History
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
About the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
At over 110-years-old, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the oldest continually operating racetrack in the United States and is known as The Greatest Race Course in the World. With more than 250,000 permanent seats, it is the world’s largest sports seating facility and hosts the largest single-day sporting event in the world, the Indianapolis 500.
Since its opening, the Speedway has been a proving ground for automobiles and an important factor in the development of the present-day automobile. The Speedway has been the scene of more than 100 Indianapolis 500 Mile Races, the Sonsio Grand Prix and the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, the NASCAR Cup Series’ Brickyard 400, Formula One, MotoGP, sports car racing, dirt track racing and more, playing host to many of the greatest champions, pioneers and innovators in auto racing, motorcycle and aviation competition history.
Built in the spring of 1909, IMS was the result of a creative vision of Carl G. Fisher and his three partners in the venture, James Allison, Arthur Newby and Frank Wheeler. The track, which was originally paved in crushed stone and tar, had an original purpose to serve as a common testing facility for the rapidly growing local automobile industry. In the fall of 1909, the 2.5-mile oval was repaved with 3.2 million bricks, helping it to become known as The Brickyard.