Sold-Out 109th Indy 500 Treats Fans to the 'Greatest Spectacle in Racing'

Car and Driver

26-05-2025

For the hundreds of thousands of IndyCar fans who make the pilgrimage to Speedway, Indiana, on Memorial Day weekend, Sunday is Christmas in May. This weekend, we watched a rookie start from pole position for the first time since 1996, six Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles duke it out in a wiener-takes-all showdown at the inaugural Weenie 500, and three-time IndyCar champion Álex Palou sip ice-cold whole milk from a frosted bottle in Victory Lane. The 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 certainly lived up to the race's "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" nickname.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Álex Palou after winning the 109th running of the Indy 500.
For something to be a spectacle, it has to have spectators, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) has plenty of room for fans. The race's 115-year-old venue is not only the oldest continually operated race track in the United States, but it's also the highest-capacity sports venue in the world, with over 257,000 permanent seats and room for an additional 100,000 fans to pack into its 253-acre infield. To put those numbers in perspective, the Brickyard could accommodate the entire population of Iceland with a bit of room left over.
The applause from this year's crowd was particularly deafening, as the 500 drew one of the biggest crowds in recent memory. All quarter-million permanent seats were sold on the Friday before race weekend, and another 100,000 or so fans littered the infield. It is the first time that the event has sold out its grandstands since the 100th running of the race in 2016, making it a particularly massive year for fan turnout.
Indy 500 Returns to a Sell-Out Crowd
When asked why he thought this year's race attracted nearly record numbers, Michael Kaltenmark, IMS senior director of marketing, told Car and Driver that the sell-out was the result of multiple factors compounding over time. "It's a testament to the work that we've put in over the last several years to really position the Indy 500 as a bucket-list sporting event," said Kaltenmark. "The drivers have been a great promotional force, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our new broadcast partner, Fox, which has provided an amount of promotion that is unlike anything I've ever seen."
"The goal was to keep 50 percent of the new faces we saw in 2016, and that's what the team did in 2017. Then we've tried to grow audience size by 10 percent in the years following, and other than during COVID, we've mostly hit our marks," he said. "The Indy 500 is epic, and it's unique, and we've really tried to get that point across to not just our core fan base, but also to those who have a more general interest in bucket list sporting events."
While "epic" is certainly an accurate description of seeing 33 700-hp monsters fly around an oval at an average speed of nearly 170 mph, the Indy 500's uniqueness is arguably its main attraction. Many of its idiosyncrasies stem from nearly a century of tradition and history. Ever since Louis Meyer requested buttermilk as a thirst-quencher after his second Indy win in 1936, every subsequent winner—other than Emerson Fittipaldi in 1993, who opted for orange juice—has continued the tradition with their milk of choice. Forget champagne.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Louis Meyer, a three-time Indy 500 winner, waves to fans.
Another unwavering tradition is the pre-race performance of "Back Home Again in Indiana," which has been a staple since opera singer James Melton silenced the crowd with his golden pipes in 1946. It's an especially important tradition for the local crowd, which Kaltenmark says makes up the vast majority of the Indy audience. "We attract ticket buyers from as many as 35 countries, but the majority of our ticket buyers come from central Indiana, the state of Indiana, and the surrounding states. It's largely a local audience," said Kaltenmark.
Meet the Indy 500 Fans in the Stands
Hometown support is so important to the race that there has been a nearly permanent local TV blackout in place since 1951, with the goal of enticing locals to come to the race instead of watching it from home. There have only been a handful of occasions since 1951 that the race has been broadcast live in Indianapolis, including the 100th race in 2016, during the COVID years when fan attendance wasn't possible, last year due to the rain delay, and this year thanks to the huge number of ticket sales.
While locals had the option to watch the race on TV this weekend, it took less than a minute of walking the grandstands on the outside of turn one to find a native Hoosier who wouldn't dare miss the race in person. Edward Davis has been attending the race for over a half-century, originally by chance. "I've been going to qualifying since I was two years old, and I've been coming to the race itself since my mother won our tickets from a grocery store raffle in 1974," he said. Edward has been renewing his tickets ever since that stroke of luck, and he has no plan on stopping. "I'm fortunate to have been [to the Indy 500] so many times, and I'll keep coming back as long as the good lord lets me," he said.
Austin Parsons
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Car and Driver
Edward Davis enjoys the 109th running of the Indy 500.
Craig Price is another fan with generational Indy enthusiasm encoded into his DNA. He has had tickets on the front straight approaching turn one since the centennial race running in 2016, but his history with the Indy 500 stretches back to the years following World War II. "I grew up in Kansas, and my dad was a World War II pilot," said Craig. "In 1954, he learned that they broadcast the race on the armed forces' short-wave radio broadcast. Back then, the announcers would list the drivers running in the top 10 along with their speeds every 10 laps. So, every year for many years, dad would sit out back in a lawn chair and write down all of the 10-lap updates on sheets of paper." Craig isn't sure where the thick pile of lap charts is currently, but they'd make a wonderful heirloom for his daughter, who is a third-generation fan and has Indy tickets of her own.
Austin Parsons
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Car and Driver
Craig Price attends the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500.
The family aspect of the race also rings true for Larrian Gillespie, who brought her daughter to the Indy 500 for the first time in 2021. 'It was a great mother-daughter experience; I didn't even know that she liked racing until she showed up!' This time around, Larrian came with her friend, Andy, who had never been to the 500 but who had always dreamed of making the pilgrimage to the Brickyard from Myrtle Beach. 'It's always been one of my top bucket list items,' he explained.
Austin Parsons
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Car and Driver
Larrian Gillespie and her friend Andy watch the 109th Indy 500 from the grandstands.
After having a wonderful chat about Larrian's 1966 MGB Roadster and elevator encounter with Mario Andretti, she summed up the Indy experience perfectly: 'It's the best experience for anyone. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are from; the pageantry and the electricity are shared amongst everyone in the audience. The people here are so kind and passionate, and they are really what makes the whole event special."
Austin Parsons
Associate Editor
Austin's car fixation began at a young age and at 1:64 scale. Eventually, Hot Wheels weren't cutting it anymore, so he developed an obsession with his father's full-sized 1965 Ford Mustang instead. Desperate to break into the automotive industry, he bartered his way into a job at a local BMW dealership by promising to stop hurling nerdy technical facts at the salesmen who came into the neighboring coffee shop where he worked. That was also around the time when he started writing automotive reviews, news articles, and technical guides for a number of local and international publications. Now at Car and Driver, Austin brings more than 10 years of experience in the automotive industry and an all-so-common love-hate relationship with German engineering to the table. Read full bio