In its 115-year history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has hosted a race over the July 4 holiday weekend only once. After resurfacing the Speedway with brick, the owners planned four events for the 1910 racing season—races on Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and Labor Day weekends, and a 24-hour ...
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Financing Needed Improvements To IMS
By 2013, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, once the crown jewel of auto racing, was showing its age. It badly needed a facelift, particularly in comparison to the new Circuit of the Americas track in Austin, Texas, and the planned $400 million to the Daytona International Speedway. In July 2013, Derek ...
Boat Building at IMS
As inconceivable as it might sound, for a short time boats were built in the infield at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Carl Fisher loved to race. It didn’t matter if it was bicycles, automobiles, or boats. His obsession with boat racing initially resulted in him having speed boats and cruisers ...
Eddie Rickenbacker Repaves the Speedway
The opening weekend of racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was disastrous with five dying. It was enough to cause race officials to stop the 300-mile feature race at 235 miles. The future of the Speedway hung in the balance and the owners decided to pave the crushed stone and ...
The Winningest Driver in IMS History
The winningest driver at IMS isn’t one of the four-time Indianapolis 500 winners or Jeff Gordon, who won five Brickyard 400 races. Rather, it is Johnny Aitken who amassed fifteen victories on the fabled track. Known as “Happy Johnny,” he started racing in 1905 as a member of the National ...