The Greatest Race on Earth

Here in the UK we are spoilt for choice when it comes to motorsport. In a normal year you could be at a different circuit every weekend, watching a different discipline of racing. F1 one weekend, BTCC the next, WEC, DTM, drag racing, rallying, hill climbs, motorcycle road racing, you name it.

However, in 2017 and 2018 I decided to break the mould and take a trip to the US to see the Indy 500. What I experienced left a lasting impression.

Unlike the vast majority of circuits in the UK, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is located in the town itself. In fact the turns 1 and 2 grandstands back onto West 16th Street. The circuit oozes with history, it has an atmosphere which I have only ever felt before at places like Monza or Brooklands. You look down the main straight and think of the heroes who made this place their own, Foyt, Mears, the Unsers. You also feel the ghosts of the past, Sachs, Savage, Smiley, this place can be brutal.

The sheer size of the circuit hits you. In its infield it has an F1 circuit, a museum, a golf course and a concert venue. There are landmarks everywhere. The yard of bricks, Gasoline Alley, the scoring tower, the garages and the Sunoco fuel station, there are things to look at everywhere. Apart from the modern grandstands and huge Pagoda building you could imagine this is what it was like 50 years ago. Tens of thousands of expectant fans, the sound of the yellow shirts with their whistles, and the smell of hotdogs wafting through the air.

What is amazing though is although the circuit was built over 100 years ago, the layout is still the same to this day. I bet when Ray Harroun won the first Indy 500 in 1911, he didn’t think cars would be racing there 110 years later, lapping at 230mph!

Part of the allure of this event is the fans. As a reserved Brit, I was a bit dubious about how I would fit in with 300,000 American fans. At the British Grand Prix, you might get a “good morning” from a fellow fan, or a nod of the head, but that’s it. I was standing in the grandstand early on race morning, when a lone gentleman passed me and shouted “let’s race, whoooop!” I was quite taken aback and shouted an enthusiastic “yeah” in response.

Inside the amazing IMS museum

We were in the North East Vista grandstand at turn 3. It was packed, but felt like a community. There was lots of banter, some very interesting outfits and there was even a woman dishing out nipple tweaks to passing men. It was cramped but jovial. If you wanted to go and get a drink, people would unhesitatingly help you get out, probably with a high-five on the way and a nipple tweak.

But these fans know their racing. For Carb day I was wearing my Ayrton Senna ‘Nacional’ cap. A burly American with a big beard turned round to me gave me a knowing wink and said “nice cap”. He knew exactly who Senna was. They have their favourites (Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves seem to stand out) but if you cheer for another driver, fair enough, you won’t get any aggravation.

Fans would certainly not boo a winning driver if he happens not to be the one they were rooting for (like what happens with alarming regularity in F1). The fans will cheer if any driver is going for an overtake or if a driver climbs out of a huge ‘wreck’ like the one with Scott Dixon and Jay Howard in 2017.

There is a major difference between F1 and Indycar though. At an F1 race the fans almost feel like they’re lucky to be there, it’s an exclusive sport and the fans are very much outsiders, particularly from the hallowed paddock area. With the Indy 500 you get the impression that the event is all about the fans. We got paddock passes for Carb day. Paul Tracy walked by me, Juan Pablo Montoya almost ran me over with a golf buggy, Mario Andretti walked past with a load of hangers on as he was being pursued by photographers. He was heading towards Gasoline Alloy, it could almost have been 1969.

Pole sitter Ed Carpenter

One day we were wandering round the Chevrolet fan zone when a small group started gathering in front of a stage. Out walked Buddy Lazier, Helio Castroneves, AJ Foyt, Rick Mears, Juan Pablo Montoya and Al Unser Jr. 16 Indy 500 wins between them and they were ribbing each other, chatting away telling anecdotes. Of the 5 F1 races that I’ve been to, I’ve seen one driver in the ‘fan zone’. This was Lewis Hamilton at the 2010 British Grand Prix. There was a mass of people clambering over each other to get an autograph. Hamilton stayed for 5 minutes then was whisked away to his next appointment.

Lazier, Castroneves, Foyt, Mears, Montoya and Unser Jr

The race morning is pure showbiz, with each of the drivers heading up on stage to be introduced to the fans. It’s like the gladiators on their way out into the Coliseum. There is a parade of ex-Indy 500 winners, often in their old cars (and not wearing helmets).

Then during the actual race parade laps, Mario Andretti blasts round in a 2 seater Indycar, 1 minute away from the race start! Part of me thought Mario was just going to carry on and join the race.

Rick Mears walked past me heading up to the spotters area at the top of my grandstand. There wasn’t a flurry of fans trying to get selfies, just a few whoops and a respectful raising of beer cans to the 4 time winner. Johnny Rutherford walked past us in the historic car paddock. A chap simply shouted out “hey Lone Star JR, you’re the man”. A quick wink and a point by Rutherford followed, before he went on his way.

Johnny Rutherford

AJ Foyt is racing royalty as far as I am concerned, and the way the fans were treating him as he passed through the crowd was superb. It really reminded me of how the fans at Goodwood used to treat Sir Stirling Moss. No shouting, don’t get too close, don’t get in his face (probably wise around AJ), almost a hushed reverence as he passed by. But the point is he was accessible, the general public could get close to one of the gods of motorsport.

The pomp and pageantry was impressive. As it was memorial weekend, there was a large military focus to proceedings. There were many parades and when the Star Spangled Banner was being sung and a B52 bomber flew overhead I almost starting chanting “USA USA USA” myself. For Americans it means a lot, to the non-Americans it just adds to the show.

The cars. Wow. The first time I saw practice a couple of things hit me. Firstly, outside of a top fuel dragster I had never seen a racing car travel so fast. They were hitting 230mph coming into turn 1 and barely lifting off as they turned in. They were visually so quick that you didn’t quite believe what you were seeing. A super speedway is so different to anything else, and from lap one I was hooked.

Secondly the cars were moving about more than I thought they would, even the Indy Lights cars. A trimmed out car will go fast, but it will be on the edge, it’s that old balancing act. In the Indy Lights race Aaron Telitz had visible slip angle through turn 1 lap after lap as he was chasing down eventual winner Matheus Leist.

At the 2018 Indy 500, a series of crashes took place, seemingly the new aero kit, or the higher than normal temperatures (one of the hottest 500s on record), meant cars were spinning on the exit of corners. Losing it on the exit suggests the rear aero balance is too much on a knife edge, or the rear tyres were overheating, especially following another car in dirty air.

I like this in a way as contrary to popular belief the drivers aren’t flat out all the way around the lap. A lap is made up of 4 almost flat out corners. Each corner is slightly different, particularly when you factor in the wind. The rewards come when the drivers take and sustain most risk, or get the setup spot on, or both!

The crashes at Indy are all big. In 2017 Conor Daly came through turn 3 during the race and started twitching. He corrected it a couple of times then as quick as you could think “he is going to crash” he hit the wall hard in front of us. Big shunt, race over, out of the car, wave to the crowd, more whooping and cheering.

The racing is what it’s about though. The 2017 race had some of the most impressive moves that I’ve ever seen. It’s the speed, the closeness of the action, the consequences for getting it wrong.

The best race that I had ever seen (before Indy) was a Caterham race at Donington Park in the early 2000s. For about 20 laps we arched our necks looking for the pack to come round again to see yet another lead change. They were doing 100mph down the Craner Curves, 3 wide at times. The Indycars were doing the same thing at 230mph into a wall lined corner, 4 abreast at one point!

I can honestly say that for every green flag lap at Indy I was on the edge of my seat. You could see nearly a mile down the straight and if a driver was in the draft, you then knew there was going to be some action as they reached you. I saw perhaps 50 overtakes down into turn 3, one of them Castroneves on Sato in the 2017 race was the best overtake I had ever seen in my 25 years of spectating at motorsport events. Around the outside, literally inches apart. The next lap round Sato was ahead again, having completed a similarly daring move into turn 1.

Some of the moves Alexander Rossi pulled in the 2018 race were epic. He squeezed inside Sebastien Bourdais right in front of me into turn 3, I knew there was going to be an almighty shunt, it never happened though. They both somehow got through. Right from the first lap to the last it was exciting, it was raw and visceral, it’s exactly what racing should be.

The question is often asked what is the best race in the world. F1 fans will likely say the Monaco Grand Prix. Sportscar fans will probably say Le Mans, whereas motorbike fans will likely say the Isle of Man TT. Australian fans will probably say Bathurst and NASCAR fans will say the Daytona 500. I know what Indycar fans would say, and I would say the same.