2010 Vacation/Travel Supplement
‘Cathedral of auto racing’: Speedway museum highlights the history of motor sports
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, located in the infield of the 2.5-mile oval racetrack, was built in 1975 and has 30,000 square feet of display space for racecars and other memorabilia of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” (Submitted photo/Shawn Payne, Indianapolis Motor Speedway)
By Sean Gallagher
A century ago, Indianapolis was the home of a group of budding automobile companies—including Duesenberg, Marmon, National and Stutz—that made the capital of Indiana a competitor with Detroit for the title of “Motor City.”
So it was in the midst of this automotive hotbed that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built in 1909 on the west side of the city, now bordered by West 16th Street and Georgetown Road.
The first Indianapolis 500 was run in 1911 with 80,000 spectators on hand. Ray Harroun won that initial race in his Marmon Wasp in 6 hours and 42 minutes, averaging 74 miles per hour.
In the nearly 100 years since the first running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” the annual race has attracted hundreds of thousands of auto racing enthusiasts from around the world to Indianapolis during the month of May.
Now cars race around the famous oval more than 150 miles per hour faster than Harroun did long ago.
But in all eras of the Speedway, it has been a place where continuing innovations in automobile design and safety have been developed and tested.
Memorabilia of the history of auto racing in general, of the Speedway and of the technical achievements that happened there are on display year-round at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, which has 30,000 square feet of display space in the infield of the track.
“I don’t think that I’ve ever had a guest who has come to Indianapolis for the first time that that wasn’t the first place that I’ve taken them to see,” said Father Glenn O’Connor, who has worked on racecar pit crews at the 500 since 1975.
“I’m very proud of that because [of the way it shows] the history of the Speedway and, really, of the development of the automobile,” he said. “They’ve just done a great job for giving you a real feel for the tradition in the lap around the track.”
Father O’Connor, who is the pastor of St. Ann and St. Joseph parishes, both in Indianapolis, describes the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the “cathedral of auto racing.”
As he grew up in Indianapolis during the 1950s and ’60s, Father O’Connor fell in love with the Indianapolis 500 at an early age.
“I think I ran my first race pool in the third grade,” he says with a laugh.
Going just to the practice days during the month of May was something that Father O’Connor said many families did, in part, because it was inexpensive.
“They’d just about fill the grandstands on the front straightaway just for practices back then,” he said. “It was something to do and very reasonable to take a family out there. I remember that it was 50 cents to get in for practice.”
The museum continues to be an economical attraction for families today, said Eric Powell, director of public relations for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“A lot of museums, a lot of attractions, are pricey just in order to keep the doors open,” Powell said. “This particular museum [is] $3 for children and for adults it’s $5.
“It’s a great family destination for the cost,” he said. “You can bring your kids out here and they can see the car that Danica Patrick competed in during her rookie year here at the 500. You can see the car in which Arie Luyendyk set the race record for the fastest 500 in history, and see the first winner of the 500—Ray Haroun’s Marmon Wasp—which was built right here in Indianapolis.”
In addition to racecars, the museum also houses racing trophies—including the famous Borg-Warner Trophy awarded annually to the 500 winner—as well as artwork connected to auto racing, and scoring and timing equipment used at the Speedway over the course of its history.
For an additional $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 6-15, visitors to the museum can take a lap around the track in a tour bus while a guide discusses the Speedway’s history.
Recently, Speedway officials began offering visitors a 90-minute tour of the grounds for $25.
This expanded tour includes visits to the timing and scoring suite, the media center and an opportunity to have your photo taken on the “yard of bricks,” a relic at the track’s start-finish line of a time when the entire racecourse was covered by 3.2 million paving bricks.
Approximately 250,000 people visit the museum each year, with a full third of those tourists coming in May during the weeks leading up to the 500.
These visitors come to Indianapolis from around the world, just as many international racecar drivers and automobile developers have been attracted to the Speedway since its beginning.
Born in Switzerland, Louis-Joseph Chevrolet, co-founder of the Chevrolet Motor Company, raced in the 500 in 1915-16 and 1919-20.
Donald Davidson, a British race enthusiast who has been a prominent media figure at the Speedway for some 45 years, is the current historian of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Davidson became interested in the 500 during the mid-1950s while living in his native England.
“It seemed that that was the thing to do from the time that I was about 14 years old,” he said. “I came in 1964 for a
three-week holiday that I had saved up for. And I came back the next year to live.”
His encyclopedic knowledge of the Indianapolis 500 has often been put to the test in “The Talk of Gasoline Alley,” a radio show he hosts during May in which callers can ask him questions about the history of the world-famous race.
Davidson loves the history of the 500, and also appreciates auto racing history in general and the way in which the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum chronicles it.
“It’s a diversified collection,” he said. “It’s not just 500 cars. I think that many [people] are surprised that it’s larger than they were expecting. There are some very unusual and valuable European sports cars and Grand Prix cars there.
“And they’re not mock-ups,” Davidson said. “They have been documented and cared for throughout their lives. They’ve been there all along.”
(For more information on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, call 317-492-6784 or log on to www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/history/35204-Museum.) †
