10 Things You Might Not Know About the Indy 500

By Bud Shaw |
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1. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway spans 253 acres and includes a golf course. The track publicity department points out that Churchill Downs, Yankee Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the Roman Colosseum and Vatican City can all fit inside. It's a good thing they never did that. The pre-1981 infield in Turn 1, famously known as The Snakepit, could make Woodstock look like church. The Pope would not have approved, or at least would've demanded shades on his windows.

2. Ray Harroun won the inaugural 500-mile race in 1911. It took him 6 hours, 42 minutes. His car, the Marmon Wasp, had what is believed to be the first rear-view mirror. He averaged 75 miles an hour. Yes. I know. Drivers today hit 80 on the interstate while using the rear-view mirror to apply makeup. But this was a hundred years ago, remember.

3. The tradition of drinking milk after the race began in 1936 with winner Louis Meyer. He drank buttermilk because his mother advised him it was a good drink for a hot day. In 1993, Emerson Fittipaldi went rogue and drank orange juice to promote citrus groves owned by his family. He then took a sip of milk, but it didn't stop fans in Wisconsin (America's Dairyland) from booing him the following week.

4. Race fans will consume 24,000 pounds of track fries Sunday. That's basically a couple adult elephants but not nearly as chewy. Peanuts, by the way, had been considered bad luck at Indy since the 1940s, though in 2009 the concession stands began selling them.

5. In 2001 Aerosmith's Steven Tyler angered fans, including some military veterans. He sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and changed the ending from "home of the brave" to "home of the Indianapolis 500." So, yes, he also ticked off people who like rhymes.

6. Bobby Unser and Mario Andretti were involved in a controversial finish in 1981. It wasn't until five months later that Unser was declared the winner. No word on whether he drank curdled milk.

7. A split between CART and Speedway owner Tony George's Indy Racing League kept some of the big names from racing at Indy in the mid-1990s. The first post-split winner, Buddy Lazier in 1996, was nevertheless a good story. He'd broken his back in a race in Phoenix a few months earlier. The accident took an unusual toll on his family. "While I was laid up," Lazier said, "my little dog -- a Lab -- ran into my mother and blew out her knee." That same year there was a driver entered named Slick Racin Gardner. Seriously.

8. In 2001 Tony Stewart raced at Indy, finishing sixth. Then he flew to Charlotte for the Coca-Cola 600 and finished third. He's the only driver to finish all 1,100 miles in the Indy-Charlotte double. Think of that the next time you start dozing 20 minutes into the drive to your mother-in-law's house.

9. Emerson Fittipaldi made his debut at Indy in 1984 driving a pink car and wearing a pink race suit. Proving that drivers will do absolutely anything for their owners and sponsors.

10. The Andrettis have bad luck. Mario Andretti won in 1969 and never again. Andrettis have lost at Indy in every excruciating way imaginable. In 1992, Mario and Jeff Andretti left the race with broken bones. John Andretti sabotaged himself by running into a pile of tires during a pit stop. And Michael Andretti was way ahead on Lap 189 of the 200-lap race before his fuel pump quit on him.

"So cruel," he said that day. "It can't get much worse than this."

I always thought that if you held a race at Indy where only Andrettis were allowed to drive, the smart money would be on the pace car or the ambulance.

Bud Shaw is a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer who has also written for the Philadelphia Daily News, San Diego Union-Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The National. You can read his Plain Dealer columns at Cleveland.com This article originally appeared in 2011.