In Indianapolis, sports are much more than a tradition—they are a passion. From the Colts to the Pacers to the Indians to the Fever and the Ice, along with our many college and high school teams, Hoosiers have plenty to love. If you ever doubt how seriously we take our sports, just try to get tickets to the Indy 500 or to some championship game. Motorsports are so important in Indianapolis that I’ve devoted an entire chapter to that spectacular sport in this book, as well as a chapter on golf.
Some fans have a big red circle on their calendars around the date of Sunday, February 5, 2012. That’s when the Super Bowl will be played at Indy’s Lucas Oil Stadium. Better start making arrangements now. That is going to be quite a party. Downtown will be alive with celebrants.
Not only do sports thrive in Indianapolis but the city thrives because of them. Sports are big business. And that’s no accident. Back in the mid-1970s, Indianapolis chose to use sports as an economic and community development tool and backed the construction of sports facilities and marketing strategies to attract top sporting events.
This effort has paid off handsomely. The publicity surrounding major athletic events results in national and international name recognition for Indianapolis. Ask a man or woman on the street in some far-flung state about their unseen impression of Indy. Most often the answer is sports related. Yes, many of our homes do have basketball nets—even makeshift ones—in our driveways or backyards or barn lots. And a list of all-time favorite movies for Hoosiers often involves at least one of these—Hoosiers (basketball), Rudy (football) or Breaking Away (bike races).
Sporting events provide opportunities to showcase the city—not only as a sports center but also as a tourist destination, a business center, and a good place to live, work, and invest.
In 1979 the Indiana Sports Corporation (ISC) was formed. A not-for-profit, privately funded organization, ISC was one of the first of its kind to target amateur sports as a growth industry. It attracts national and international sporting events to the city and state, represents Indianapolis in the international sports marketplace, and coordinates events. To date, Indianapolis has hosted more than 400 national and international sporting events, attracted numerous sports organizations, and built or renovated an estimated $400 million worth of facilities. From 1977 through 2009, the direct economic impact of amateur sports in Indianapolis was estimated to be in excess of $3 billion.
The city of Indianapolis has built its reputation as the “Amateur Sports Capital of the World,” which is due in large part to the world-class sports facilities within its downtown. Victory Field shares the limelight with the neighboring Lucas Oil Stadium, Conseco Fieldhouse, the Indiana University Natatorium, the Indianapolis Tennis Center, and the Michael E. Carroll Track & Soccer Stadium.
The opening of Victory Field in 1996 was seen by many as the catalyst for a revitalization of downtown Indianapolis. The area has enjoyed over $3 billion in public and private capital investment in the last decade. The thriving downtown now boasts more than 200 eating and drinking establishments as well as more than 300 retail stores, including the Circle Centre Mall. Also within walking distance of Victory Field is the Indiana Convention Center and its nearly 600,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space. Yet within this critical mass of activity, convenient access has remained a priority, as evidenced by the 6,400 parking spaces available within 3 blocks of the ballpark.
In 1999 the most well-known amateur athletic association in the country—the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)—moved its headquarters to Indianapolis.
Adjacent to the headquarters is the NCAA Hall of Champions museum that opened in 2000. According to an economic impact study, the NCAA generates more than $63 million annually for Indianapolis and Indiana.
Indianapolis, the Indiana Sports Corporation, and the NCAA also have an agreement that will make the city home to the Men’s and Women’s Division I Final Four, men’s and women’s basketball regionals, and the NCAA’s Annual Convention on an annual, rotating basis beginning in 2011 and continuing through 2039. Indianapolis also will serve as a backup contingency for future Final Fours should the previously designated city be unable to host.
In late December 2010, Indianapolis is scheduled to have one of the nation’s top 20 largest convention center complexes. The combination of the new multipurpose Lucas Oil Stadium and an expanded Indiana Convention Center means Indianapolis will be able to offer 3.4 million square feet of exhibit and meeting space. The combined new space will make the Indiana Convention Center the nation’s 16th largest. It currently is 32nd.
The Indiana Convention Center will have 566,600 square feet of exhibit space. The new exhibit halls are contiguous with the existing halls. Another 183,000 square feet is in Lucas Oil Stadium, which will be connected to the center via a walkway. The Indiana Convention Center expansion will sit on the old RCA Dome footprint. The RCA Dome closed in April 2008 and has been demolished.
The growth of the facilities is partly driven by location. Indianapolis is within a day’s drive of more than half of the nation’s population. Its airport is just 15 minutes from downtown. The Convention Center is located in the heart of Indianapolis’s revitalized downtown and connected by skywalks to eight hotels, 3,200 rooms, and the Circle Centre shopping and entertainment complex with more than 100 stores, shops, and restaurants. Also located within walking distance of the Convention Center are more than 50 major attractions, 200 restaurants, and, by 2011, 27 hotels with more than 7,100 rooms.
If it’s sports you are looking for, Indianapolis is the place. Stroll downtown Indy and see the cathedral-like buildings we have erected in honor of our favorite teams. Amble into a sports bar or casual restaurant and see the walls of big-screen TVs, a way to make sure we don’t miss a minute of the action. Sports is the lifeblood of Indianapolis, and you’ll discover that the heartbeat of our city is going strong.
The thunder of revving engines mingles with the roar of more than a quarter million people in the grandstands around Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When the checkered flag falls, 33 powerful open-wheel cars blast off in an awesome show of high-octane power known as the Indy 500. An American icon, the most famous auto race in the world is now over a century old. It has helped turn the Hoosier city of Indianapolis into the racing capital of the world.
Add in the presence of MotoGP, the National Hot Rod Association’s national drag-racing championships and a full menu of stock, sprint, and midget car racing, and Indy is unchallenged in its passion and support for life in the fast lane. Motorsports in Central Indiana are a significant local industry, paying more than $425 million in annual wages and employing nearly 9,000 workers. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, no place hosts more heart-pounding auto racing than Indianapolis.
And it all started with a crazy idea.
In the early part of the 20th century, Indiana was the second largest manufacturer of automobiles in America. Hoosier cars tended to be more expensive and better quality than those made in Michigan, but all vehicles then could have used a higher testing standard. In 1905, Indianapolis auto parts manufacturer Carl Fisher was helping racing friends in France when he observed that Europeans had an edge over the American automobile industry. What his country needed, Fisher decided, was a good way of testing cars before putting them on the road.
At the time, American racing was just getting a foothold on horse tracks and even on public roads. But a good automobile racetrack would go a long way, Fisher reasoned. He pitched the idea to three friends and fellow businessmen—James Allison, Arthur Newby, and Frank Wheeler.
Together the four men bought a 328-acre plot of land northwest of downtown Indianapolis for $72,000. But the first race at the new speedway wasn’t vehicles. It was balloons. Through the track wasn’t completed, on the evening of June 5, 1909, nine gas-filled balloons lifted off at the newly christened Indianapolis Motor Speedway, racing for bragging rights and silver trophies. The winner of the Speedway’s first competitive event, University City, landed 382 miles away in Alabama after spending more than a day aloft.
The Speedway’s track, surfaced with a combination of crushed stone and asphalt, opened for its first auto race on Aug. 19, 1909. Paying $1 for one of the grandstand seats or 50 cents for the first- and-second-turn bleachers, between 15,000 and 20,000 spectators came for the big event. Impatient drivers didn’t wait for the official start, and flagman Fred Wagner had to stop the field three times and finally begin it from a standing start.
The race was a treacherous one. The track’s surface broke up from the heat and the traffic, resulting in the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics, and two spectators. Louis Schwitzer won the first race of the day in his Stoddard-Dayton. But the disaster pointed out the necessity of repaving the track. This time they used street-paving bricks—3,200,000 of them, in fact. The job took 63 days. By the time the project was finished, the track had already been nicknamed “the Brickyard.”
The new brick surface did the job, and the first official race on the new track took place on Dec. 17, 1909. However, fans didn’t continue to pack the stands. To draw the public, Fisher and his partners decided they needed something bigger, something unheard of—a really spectacular one-day annual event instead of a series of minor races. That’s how the Indy 500 was born.
The inaugural Indianapolis 500-Mile Race was announced for Memorial Day 1911. Making it 500 miles was a big deal, meaning the race would last almost a workday between mid-morning and late afternoon. Fisher himself drove the pace car, leading the race-car pack for a lap around the track before exiting as the checkered flag dropped and the race officially began.
Spectators were mesmerized from the start. The man who would eventually become the race winner, Ray Harroun, didn’t have a ride-along mechanic—the only car in the field that didn’t. Mechanics gave a much-needed second set of eyes to warn of impending danger. So Harroun mounted a mirror above the cowling of his single-seat Marmon Wasp, built less than 5 miles from the track. Some historians say that was the first use of a rearview mirror. Using the mirror to watch for traffic, Harroun successfully avoided accidents for 200 laps and crossed the finish line with a time of six hours, 42 minutes, and eight seconds. He covered 500 miles with an average speed of 74.59 mph.
But there are those—including pioneer race-car driver Ralph Mulford—who claim another man actually won that first race. On the 13th lap, a multicar accident on the main straightway in front of the scoring stand sent the scorers (many of them Fisher’s friends and untrained) scurrying. For several laps, no one was scoring the race. That’s when Mulford claimed he wasn’t credited with a lap he completed—a lap that would have made him the winner. Mulford went to his grave contending he had been the first 500 winner.
Along with the scoring controversy, that first race brought death. On lap 13, Arthur Greiner crashed his Amplex, killing his riding mechanic, Sam Dickson.
Since that inaugural race, the Speedway has seen many changes. In 1927 the original partners sold the Speedway to World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and some Michigan investors. Rickenbacker had been a former Indy 500 driver. The race grew in stature but was suspended because of World War II. By 1945 the track was in dire shape and seemed headed for destruction. That’s when Terre Haute businessman Anton Hulman Jr. bought it for $75,000—a fortuitous purchase for the Hulman family and the famed Indy 500.
President of Hulman & Co., Anton Hulman Jr. had made his fortune marketing the company’s Clabber Girl into the nation’s top-selling baking powder. And Hulman was up to the challenge of getting the dilapidated track ready for a race in May 1946. Pumping millions of dollars into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Hulman began a giant improvement project. He built an eight-story control tower, added thousands of new infield seats, built a tunnel under the backstretch, and added a safer pit area walled off from the main stretch.
In 1957 the 500 Festival began to organize community activities to celebrate “the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” The 500 Festival Parade became a major event, drawing thousands of people to downtown Indianapolis. Now, the 500 Festival is organized each May for a full month of celebrations honoring the Indy 500. Highlights include the country’s largest half-marathon, the downtown parade, memorial celebrations for the nation’s service men and women, Kid’s Day festivities, and Community Day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Gentlemen (and ladies) start their engines at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway long before race day. Throughout May, hordes of racing fans knock off work and head to the track for qualifications, when drivers vie for the 33 coveted positions of the Indianapolis 500. Crowds are thickest on Pole Day, the first round of qualifications; Bump Day, the final chance for racers to make the starting grid; and Carb Day, the last practice before race day, followed by a free rock concert.
The track itself has changed over the years. Although the bricks were an important part of its identity, they weren’t a good racing surface. They tended to shift when the ground froze and thawed, and any moisture made them slick. Hulman resurfaced the track and replaced the grandstands and other facilities. By 1961 all that was left of the old brick track was a 3-foot section at the start-finish line. It is still there today. The rest has been covered with asphalt.
Hulman continued to oversee the 500 until his death on Oct. 27, 1977. Hulman’s only child, Mari Hulman, married race driver Elmer George in 1957. Their second child and only son, Anton “Tony” Hulman George, would become IMS president in 1989 and remain in that position until he resigned June 30, 2009. Today, the Hulman family still owns the track and operates it as a privately run enterprise.
Under Tony George, the track began to diversify. In 1994 the Speedway hosted its first stock-car race, the Brickyard 400, which today ranks among NASCAR’s most prestigious events. George also built a road course in the oval’s infield to host the Formula 1 World Championship for Grand Prix–style racing from 2000 to 2007. F1 was replaced by the Red Bull Indianapolis GP, a road race for Grand Prix–level motorcycles.
Although Indianapolis has grown into a destination for big-time pro sports, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is still what put Indy on the fast track. Visit in May or for any other race and see what all the shouting is all about. A century of speed has made Indy the racing place to be. If you want to try your hand at putting the pedal to the metal, marvel at some of the early race cars, or kiss the bricks yourself (as Indy 500 winners do), here are some suggestions. Remember to check times and prices before you start your engine.