Tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. The Museum has scheduled the tour for us starting at 11:00 AM. Most people take around 2 hours to tour the newly updated exhibits. The Museum is providing a discounted rate of $20 per person which must be prepaid.
Members are guests are also able to take a bus tour of the Speedway track at an additional cost to be paid directly to IMS on the day of the event. Track tours can be taken before or after the museum tour.
Bill Halsema has reserved a private room for our members and guests for lunch at Big Woods located at 1002 N. Main Street Speedway at 1:30 pm. Each person will order and pay separately.
Guests are invited and encouraged.
Program: Tour of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum
Speaker: Bill Halsema, tour organizer and STC president
Introduced By: NA
Attendance: NESC: 0, Zoom: 0 (IMS Museum tour – no regular meeting)
Guest(s):
Scribe: Terry Ihnat
Editor: Carl Warner
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway updated their Museum a few years ago.
After we met in the lobby I first visited the gift shop, which was excellent.
I was fortunate to have my good friend and Scientech member Mike Lanning with me. He has worked at the Speedway for about 50 years in medical and other capacities, and now he works in the pagoda. Mike is a treasure trove of information. The first race at the Speedway was in 1909, and it was a balloon race. One of the participants was Doctor Goethe Link, a famous thyroid surgeon, naturalist, and stargazer who opened the observatory down in Morgan County. The first race on the track was a motorcycle race that same year. In1911, the first Indianapolis 500 car race was held and won by Ray Haroon who introduced the rear view mirror. The name of car was the Marmon Wasp, and if you look at a profile you can see why.
We saw documents such as the articles of incorporation of the Speedway, many trophies, and an original brick, part of the 3.2 million bricks on the original track. They had exhibits of tickets from the past and old helmets, which would have not been much protection as opposed to those of the modern day.
They showed some stopwatches which were the original timepieces. Now, speed computers are used which go out to a 1000th of a second. There were exhibits of old garages. They showed some of the old cloth suits which the racers wore and contrasted that to the fireproof suits they wear today.
The racers do neck exercises to get in shape because of the torque on their neck through the race, and they are all very fit athletes. The pit crews do a lot of physical work, and NFL players are recruited to be on the pit crews because of their muscles and strength.
Other races at the speedway are NASCAR, which started in 1994 and was won by Indiana’s Jeff Gordon. F1 races, motorcycle races and airplane races have also been featured.
At the beginning of the tour there’s a video of the start of the race, which makes you feel like you’re right there, and is worth the price of admission
They showed the yellow shirts worn by security and a crown that was given to the winner from 1924 to1936.
There is a Leroy Neiman gallery of paintings of the track and cars which is a sight to behold. We saw the Borg-Warner Trophy and an exhibit of how they make the faces for the trophy. That is quite interesting. They have Baby Borgs that the individual winners can take.
Lunch was then enjoyed at Big Woods.
