Dirty, densely populated, with inadequate resources, some displays of shocking behavior, and plenty of excitement — sounds like a city, doesn’t it? The Indianapolis 500 really is a daylong pop-up city, and the guesstimated attendance of half a million makes it a much, much larger one than Cincinnati.
Above, $20 lawn parking across the street from the entrance to the track. [The residents of the town of Speedway really rake it in on this one day.] Below, $5 parking on a church lawn a little further away:
Bringing in the cornhole:
This is how we rolled:
Vintage B-25 bombers:
This is about as much as one can see from the infield:
We got to sleep in until 6am because our dedicated friends got up at 4am in order to get their cars and all their gear into the infield:
Here’s a mere sliver of the line to the ladies’ room. This year, my friends and I chose to pee in the grass, between cars. If you think that’s disgusting, consider that we avoided the puke-filled troughs of the restroom facilities:
We put all of our trash into our own trash bags but, in the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t make an iota of difference:
Here is the special ticket stub receptacle area:
Sometime after the fall of Western civilization, people will look back at this day, “the greatest spectacle in racing,” and realize that the signs were there.
Oy! I hope to never be caught in a situation like that.
Okay, but you’re missing out. If you could let go of social propriety, hygienic standards, and environmental concerns for one day, this is actually a lot of fun. A lot. Each year has 364 other days for recycling, being sober, and taking advantage of modern restroom facilities.
on the parking front, I went to Formula 1 every year they hosted it, they charged $25 a day for Fri-Sat and $40 for Sunday, think about Formula1, Indy car and the Brickyard 400 and those people are racking in some serious Christmas money.
The Formula 1 fans were totally nuts, face paint costumes gigantic flags, wild.
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Ha, great pics!
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