf course.
Explore on the map
Indianapolis Motor Speedway is easy to find from the air: the great grey rectangle west of downtown Indianapolis dwarfs everything around it. Open our interactive map to see exactly where the Brickyard sits, then zoom out to explore the other ovals, road courses and speedways of the American Midwest — and compare the 2.5-mile giant of Speedway, Indiana with circuits across the rest of the world.