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Indianapolis Star
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
Indianapolis 500 traditions start before the race and continue after
The Indianapolis 500 has many long-standing traditions that fans and drivers love about the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Here are some of the most-beloved Indy 500 traditions, some of what sets this apart from most sporting events. Alice Greene, a copywriter for WIBC radio, is credited with coining the phrase "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" in 1954. On the air, legendary Indy 500 voice Sid Collins made it famous. Louis Meyer, parched after becoming the first three-time Indy 500 winner in 1936, asked for buttermilk in Victory Lane. He had just driven for 4 1/2 hours in the heat. And his mother had told him years earlier that milk was good to drink on hot days, so that's what he requested. A dairy industry executive saw a photo of Meyer drinking the milk and decided to offer it to winners thereafter. The Indiana Dairy Association became an official sponsor in the 1950s, and these days every driver is asked what kind of milk they prefer — whole, 2% or skim — just in case they get the opportunity to celebrate with it. Why do they drink milk?: Why does the Indy 500 winner drink milk? 2025 driver choices (A note: Buttermilk and chocolate milk are not options. And most of the milk is going to be poured on the winner's head anyway, so the flavor isn't that big of a deal.) (Another note: Emerson Fittipaldi made what was considered a faux pas in 1993 when he sipped milk, then pulled out some orange juice to drink. He was promoting his orchard business in Brazil, but fans weren't pleased.) Jim Rathmann received a wreath after winning the 1960 Indy 500, and the winner has donned one every year since. The wreath is made of 33 ivory colored Cymbidium orchids with burgundy tips and 33 miniature flags. Paving bricks — 3.2 million of them — once covered the entire 2.5-mile oval, but over time different sections of the racing surface have been paved. Since 1961, a 3-foot wide section at the start/finish line still has bricks. Hence, the terms "Yard of Bricks" and "Brickyard." The Indy 500 borrowed this tradition from NASCAR's Brickyard 400. Dale Jarrett kissed the bricks after his 1996 victory, and Gil de Ferran picked it up for the 2003 Indy 500. Now, everyone who wins at the facility — car racers, air racers, golfers — make sure they kiss the bricks. Helio Castroneves couldn't contain himself after winning the 2001 Indy 500 as a rookie. As he had done at some other races, he rushed to the outside fence and climbed it to celebrate with fans. Many race winners have followed suit. Two-time defending champion Josef Newgarden has found an opening in the fence near the start-finish line, and he has wriggled through it to join fans after his wins 2023 and '24. He's trying to become the first driver to win three straight Indy 500s. The trophy, which debuted after the 1936 race, includes the image of every race winner. The trophy cost $10,000 to produce but is insured for well over $1 million. The trophy had room for 70 images, and since the race is more than a century old, a larger base allows for winners through 2033. It stands about 5-foot-4 and 153 pounds. Starting in 1988, the Speedway started handing out "Baby Borgs," 18-inch versions of the trophy, to winning drivers. Team owners also received Baby Borgs starting in 1997. The song has been part of the pre-race festivities since the 1940s, and many stars of their era have had the honor. Jim Nabors' version is the most revered. He sang it most years from 1972-2014. Jim Cornelison now handles the song. For years, thousands of red, while and blue balloons were released in the moments leading up to the race. According to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony Hulman's mother, Grace Smith Hulman, first suggested the balloon release. Since 1950, the release coincided with the final notes of "(Back Home Again In) Indiana." The last time balloons were released was in 2019. From 2022: IMS pauses balloon release at Indy 500, partially due to environmental concerns The command to start the engines is believed to have started in 1946, the first race after a long race hiatus for World War II. In 1977, the command became "In company with the first lady ever to qualify at Indianapolis, gentlemen, start your engines," to accommodate Janet Guthrie's history-making debut. Now, the command is, "Drivers, start your engines," or "Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines." After a COVID-19 pandemic break, the parade that usually attracts more than 100,000 to downtown Indianapolis returns. Drivers, bands, celebrities and grand marshal Scot Pollard greet those lining the streets. Retro Indy: See photos of the 500 Festival parade through the years Since 2002, a Chevrolet has paced the field to the green flag. In 2025, it will be a 2025 Chevrolet Corvett ZR1, with Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan driving.
Axios
22-05-2025
- Health
- Axios
Take a tour of Indianapolis Motor Speedway's infield care center
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield holds the famed Pagoda, the pits, garages, a whole other racetrack, a golf course, and, on race day, the state's busiest emergency room. Why it matters: About 350,000 people will be packed into IMS on Sunday and several hundred of them are expected to need medical attention. Driving the news: Axios toured IU Health's infield care center, which was renovated in 2023. What they're saying:"One, maybe two days a year, we will be the busiest emergency department in the state depending on how hot Carb Day is," Tracy Ballard, clinic operations manager for the IMS infield care center and IndyCar, told Axios. How many patients they see is weather dependent, Ballard said, with heat being the biggest factor. It usually ranges between 100 and 300 over 12 hours on race day. "We see everything that a normal emergency department would see," she said. "We see cuts, scrapes, bruises … folks that have maybe celebrated a little too much with alcohol." They also see fans with more serious conditions, like a stroke or cardiac arrest. By the numbers: The facility has 18 beds — 14 for the public and four in an area that's just for the drivers. The public side is divided between beds for less serious conditions and an area for more critical care. That includes a resuscitation bay, allowing doctors to stabilize individuals before transporting them to a hospital if needed. Plus: There are 14 first aid stations throughout the track. Zoom in: The center is equipped to deal with any situation the track may throw at drivers racing open-wheel, open cockpit cars at 230-plus mph. That includes X-rays, ultrasound and, during the Month of May and Brickyard 400 NASCAR race, whole blood for transfusion. A helicopter is on site, though an ambulance can get to the hospital faster when traffic isn't bad. On race day, a neurologist, orthopedic surgeon, trauma surgeon and optometrist are on site — just in case. IU Health also provides medical coverage on pit lane, with four paramedics or EMTs. State of play: During all races on the oval track, drivers have to get checked out at the care center after any contact with the wall. During road races, they don't have to come in if they can drive away from the incident. Between the lines: It's not just the Month of May that the facility is open. "There are events from March through October out here at IMS," Ballard said. "So anytime IMS asks us to be open for larger events or for private tests, anything that you have going on out here, we are open."
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
This C8 Corvette-Based Van Aims to Be the World's Fastest Food Truck
Food trucks may be a wonderful way to get fast food, but they're not exactly known for driving fast. There's an exception to every rule, however. In this case, it's 'The Vettro,' the creation of a man named LJ Koch who took a C8 Corvette engine and chassis and put a 1952 International Metro van over it to create a truly unique – and possibly the world's fastest — food truck. To prove just how fast this food truck is, Koch will be taking it to the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July, where it will attempt to set the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed achieved by a food truck. The Guinness records council has set the record target speed of 130 mph. For reference, General Motors claims that a 2021 Chevroley Corvette Stingray Z51 has a top speed of 184 mph; then again, a regular Corvette Stingray has a shape that is a bit sleeker than that of a 1952 International Metro van. Still, 130 mph seems achievable. The entire build process has documented on Luc's Fajita Hut Instagram account, but in a nutshell: Koch purchased the van a few years ago for $400 to use for his Luc's Fajita Hut food truck business. After about 1500 hours' of work, the van was ready to be a fully functioning food truck in September of 2019. It was great for serving up tasty meals, but like most food trucks, it wasn't very fast. Enter the Corvette. According to a report by when Koch saw the C8 Corvette pop up for sale in 2022, he grabbed it. It was a brand-new 2021 model that most people would pamper, but Koch decided to take a Sawzall to it. He cut the car up so it could be married to the Metro van and take a run at a never-before-attempted world record. After about two years of work, the result is incredible. It's still a fully functioning food truck, but it's all Corvette underneath. The Corvette seats, dash, steering wheel — even the wall of buttons that's been since banished from the C8 remains in place. Should all go according to plan in a couple months, Koch can take The Vettro for a blast at triple-digit speeds on the racetrack, set a Guinness record, then pull into the paddock and reward himself with up a batch of fajitas. Not a bad day. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
Indianapolis Star
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
44 years in Turn 3: Death of Indy 500 photographer leaves void at IMS
INDIANAPOLIS -- The photos were placed neatly beneath the glossy, plastic sheets buried among the pages of a nondescript, worn album that Bob Ruddick kept tucked away inside his Muncie home -- a sequence of devastating, brilliant photos of the horrific 1982 Indianapolis 500 qualifying crash that killed Gordon Smiley. It was a harrowing, gruesome accident, a fatal flip that happened when Smiley's car slammed into the wall as he was coming out of Turn 3 during a warm-up prior to qualifications. The car burst into flames, became airborne and Smiley was thrown hundreds of feet. He died instantly from the massive trauma. "It was the most devastating crash in Speedway history," the Indianapolis Star reported May 16, 1982. Everyone at the track was grief stricken. Ruddick never talked about the heart-wrenching images he had captured of that sad, historic moment in racing. His graphically-detailed photos of the crash that killed Smiley were never published. His son Matt Ruddick had no idea his father had taken those Smiley photos -- or many other photos in that album -- during his 44-year side job as a freelance photographer at IMS for the Indianapolis Star. He knew his father spent the month of May at the track, using up all his vacation days from General Motors in one fell swoop -- not to relax but to spend weeks roaming the grounds where the engines roared with a camera in hand. "Some of those photos, he never showed anybody. He didn't really talk about that a whole lot," said Matt Ruddick. "He always saw that as, 'Yeah, I got it, I did my job. Nobody needs to know anything about that after that.'" As Ruddick spent all those years at the track, he never wanted to stand out. He wanted to be in the background. "It was very like an old news person way of thinking. You don't insert yourself into the story," said Matt Ruddick. "He never said that, but it was very obvious that's what he was doing." Ruddick may not have talked about it much, but his passion for what he did came through to everyone around him, like osmosis, Matt Ruddick said. And that passion for his beloved part-time gig came through again in a very emotional way last May when Ruddick was in a hospital bed fighting Stage 4 lymphoma. He was desperate to be at IMS, but doctors told him he was too sick to shoot the Indy 500. "They told him, 'You don't need to be going out to the track again this May,'" Matt said. "Which was certainly disappointing for him." Even fighting cancer, Ruddick made it back out to the Speedway two months later to shoot the Brickyard 400 in July. He got one last race doing what he loved most. "I never saw Bob without a smile on his face. It was clear that he loved what he did, and he radiated that joy to everyone around him," said Max Gersh, senior visuals editor for IndyStar. "He was always willing to help others. He forgot more about the track than I'll ever know, and he was always happy to share that knowledge. "The month of May will not be the same without him." When Ruddick died in January, the people who loved him at IMS started talking. They started talking about May. They knew this May and this Indy 500 would be different without him around. "There will be a void," said Jimmy Dawson, who spent more than 50 years as a track photographer and was a good friend of Ruddick's. "He had 44 years in. That doesn't just go away without notice." Ruddick was just a tiny boy when he caught the racing bug from his dad, Jackie, who was on the IMS Safety Patrol, known in the modern-day era as "yellow shirts." Ruddick went to his first race when he was 2. "Dad really kind of grew up at the Speedway," said Matt Ruddick. "He grew up there, really in every sense of the word." As a young man, Ruddick even dipped his toe into racing a bit at local street stock cars races. And in the early- to mid-1970s, he followed in his dad's footsteps and worked as a "yellow shirt." But his real job was as a machine repairman at GM, which he started shortly after graduating high school. Then one day, he picked up a camera and started shooting races in Indiana and Ohio -- sprint cars, midgets, anything with speed. Ruddick would go around to different tracks with his racing photographer cohort Dawson, who also worked at GM. And before long, the two were getting noticed for their photos. It was Dawson who first landed a job with the Indianapolis Star as a freelancer in May 1970. Not long after, The Star needed someone else and Dawson recommended Ruddick, who quickly won the job, in part, because of his stellar photographs and, in part, because of who he was. "Bob was a super nice gentleman. I never knew him to drink or smoke or anything. He enjoyed racing," said Dawson. "But he was an excellent photographer and just loved the place." Through his years at the track, Ruddick earned an unofficial nickname among fellow photographers. "Ham salad." He would pack a cooler filled with ham salad sandwiches, enough to share with other photographers. Ruddick was even known to stuff a sandwich in the pocket of his shirt and sneak it out to eat while he was shooting in Turn 3. He was also known to hand off a spare camera to his son, instilling a legacy that would live on after he died. For Matt Ruddick growing up, everything revolved around racing. If it was a Sunday, there was a race on TV. It didn't matter what else was going on. "The race is on. And he's either sitting in the chair watching it or he's out mowing the grass," said Matt. "But he's coming in between the front yard and the back yard to see who's leading, see what's going on." It didn't matter what kind of racing it was. NASCAR, IndyCar, sports cars, motorcycles. And then each year, when the month of May would hit, racing would become Ruddick's whole life. For each day of practice, Ruddick would get up at 4 a.m., sometimes 3 a.m., on his vacation from GM. He had a 90-minute drive to the Speedway from Muncie and wanted to be there early to get parked before the public gates opened. In later years, he became a mentor among fellow photographers because Ruddick knew, seemingly, anything and everything about IMS. "I recall at least at one photo safety meeting, they were going over what you could and couldn't do. Where you could and couldn't be," said Gersh. "They said, 'If anybody out in Turn 3 had questions or needed help, talk to Bob.' He was who they trusted to make sure everyone stayed safe out there." Ruddick had a lot of long days at the track, but never once was there a complaint from him, only love of the hallowed grounds of IMS. "There are days when it's hot. It's exhausting. There's a lot of walking around," said Matt. "And when I think about that and I think about what dad did, which was if there were cars on the track that day, he was there. It's pretty incredible." When he was a boy, Matt would ride down to IMS with his dad. Before Ruddick would go out to shoot in Turn 3, he would give his son a camera and Matt would go stand on the hill and shoot from behind the fence. Years later, when Matt became a credentialed IMS photographer, he realized just how engrained his father was at the Speedway. "I'm walking around in the garage and the media center and everybody knew who he was," said Matt. "There was not a stranger to Bob Ruddick at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway." Yellow shirts, race car drivers, team members, IMS president Doug Boles, gift shop workers, fans -- Ruddick knew all of them by name. And they knew Ruddick by name, too. Ruddick wasn't just a photographer. He was a mainstay at the track. And after he retired from GM nearly 20 years ago, he took on another job at the Speedway. "Dad was not somebody who liked to sit around. He needed something to do," said Matt. "And I don't think to any of our surprise, it was a pretty easy hire for them." The IMS museum hired Ruddick as a bus driver at first. Soon, he started giving tours as a guide. "He learned all the ropes. I think he worked everywhere there is to work at the Speedway except the souvenir shop," said Dawson. "And he might have done some of that when the ladies wanted to go to the bathroom. He might have even worked in the gift shop." Martie Gray, guest service manager at the museum wrote a Facebook tribute to Ruddick after his death. "Bob was more than just a co-worker. He was a cherished friend and an integral part of our team," Gray said. "His unwavering commitment, positive spirit and compassion made a lasting impact on all of us." It was heart valve issues that first sent Ruddick to the hospital. That's when doctors discovered a spot on his lung they suspected might be cancerous. From there, Ruddick was in and out of the hospital for tests and treatment, but he still made it to IMS last May for his 44th year shooting at the track. Those long days were soon too much for him, and Ruddick started having extreme fatigue. He went back to the hospital just a few days before the Indy 500. That race in 2024 would be the first he had missed since 1980. While Ruddick made it back to IMS to shoot the Brickyard 400, his health quickly declined in the following months. He died Jan. 11 with his family by his side. As his family prepared for Ruddick's celebration of life, they started sorting through all those photos. Ruddick with A.J. Foyt. Ruddick in just about every nook and cranny there was to be found at IMS. Ruddick always smiling at the Speedway. Ruddick waving from Turn 3. "My mom found all these photos," said Matt. "It was incredible." When the newly-renovated IMS museum opened in April, Matt and his mom went because they wanted to go and partly to honor Ruddick. Inside the Penske gallery, chronicling all the years that a Penske driver had won an Indy 500, Matt discovered a front page Indianapolis Star photo his father had shot of the 1981 Indy 500 Danny Ognais crash. "And I looked at Mom and I was like, 'Hey, you might want to come over and look at this,'" Matt said. "Yeah, we weren't expecting that. Dad's photo on the front page of the IndyStar." Matt Ruddick now knows that's not the only photo his dad took quietly and without fanfare, never talking about it, just doing his job at the place he loved where the engines roared. There would have been a part of Ruddick that would have been happy to know an article was being written about him for his years of unwavering service at the Speedway, said Matt. "There probably would have been a part of him that also was like, 'You know, you're wasting paper space on me.'" After all, Ruddick knew just how precious newsprint was. His photos had graced the pages of the Indianapolis Star for decades. "He did it because he loved it," said Matt. "It's as simple as that. My dad loved it."
The Irish Sun
02-05-2025
- Business
- The Irish Sun
‘Brand new route' – Aer Lingus to launch flights to major new US destination famous for sports TOMORROW
IRISH tourists have been treated to a number of new routes this year - and another one is set to take to the skies tomorrow. Advertisement 2 Aer Lingus has announced another brand new route Credit: Getty Images - Getty 2 Aer Lingus will now fly direct to Indianapolis Credit: Getty Images - Getty The airline will now fly direct to Indianapolis in This is The first This is huge news for Advertisement READ MORE IN TRAVEL And it comes just in time for the The airline said: "This is our 19th direct destination to North America from Dublin, giving you even more choice to the U.S. and "Whether you choose somewhere new or an old favourite, all of our transatlantic fares include tasty complimentary meals and personal in-flight entertainment screens." The city is famous for sports, and is home to the world's biggest single-day sporting event - the Indianapolis 500. Advertisement Most read in News Travel Tourists also flock to the city for the Brickyard 400 or to see the NFL team the Indianapolis Colts or the NBA's Indiana Pacers. But there is loads to offer for those who don't enjoy sports, including the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. This is the largest museum of its kind in the world, with exhibits on dinosaurs, space and more. The city is also home to fantastic galleries, an incredible food scene and plenty of outdoorsy adventures. Advertisement The fares to Indianapolis are return, and include taxes, charges and admin fees. A Saturday night stay is required for the deal. ANOTHER US ROUTE Aer Lingus warned: "All prices are subject to terms and conditions and are subject to availability. "Limited availability during holidays and special events." Advertisement It comes just weeks after Aer Lingus announced that it has added a . Tennessee is renowned for its country music scene, boasting connections to the likes of The new flights to the country music capital are beginning in just days. The first flight took off on April 12. Advertisement The flight time is roughly nine hours and flight prices will start at €499. From there, the flights are set to run four times weekly, meaning jetsetters can head to Nashville with ease. It means that the airline giant is now flying 22 transatlantic routes this summer.
