Centennial Celebration

May 23, 2011



Oriol Servia





Centennial Celebration

This year marks 100 years since the first running of my favorite event, The Indianapolis 500. The first race was held in 1911 and it has been run every year since with the exception of the war years when the famous race was not held. The race is something that is a part of the life experience of everyone who grew up in Indianapolis like I did and I had been going out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway every year since my father and grandfather took me for my first visit in 1968 at age four.

Dario Franchitti



Each year I return for the Indy 500 and this year will mark my 39th straight year of attending the race. For the past few years, I have also managed to cash in some frequent flyer miles to attend the qualifying weekend and with this being the centennial, I flew up to Indianapolis last weekend to see the final practice and attend the two days of qualifying for the race, before returning home to work this week before heading back later this week for the race itself.

Bob Jenkins & Jon Beekhuis



The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is doing all sorts of cool stuff to honor its 100 year history and this year I wanted to take as much in as possible considering how important the race is to me personally. Sadly once again, Kathy is in her final weeks of school and was not able to attend with me. She really enjoys going and has been able to make it on a few occasions, but not this year.

Willy T Ribbs



I flew up late Thursday after work, so that I could be out at the track early on Friday for Fast Friday, the final full day of practice for the race. This year there were 41 car/driver combinations attempting to get in to the 33 car field, the most in years and making the race was more difficult than ever.





The weather, which had been terrible during the first week of practice, was spectacular. On Friday meaning the teams were all out trying to find the speed necessary to qualify for the race. It was a very busy day of practice. Every team save one made it out to practice. The one that didn’t was that of Simona De Silvestro who had been involved in a wicked crash the previous day (see video below). Remarkably, Simona walked away and only suffered burns to her hands. She was cleared to attempt to qualify over the weekend and the team spent Friday preparing her back-up car.

Simona De Silvestro’s Crash

On track, Helio CastroNeves had the fastest time of the practice with a lap at 228,611 mph, leading 6 drivers who were over 228 and 12 over 227, It was a fast and busy day. Off the track there were some special events as well, such as the unveiling of a brand new postage stamp that commemorates the 100 year history of the speedway.



Bryan Clausen

Lindy Thackston

I also paid a visit to the Hall of Fame Museum located in the infield. There they had the largest assemblage of winning cars ever brought together in one place. Every car on display was a past winner. Having witnessed close to 40 of them in person over the years, it was like a trip back down memory lane. It made me recall my father and grandfather and that day in 1968 that I only recall from grainy home movies and all the many years and good times that I have had at the Speedway since.