Final practice, air demonstrations and music acts round out schedule Friday, May 24 at IMS. Read More>
Two departure times provide more flexibility for fans who want to commute to the track on their bike on Race Day. Read More>
This partnership represents the first time a major athlete's sponsorship has been decided by a vote using blockchain technology. Read More>
View images from the shortened first day of the Indianapolis 500 Open test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. View Photos>
View images from the once-in-a-lifetime Total Solar Eclipse event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. View Photos>
Josef Newgarden unveils the 2024 Indianapolis 500 Ticket View Photos>
On this episode of Doug and Drivers, 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson sits down with Doug Boles to talk about the pain of coming so close to scoring back-to-back wins, how he wanted to compete on ovals after his Formula 1 career and the transition to Andretti Global. Watch Video>
Why does Scott McLaughlin move his hands around so much in the car? What "button" is he pushing? What's the pressure of the iconic Yellow Submarine like? We cover that and so much more with Scott McLaughlin on the latest Doug and Drivers. Watch Video>
On this episode of Behind the Bricks, IMS President Doug Boles truly goes behind the bricks of the IMS Museum and checks in on the renovation progress. He also gets an exclusive look at the vision of the refreshed Museum, which opens a year from this week. The Museum is a separate entity from IMS and is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Consider supporting the Museum by visiting imsmuseum.org Watch Video>
May 19, 2020 | By Donald Davidson, Indianapolis Motor Speedway
“Kissing the Bricks” is a much more recent Indianapolis Motor Speedway tradition, and it is well-documented.
It debuted at the third running of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 event in 1996. While in Victory Circle that year, crew chief Todd Parrott reminded driver Dale Jarrett that they had joked in practice, “If we win this thing, we should go out and kneel down and kiss the bricks.” They proceeded to do precisely that, just the two of them, and it was so spontaneous that it is fortunate anybody captured it on film.
Ricky Rudd followed their lead and kissed the bricks in 1997, after which it eventually developed into a major and much-orchestrated photo “opp,” with countless variations of driver and crew chief, driver and owner, driver with family, entire crew, and on and on and on.
Indianapolis 500 winners have followed suit in more recent years, the late Dan Wheldon believed to have been the first. Whenever the conducted “Grounds Tours” are available to the general public at various times of the year, the “kissing of the bricks” is a surprisingly popular feature, visitors from all over the world apparently knowing about it.