If you were to try to build something as colossal as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today, you’d be hard-pressed not to ask for public help.
It would be a government project, like Lucas Oil Stadium or Conseco Fieldhouse, or else it wouldn’t happen.
But a century ago, there was none of that. Four entrepreneurs simply got together, bought some land from a couple of farmers, drew up an oval-shaped track and paved the thing. They figured they’d make money renting it out to car manufacturers as a testing track and by selling tickets to the occasional race.
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IMS History: Decade-by-decade by evolution of the world’s most famous racetrack.
“Indy” was coined by out-of-town journalists sometime after World War II, as slang not for the city but for the Speedway.
It was Marmon that won the first 500. Marmon called its car the Wasp for its yellow and black color scheme, but historic photographs indicate that the Speedway’s early spectators also were WASP-like, the men wearing suits, the women in long dresses.
Ray Harroun was the driver who won the first Indianapolis 500, but it was the car’s manufacturer that reaped the benefits, as sales of Marmon’s passenger cars soared.
Today, the Marmon Group is a Chicago-based consortium of 130 companies with revenues of about $7 billion; when Harroun died in 1968, his home was a trailer on the south side of Anderson. Evolution of the Speedway
It was about the time of Harroun’s death that track owner Tony Hulman (Yale, Class of 1924) grew tired of the creeping “Indy.” He made a point of asking radio commentators to say “Indianapolis” instead, because it sounded more prestigious, Davidson says.
For the 2001 500, there was an attempt to make the scene more hip. It went horribly wrong. Steven Tyler, of the rock group Aerosmith, was enlisted to sing the national anthem. Indy favorite Florence Henderson, “The Brady Bunch” mom, had to move over to “America the Beautiful.”
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The city of Indianapolis also is tradition-bound. “Indianapolis has rarely been an innovator,” says David J. Bodenhamer, historian and editor of The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis.
But, Bodenhamer says, the city’s “aversion to risk is overstated,” and often the city has been an “early adopter of successful innovations.”
“While it’s true we may be less prone to take huge risks, we like and admire a guy who will, or gal,” says Bill Benner, Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association spokesman, a longtime sports commentator and born-and-bred Hoosier.
Indianapolis these days is far more than the Speedway. It’s the Colts; it’s the Pacers; it’s the site of Final Fours; and in 2012, it’s the Super Bowl.
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