The History of the Indianapolis 500

Podcast Transcript

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 held at the world’s largest motorspeedway.

Learn more about the Indianapolis 500 on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

To understand the Indianapolis 500, you first have to understand the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In the first decade of the 20th century, 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 speed.

In 1909, Fisher and partners James Allison, Arthur Newby, and Frank Wheeler founded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Company and built a 2.5-mile oval on farmland outside Indianapolis, in what is now the town of Speedway, Indiana.

The first races at the Speedway in 1909 were not the polished spectacle people know today. The original surface was crushed stone and tar, and it quickly proved dangerous.

During 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 one major racing event per year, with the then-fantastic marathon distance of 500 miles.

The first Indianapolis 500 was held on May 30, 1911. It featured 40 cars and drew roughly 80,000 spectators. Ray Harroun 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 42 minutes. The slowest 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 he didn’t have a passenger. The distinctive tail that gave his car the “Marmon Wasp” nickname was also one of the first attempts 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 Goux and René Thomas won in 1913 and 1914.

In its early years, the Indy 500 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 500 could prove that a car, engine, tire, or component was not just fast, but durable.

By the start of World War I, the event had already established itself as America’s premier motor race.

The brick surface proved unsuitable as speeds increased. The turns began being covered with asphalt in the 1930s, with all four turns paved before the 1937 Indianapolis 500. The remaining front-stretch bricks lasted much longer. In October 1961, the final brick sections were covered with asphalt, leaving only the three-foot strip at the start-finish line now known as the Yard of Bricks.

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, Inc. It was unveiled in 1936, when Louis Meyer became its first recipient after winning his third Indy 500.

The trophy is distinctive because it features a sculpted relief of every winning driver’s face, making it a living monument to the race’s entire history. It is made of sterling silver, stands almost five feet tall, and has had new bases added over time as the number of winners grew. The original trophy stays at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. Since 1988, winners have received a smaller replica nicknamed the “Baby Borg.”

The same year the trophy was unveiled, another tradition was started. After winning in 1936, Louis Meyer was photographed drinking buttermilk in Victory Lane, inadvertently starting the now-iconic tradition of the winning driver drinking milk.

The tradition faded for a time, especially after World War II, but returned in 1956, 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, usually whole, 2%, or skim, but some drivers have selected chocolate or strawberry milk.

In 1941, a major fire destroyed half of “Gasoline Alley,” the garage area, leading to the cancellation of the 1942 Indianapolis 500. The race was also not held during World War I, and it was suspended again from 1943 through 1945 during World War II.

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 1945 and revived both the facility and the race.

That postwar rescue is one of the most important turning points in Indy 500 history. Hulman modernized the grounds, restored the event’s prestige, and helped turn the 500 into a Memorial Day weekend ritual.

The 1950s were dominated by front-engine “roadsters” and the powerful Offenhauser engine. The Offenhauser engine ultimately won 27 times at Indianapolis, the most of any engine manufacturer in the race’s history. Kurtis Kraft chassis won five straight races from 1950 to 1955, and drivers like Bill Vukovich became household names.

The 1960s 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 mimicked Formula 1 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 F1 stars such as Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, and Graham Hill all entered the race.

The 1970s and 80s 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.

A.J. Foyt became the first four-time winner. Al Unser matched that feat, and his 1987 victory also made him the oldest winner in race history when he won just 5 days shy of his 48th birthday.

Rick Mears emerged as the defining driver of the 1980s, and in 1984, he shattered speed records with an average speed of 163.612 mph. Mears would go on to win four times 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 1990s saw the race decline due to a civil war within the American open-wheel racing community.

Before the split, the top level of Indy car racing was run by CART, which was short for Championship Auto Racing Teams. CART was formed in 1979 by team owners seeking more control over the sport. By the 1980s and early 1990s, CART was strong. It had famous drivers, major sponsors, international races, powerful turbocharged cars, and many of the world’s top teams.

The problem was that the Indianapolis 500, the biggest race on the CART calendar, was still owned separately by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The owner of the Speedway, Tony George, believed 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 1994, 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 George’s new series. Most of the major CART teams boycotted the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and staged their own race on the same day, the U.S. 500, at Michigan International Speedway. That 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 still 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 2008 under the IndyCar banner.

The 90s saw another major change. From 1916 to 1988, there had only been two winning drivers from outside the United States. British drivers Jim Clark in 1965 and Graham Hill in 1966.

In 1989, Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi won, which began an inversion of the previous several decades. Over the last 37 years, international drivers have won the race 26 times. Brazilian Helio Castroneves won his fourth Indianapolis 500 in 2021, joining A.J. 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 Hulman-George family, which had controlled the Speedway since Tony Hulman’s 1945 purchase, sold the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar to Penske Entertainment.

Penske’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 is still enormously popular. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the largest sports venue in the world, with a capacity of 257,325.

However, on race day, the number of attendees can far exceed the venue’s capacity. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway regularly draws around 350,000 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 1 in every 1,000 people in the United States is in attendance.

Its popularity has also been improving on television. The 2025 Indianapolis 500 drew about 7.1 million viewers, up about 41 percent from 2024, and was the most-watched Indy 500 in 17 years.

Indy car racing isn’t 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. It remains one of the few sporting events where history is not just remembered, it is repeated every year at 230 miles per hour.