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Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Indy, The Brickyard, The Greatest Race Course in the World, Racing Capital of the World
Facility statistics
Location	4790 West 16th Street, Speedway, Indiana 46222
Broke ground	March 15, 1909
Opened	August 12, 1909
Owner	Hulman and Co.
Operator	Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation
Construction cost	$3 million USD
Architect	Carl G. Fisher, James Allison, Frank Wheeler and Arthur Newby
Former names
none
Major events
IRL IndyCar Series - Indianapolis 500-Mile Race NASCAR Sprint Cup - Brickyard 400
Seating capacity
400,000+ (Indy Car) permanent seating and infield 300,000+ (NASCAR) permanent seating 200,000 (Formula One) select permanent seating and infield
Current dimensions
Track shape	Oval/Road Course
Track length	Oval - 2.5 miles (4.023 kilometers) Road Course - 4.192 kilometers (2.605 miles)
Track banking	Turns - 9 degrees 12 minutes Straights - 0 degrees

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana (a separate city completely surrounded by Indianapolis) in the United States, is the second-oldest surviving automobile racing track in the world (after the Milwaukee Mile), having existed since 1909, and the original "Speedway," the first racing facility historically to incorporate the word. The track is a relatively flat (by American standards; considered high-banked by European) two and a half mile oval, almost rectangular in shape. Altogether, today the grounds have expanded to cover over a total current area of 559 acres from an original 320 from which the Speedway was first built. With a combined permanent seating and infield spectator capacity of over 400,000, it is the largest sporting facility in the world, and generally recognized as among the most famous and prestigious in motorsport history. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, currently the only such landmark to be affiliated with automotive history since its inception. To date, a total of 222 automobile races between August 19, 1909 and May 26, 2006 have been held, with 122 separate drivers winning.

Early History: tragedy begets "The Brickyard"

Carl Graham Fisher (1874-1938) of Indiana, an American automotive parts and highway entrepreneur, co-founder and first President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. photo credit U.S. Library of Congress, May 1909

When the first race took place in August, 1909, the celebration quickly turned into a disaster due to the surface of crushed stone and tar. There were terrible injuries to the race car drivers and spectators. Cars caught fire, there were deaths, and the race was halted and canceled when only halfway completed (five miles). Louis Schwitzer was declared the winner in front of twelve thousand spectators.

Following an initiative by automotive parts and highway pioneer Carl G. Fisher, an Indiana native who was both a former race car driver and one of the principal investors, the safety concerns for race drivers and spectators eventually led to a substantial additional expenditure to pave the track surface with 3.2 million paving bricks, and gave the track its popular nickname, "The Brickyard".

Attracting an estimated 80,000 spectators to the first 500 mile (804.672 km) race on Memorial Day May 30, 1911, at $1 admission, the Speedway reopened and hosted the first in a long line of five hundred mile (804.672 km) races now known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race. Ray Harroun won at the brisk average speed of 74.602 mph (120.060 km/h). 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing' was born.

NASCAR Began racing at the track in 1994, where Rick Mast won the pole and Jeff Gordon won the race.

The Allstate 400 at the Brickyard is the only NASCAR race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Since 2001, qualifying has been held on Saturday afternoons and any races supporting the Allstate 400 are held at nearby O'Reilly Raceway Park, where a NASCAR Busch Series race has been held since 1982, 12 years before the first Allstate 400. A NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race has also been held there since 1995.

2010 races

• 94th Indianapolis 500-Mile Race - May 30th - IRL

• Brickyard 400 - July 25th - NASCAR Sprint Cup

Records

• NASCAR
  • Qualifying: Casey Mears, 186.293 mph, August 7, 2004.
  • Race Average: Bobby Labonte, 155.912 mph, August 5, 2000.

Dimensions (Oval Layout)

• Long straightaways - 5/8 mile: 2 × 0.625 mile (1.006 km)
• Short straightaways - 1/8 mile: 2 × 0.125 mile (0.201 km)
• Turns - 1/4 mile: 4 × 0.25 mile (0.402 km)
  • Banking: 9°12'
• Total distance: 2.5 miles (4.023 km)
• Track width: 50 feet / 15.240 metres (straightaways), 60 feet / 18.288 metres (turns)

Race Winners

Brickyard 400

External links

Template:Commons

• Indianapolis Motor Speedway Official Site
• Unofficial Site Amateur site with lots of history stats and photographs you won't find anywhere else including the fatalities over the years.
• Johnson's Indy 500 Indy Statistics and Nostalgia
• Indianapolis History and Statistics
• Indianapolis Motor Speedway Page on NASCAR.com
• Super High Resolution image from Windows Live Local
• High Resolution image from Google Maps