Indy 500 100th Running

I've lived in the Indianapolis area on and off for over 20 years, I've been to numerous local events such as the US Nationals, IROC, Rolex, Brickyard 400, Bush Grand National, SCCA, Silver Crown, Craftsman Super Truck, Super Chevy etc. but never the Indy 500. I never wanted to deal with the crowd to see a race that is better viewed on television.

This year was different, the 100th running, it wasn't the first time I had been offered tickets but this time we went.

The tickets were commemorative made from some clear plastic with the ticket printed on it. The day before the race I was able to get a fourth so Matty's girlfriend could go along with us.

Its just under 13 miles from my house to the track yet we left at 5:45am for a 12:30pm start time, with over 350k people attending traffic and parking would be fun. Having the home field advantage we parked about 2 miles north of the track and hung out in the car for a few hours before walking to the track. Once at the track it was blistering hot, with just a slight breeze from the west. As luck would have it we were sitting just outside of turn 4 which made the stands back up to the west blocking the breeze.

Prior to the race to pass the time the normal group wave and beach balls went around.

Just prior to the race they did a parade lap with former winning Indy Cars. The 100+ year old Marmon Wasp winner of the first Indy 500 was out there running around the track with them.

Promptly at 12:30pm a ZL1 Camaro pace car raced by and the field passed for the start of the race.

The race itself was fairly exciting with multiple passes and the whole fuel thing going on. The icing on the cake was Juan crashing out early on. I'm not sure I would have had the same opinion if we weren't directly across from a large live TV screen.

Afterwards we headed back to the car with our coolers and backpacks, we still had half a cooler of drinks left. The drive home was quite simple, that was the home field advantage I mentioned before. Once we reached the car it only took us 40 minutes to get home, it was very painless. We ended up waiting at one traffic light for two cycles, the rest was like a normal drive in Indy.

Overall I enjoyed the day and was glad I went, I don't know that I will go again, it would probably take turn one suite or pagoda seating to entice me back. Its a great place to enjoy the moment and the crowd its a horrible place to see an oval race.