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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.
Indianapolis Star
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Indianapolis Star
'I don't like it': Gov. Mike Braun rebukes Beckwith for Three-Fifths Compromise comments
Gov. Mike Braun rebuked his lieutenant governor's remark that the Three-Fifths Compromise was "a great move" but stopped short of calling for an apology as others have done. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith aired his perspective in a social media video last week, arguing that the agreement made during the 1787 Constitutional Convention to count an enslaved person as three-fifths of an individual for representation purposes actually cut against the southern states' goals of enshrining slavery. The video prompted outcry from Democrats in the legislature, history professors and religious clergy, among others, who demanded that Braun publicly denounce Beckwith's comments. On April 30, Braun held an event at Fort Harrison State Park to celebrate his first 100 days in office. Afterward, he gave limited comments to reporters about the controversy. "I definitely wouldn't have used that characterization, and I don't like it," he said. He went on to chastise Beckwith. "I'm a believer that you better start thinking about what you're saying before it comes out," he said. "And I think that you don't want to make headlines the wrong way, because it takes away from the substance of what you're trying to do in general." It's not the first rift between the governor and his No. 2. Their paired ticket was the work of state delegates at the Republican convention, not Braun's choice. Braun has always preferred to steer clear of the controversial culture-war topics that are Beckwith's bread and butter. In one previous instance, Braun expressed disdain over Beckwith's comments that he would identify state employees to fire based on who includes pronouns in their emails. For Beckwith's most recent remarks, the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis also demanded that he issue a retraction and an apology. A petition circulating makes the same ask. Rather than doing so, Beckwith doubled down in an April 29 interview with WIBC's Rob Kendall and Casey Daniels. "I would have done it a hundred times over exactly the same way I did it," he said. "I said exactly what needed to be said." Beckwith made the initial video immediately following a Senate floor debate over Senate Bill 289, the main anti-DEI bill of the legislative session. Democratic Sen. La Keisha Jackson of Indianapolis mentioned the Three-Fifths Compromise as an example of historical policies in the U.S. that have dehumanized or disenfranchised Black people. "They're using revisionist history to bludgeon the character of this amazing constitutional republic that we have," Beckwith said of Senate Democrats in the Tuesday interview. The Senate Democratic caucus said in a statement Monday that Beckwith's comments were not only inaccurate, but "morally bankrupt." "No compromise that counted human beings as fractions can ever be anything but a stain on our nation's conscience," they wrote. State Rep. Earl Harris Jr., D-East Chicago, the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus chair, on Tuesday called Beckwith's video "rage bait." "To argue that the 3/5 Compromise was the North's attempt at playing 'the long game' to undermine the South is not just a gross misunderstanding of history, it's a purposeful whitewashing of it for political gain and media attention," he said.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mike Braun got suckered into a tax-cut promise he couldn't keep
Few people so bad at politics have made it so far as Gov. Mike Braun. Money can do that for you. It can open doors to halls of power. It just can't give you directions once you walk through. Eventually, you need to figure out where you're going. Braun in three months as Indiana governor has shown he's as lost and rudderless as he ever was in the U.S. Senate. Braun adopted his lieutenant governor's top priority of slashing property taxes, aligned himself with conservative WIBC talk-show host Rob Kendall to gain favor with the conservative base, made promises he couldn't keep and now he's rammed through middle-of-the-night legislation that everyone hates. Briggs: How Mike Braun can be a good governor (in spite of Micah Beckwith) This was Braun's honeymoon. He threw it away. The job only gets harder from here. Passing property tax cuts was supposed to make Braun more popular. Instead, his botched strategy has blown up his first term, turned all sides against him and limited his prospects for doing anything of consequence. Braun can look forward to three-plus years of constant conflict and an energetic primary challenge in 2028, should he decide to run again. Braun is living every day with the consequences of his failure to choose a lieutenant governor who could win at last year's Republican Party convention. Remember what Braun said after Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith won and hitched himself to the Braun ticket? "There's no doubt about this: I'm in charge," Braun told reporters at the time. Wrong. Braun let himself get suckered into campaigning for governor on an impossible Beckwith-inspired property tax cut plan and then adopted Beckwith's media strategy of appearing on Kendall's WIBC show. WIBC is a conservative radio station, but Kendall is hostile to moderate Republicans. Former Gov. Eric Holcomb used to pretend Kendall didn't exist. Braun, once a target of Kendall's criticism, thought he could turn things around and make Kendall like him. It worked, for a minute, because Braun told Kendall's audience (and Beckwith's supporters) what they wanted to hear: The government is wasting your money and we can give it back to you. Here's the thing: Beckwith can make crazy promises because he doesn't have real responsibilities. Braun has to govern, and he should have known that setting expectations too high would come back to haunt him. Braun not only shot for the moon, but then doubled down when lawmakers watered down his proposed tax cut. Braun last month made himself the third wheel at a Kendall-Beckwith rally for lower property taxes at the Statehouse. 'We'll land this plane in a good place that gives real relief and keeps our governments healthy,' Braun promised during the rally, per the Indiana Capital Chronicle. 'But if it isn't for this (rally), they're going to keep trying to push for nothing. And nothing isn't good enough.' Actually, nothing would have been Braun's best-case scenario — certainly better than the something he ended up with. The Indiana General Assembly worked Monday into Tuesday to pass legislation centered on a $300 property tax credit that provides marginal, temporary tax relief for two-thirds of homeowners and costs hundreds of millions of dollars to schools and local governments, which can now respond by raising taxes to offset Braun's bill. Briggs: The Braun-Beckwith plan to abolish Carmel Braun and legislative leaders are framing the high-cost, low-reward bill as "historic property tax relief to Hoosiers," but no one is buying it — least of all Beckwith. "NOBODY understands this thing… including me! The Gov needs to VETO this thing, call a special session and demand the legislature pass something that the average Hoosier can understand without hiring army of lawyers and accountants," Beckwith said on social media. So begins the Braun-Beckwith breakup. Much like when Braun pretended to object to 2020 election results because he thought it would earn him political points, Braun cozied up to Beckwith's supporters and Kendall's audience without considering what it would cost him when he failed to deliver. That's what Braun does. He's always riding the coattails of someone else's political movement, without any apparent consideration for where it's taking him. This outcome was inevitable. Braun had no shortage of responsible Republican leaders telling him Indiana's towns and schools couldn't afford the kind of tax cut he was promising. He pledged to do it anyway, right up until the moment he caved. In so doing, Braun sold out moderate Republicans, who have to defend this mess, and he sold out the party's right flank, which expected Braun to fight to the finish for major property tax cuts. Braun has wasted his political capital on a cause he didn't believe in, while emboldening Beckwith to oppose him and setting up Kendall to spend the next few years talking about "Back Room Braun." After yet another bout of political malpractice, I have to ask: Why did Braun want this job? Why did he work so hard to obtain the power of a governor, just so he can drift in the wind? What does he actually believe in enough to fight for it? If Braun can't demonstrate answers to those questions, he might follow up his inglorious Senate career by being an insignificant one-term governor. Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or Follow him on X and Bluesky at @JamesEBriggs. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mike Braun's property tax cut fails to deliver | Opinion
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Radio personalities headline property tax rally at Indiana Statehouse
Hundreds of Hoosiers attended a property tax rally on March 17, 2025, urging lawmakers to provide relief after back-to-back increases. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Hundreds of irate property owners gathered at the Indiana Statehouse on St. Patrick's Day to pressure lawmakers into adopting Gov. Mike Braun's plan for tax cuts, led by popular conservative radio personalities Rob Kendall, Casey Daniels and Jason Hammer. Speakers had to yell to be heard over the crowd, who called out legislators by name — including Senate Majority Leader Rodric Bray and Rep. Jeff Thompson — and threatened noncompliant politicians with a primary challenger in their next election. 'At the end of this hour, I don't know what we can do (or) what we can change, but we can call out the weasels that do not have your interests in their interest,' challenged Hammer, who led several call-and-response chants. 'If you're a law-abiding taxpayer and you're pissed off, on the count of three, make as much noise as you can!' Hammer co-hosts the Hammer and Nigel Show on radio station WIBC while Kendall and Daniels headline Kendall and Casey, also on WIBC. All three pushed the property tax rally ahead of the Monday event. Speakers adopted language from national Republican leaders like President Donald Trump and his key adviser Elon Musk, calling for the slashing of government through a DOGE-like entity. Radio duo Kendall and Daniels explicitly called on lawmakers to adopt Braun's tax plan, which has been criticized for the deep cuts schools would see alongside smaller — but significant — decreases for counties, cities and townships. Some officials testified earlier this month that they would have to abort plans to expand their fire departments or reduce law enforcement services due to anticipated cuts. 'I'm asking this state government to get back on track and run itself efficiently. It's not like we're asking locals and school districts to do anything more,' Braun told the crowd. 'Government should be the most powerful at the local level, but they cannot be growing their enterprises faster than the economy grows.' Braun has criticized schools for their spending, as seen in his property tax plan that would save homeowners a collective $1.3 billion but cost schools $536 million. A former Dubois County school board member, Braun recalled an instance where the district considered replacing a $16,000 bench because of some peeling paint. Instead, another board member bought paint and hired a correction crew to paint it for $800. 'We'll land this plane in a good place that gives real relief and keeps our governments healthy,' said Braun. 'But if it isn't for this (rally), they're going to keep trying to push for nothing. And nothing isn't good enough.' Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who frequently tweeted about the rally ahead of Monday, said that he made the unusual decision to publicly campaign for his seat because 'we are being taxed way too much.' 'I've heard countless stories from people today and throughout the last two years where their property taxes have increased over 50%, 60% and even 100% in one case,' Beckwith said at the property tax rally. 'That is egregious and we need to stop it and we're going to stop it.' A trio of Republican house lawmakers called for the complete elimination of the state's property tax system, echoing sentiments on signs distributed at the rally that read 'Property tax is theft.' 'This is a radical idea for some, but what's so radical about … getting rid of something unconstitutional?' Rep. Craig Haggard, R-Mooresville, said. 'You were never meant by the forefathers to pay rent to the federal government, to the state government or to anybody else.' Rep. Andrew Ireland, who represents a sliver of Marion County, specifically called out spending in Indianapolis on public transit, drag queen story hours at the library and public health investments, likened some of the pushback to changing the diaper of his newborn. '… when these local leaders come to this building and they tell us, 'There is nothing to cut. The sky is going to fall if you cut anything.' It sure smells a lot like that green dirty diaper,' Ireland said. One elected official from Marshall County said that the system was 'so broken that I can't cut your taxes locally.' 'The system should encourage responsible spending. It should fund the services that people care about but, today, it fails on both counts,' continued Jesse Bohannon, a county commissioner. ' 'It punishes budget cutting and encourages aggressive spending. It encourages local governments to hoard money.' He called for the 'billions of dollars locked up' to be refunded to everyday taxpayers, saying government growth has outpaced inflation. Three separate property tax plans have been introduced thus far at the Statehouse from Braun, Senate Republicans and Rep. Jeff Thompson, the House's key budget architect and chair of the Ways and Means Committee. Each takes a different approach to property taxes, balancing relief for homeowners with the budget needs of local units of government. While Braun's proposal offered the most tax relief, it also sharply reduced school budgets. Thompson's pitch, on the other hand, had limited savings for homeowners and the smallest cuts for government services. Braun floated the possibility that he would veto the Senate plan last month. Property tax rally attendees also urged Braun to call for a special session if lawmakers failed to deliver relief. What will stay in the final version of the property tax bill remains to be seen, but both Republican legislative leaders appear to have gotten their marching orders from Braun on the end goal. 'I think Gov. Braun wants to get to a place where we can say that your property taxes will be lower next year in 2026 than they are in 2025,' Bray told reporters Thursday. 'I think that's a victory for Governor Braun, it's a victory for us, it's a victory for homeowners across the state of Indiana. That would be the first and foremost goal.' House Speaker Todd Huston echoed that aim. 'The goal's to try and have the '26 property tax bill be less than the '25 property tax bill. We'll see if we can get there,' he told reporters. When asked, Huston also said he was concerned about rent — noting that some of the increase is in property taxes. Democrats were more critical. 'We need to provide some relief to Hoosiers … and then we make sure that we listen to our local governments who are saying, 'Please, we rely on our property taxes to be able to pay for our police, fire, our schools,'' Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder said on Thursday. 'And balancing those two are difficult, but we need to make sure that in the end, we get it right.' Indiana Capital Chronicle Reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz contributed to this story. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
