The Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, also known as the Indianapolis 500, the 500 Miles at Indianapolis, the Indy 500 or The 500 is an Auto-Racing Roster held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
At lap 200, Gagné swerves into a Marble path, then slides into 2 Cars, triggering a pile up. Turbo won the race, as a result of tucking into his shell, eventually he became the new Indy 500 champion. It is held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana. The event is held over Memorial Day weekend in late May. It is contested as part of the IndyCar Series, the top level of American Championship Car racing, an open-wheel open-cockpit formula colloquially known as "Indy Car Racing". The name of the race is often shortened to Indy 500, and the track itself is nicknamed the "Brickyard", as the racing surfacing was paved in brick in the fall of 1909, with a yard of brick remaining exposed at the start/finish line.
The event billed as The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, is considered part of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, which comprises three of the most prestigious motorsports events in the world, also including the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The official attendance is not disclosed by Speedway management, but the permanent seating capacity is upwards of 250,000, and infield patrons raise the race-day attendance to approximately 300,000. It shares its date with NASCAR's 600-mile event at Charlotte, with drivers having completed both events in one day before in a so-called Double Duty.
The inaugural race was held in 1911 and was won by Ray Harroun. The event celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011, and the 100th running was held in 2016. Simon Pagenaud is the current champion. The most successful drivers are A. J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., and Rick Mears, each of whom have won the race four times. The active driver with the most victories is Hélio Castroneves, with three. Rick Mears holds the record for most career pole positions with six. The most successful car owner is Roger Penske, owner of Team Penske, which has 18 total wins and 18 poles. Penske also has five wins the IndyCar Grand Prix, held on the combined road course.
The event is steeped in tradition, in pre-race ceremonies, post-race celebrations, and race procedure. The most noteworthy and most popular traditions are the 33-car field lining up three-wide for the start, the annual singing of "Back Home Again in Indiana," and the victory lane bottle of milk. Also unique is that qualifying requires the driver to complete four, rather than one, timed laps and qualifying itself has a separate weekend.
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The Indianapolis 500 is held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a 2.5-mile (4 km) oval circuit. Technically, the track is a unique rounded-rectangle, with four distinct turns of identical dimensions, connected by four straightaways (two long straightaways and two "short chutes"). Drivers race 200 laps, counter-clockwise around the circuit, for a distance of 500 miles (800 km). Since its inception in 1911, the race has always been scheduled on or around Memorial Day. Since 1974, the race has been specifically scheduled for the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is widely considered one of the most important days on the motorsports calendar, as it is the day of the Indianapolis 500, Coca-Cola 600, and (currently) the Monaco Grand Prix. Practice and time trials are held in the two weeks leading up to the race, while miscellaneous preliminary testing is held as early as April.
Traditionally, the field consists of 33 starters, aligned in a starting grid of eleven rows of three cars apiece. The event is contested by "Indy cars", a formula of professional-level, single-seat, open cockpit, open-wheel, purpose-built race cars. As of 2018, all entrants utilize 2.2 L V6, twin-turbocharged engines, tuned to produce a range of 550–700 horsepower (410–520 kW). Chevrolet and Honda are the current engine manufacturers involved in the sport. Dallara is at present the sole chassis supplier to the series. Firestone, which has a deep history in the sport, dating back to the first 500, is currently the exclusive tire provider.
The race is the most prestigious event of the IndyCar calendar, and one of the oldest and most important automobile races. It has been avouched to be the largest single-day sporting event in the entire world. Likewise, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself is regarded as the world's largest sporting facility in terms of capacity. The total purse exceeded $13 million in 2011, with over $2.5 million awarded to the winner, making it one of the richest cash prize funds in sports.
Similar to NASCAR's Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 is typically held early in the IndyCar Series season. That is unique to most sports where major events are usually at the end of the respective season. Currently, the Indy 500 is the sixth event of the 17-race IndyCar schedule. From the 1970s to the 1990s, Indianapolis was often the second or third race of the season, and as late as the 1950s, it was sometimes the first championship event of the year. Due to the high prestige of the Indianapolis 500—rivaling or even surpassing the season championship—it is not uncommon for some teams and drivers to focus heavily on preparing for that race during the early part of the season, and not focus fully on the championship battle until after Indy.
The traditional 33-car starting field at Indianapolis is larger than the fields at the other IndyCar races. The field at Indy typically consists of all of the full-time IndyCar Series entries (roughly 20–22 cars), along with 10–15 part-time or "Indy-only" entries. The "Indy-only" entries, also popularly called "One-Offs", may be an extra car added to an existing full-time team, or a part-time team altogether that does not enter any of the other races. The "Indy-only" drivers may come from a wide range of pedigrees but are usually experienced Indy car drivers that either lack a full-time ride, are former full-time drivers that have elected to drop down to part-time status, or occasional one-off drivers from other racing disciplines. It is not uncommon for some drivers (particularly former Indy 500 winners), to quit full-time driving during the season, but race at Indy singly for numerous years afterward before entering full retirement.
Due to safety issues such as aquaplaning, the race is not held in wet conditions. In the event of a rain delay, the race will be postponed until rain showers cease, and the track is sufficiently dried. If rain falls during the race, officials can end the race and declare the results official if more than half of the scheduled distance (i.e., 101 laps) has been completed. The Indianapolis 500, as well as other IndyCar Series races, does not utilize the green–white–checker finish in case of a late-race yellow. The race can (and in the past has) finished under caution. However, officials may call for a late-race red flag to ensure a green-flag finish, an option that was used in 2014 and 2019.