2024 Indianapolis 500: Everything you need to know

SPEEDWAY, Indiana – The 108th Indianapolis 500 is underway. Yes, 108 times… and they didn’t run the event during either World Wars… and the track opened two years before the first 500 race.

this is old. Long ago, when the first edition of racing’s greatest spectacle raised the inaugural green flag on May 30, 1911, a large number of the 85,000 attendees arrived by horse-drawn vehicles, eager to see what would happen. There was a buzz around these new cars. The winner was Ray Harron, with his very yellow Marmon Wasp, a car that featured the first rear-view mirror.

I told you it was old

Aaron, the pride of Spartansburg, Pennsylvania, won the first race day with an average speed of 74.602 mph. On this 108th race day, the 33-car field will be led to the green flag by Scott McLaughlin, the pride of Christchurch, New Zealand, who piloted his very yellow Chevy-powered Dallara to first place via a record-breaking four-lap average. It has a speed of 234.220 mph and will do so in front of 350,000 fans.

So, what do you need to know before Sunday at 12:45 PM ET when Indianapolis Motor Speedway comes to life for the 108th time in this race? Grab some driving gloves, a helmet and a milk jug and read ahead as we present four things you need to know for the 2024 Indy 500, one for each of the 9-degree chicanes on the 2.5-mile rectangular racetrack.

Turn 1: Cheater, Cheater, Pork-Eater

Let’s start at the front, where McLaughlin and his Penske teammates, 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power and race champion Josef Newgarden, sweep the top three positions at the start. (Yes, three; the field is divided into 11 rows of three cars. No other major race in the league does this.) Starting Penske at this point isn’t exactly new — the team has won the pole a record 19 times — but it’s only the second sweep For the front row of one team, a feat he first achieved…yes, Penske, in 1988 with Rick Mears, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser.

But this season, everything Penske does is met with gestures and finger-pointing, because Newgarden and McLaughlin were stripped of their IndyCar season-opening wins and third-place finishes, respectively, at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix after series officials decided they were planning to make overtaking boosts available. Their illegal to start and restart. What is this? You know in the Fast & Furious movies when Vin Diesel presses the button that sends his car into hyperspace for a beat? IndyCars come equipped with a “push to pass” button that works like a diesel engine’s boost button, but there are limits to where and how often it can be used during a race. Penske was caught because it provided support to its drivers at the wrong times.

He plays

Josef Newgarden apologizes for breaking the rules

Josef Newgarden takes the blame for using a rigged push-and-pass system in his season-opening win in IndyCar.

Team Penske says it was a technical oversight and provided no real advantage because it wasn’t used. IndyCar saw the situation differently and took the Newgarden Cup from St. Louis. Furthermore, team president Tim Cindric, the race-day mastermind behind the team’s incredible success in recent decades, including the strategy that won the 2023 Indy 500 for Newgarden, will not be at the racetrack this week, still serving a sentence. Suspension for several races. By team boss Roger Penske, who happens to own the entire IndyCar series as well as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

embarrassed.

It was a major black eye for the sport all spring. If one of the Penske cars wins on Sunday, it will be interesting to see how the crowd, which usually loves the captain and his teams, will react.

Turn 2: Hey, what’s a Nascar guy doing here?

Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion and current series points leader, is already making his way around IMS in an IndyCar and doing it well, having qualified in the middle of the second row with a four-lap average of 232.846 mph in his car. Arrow mclaren chevy. That’s an impressive effort for anyone, but it’s the motorsport equivalent of walking on water for someone who’s never been on one of these machines before. never.

But he didn’t give up his day job. The 31-year-old will also wheel his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy around Charlotte Motor Speedway. On the same day as Indy. seriously.

He is seeking to become only the fifth driver to make an Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 doubleheader and only the second to complete the 1,100-mile distance. Drivers on both sides believe he can win one or even both events.

When talking about walking on water, its biggest problem is probably not the logistics, nor the endurance, but the weather. Forecasters are predicting up to an inch and a half of rain, and the heavy stuff is expected to blow from Carl Packler just as the green flag is supposed to be waved.

“You can’t really react until the moment,” Larson said Thursday, a great day at the Speedway. “You have a plan and a backup plan and then a backup plan for the backup plan, but in the end, you can’t know how to react until you know what to respond to. So, honestly, I’m not nervous. Yet.”

For more on everything Larson will face through the eyes of those who’ve done it before, read this story from earlier in the week, written by a handsome senior ESPN writer with glasses.

Turn 3: H5lio?

Larson received coaching help from living Indy legend Tony Kanaan, who retired after making his 22nd Indianapolis 500 start last year at the age of 48 (he considered waiting to jump in case Larson left Charlotte, but IndyCar said no). . Meanwhile, his fellow Brazilian who dabbled in the sport decades ago shows no sign of retiring anytime soon.

Helio Castroneves, who turned 49 earlier this month, is preparing for his 24th appearance and is aiming for his fifth victory. Around these parts, that’s not just a big deal — it’s an even bigger deal. Castroneves won the 500 in his first two attempts, in 2001 and 2002, and added a third in 2009. Then he shocked Speedway three years ago by adding a fourth version of his silver face on the Borg-Warner Cup, joining Indy’s hallowed 500-meter trio. Four-timers, AJ Foyt, Mears and Unser.

If he takes home a fifth prize, it will be Indy’s version of breaking the sound barrier, a line long thought to be uncrossable. He would also become the oldest winner, beating Unser, who was less than a week away from his 48th birthday when he swallowed the milk in 1987.

So, win out?

“no!” “There’s no way I’m going to leave like this. If I win five awards, I’ll win six. I don’t want that,” Castroneves said Thursday, smiling as he received millions of votes when he won “Dancing with the Stars” in 2007. I care if I turn 50. I don’t feel fifty. Do I look 50 years old?

For the record, he doesn’t do that.

Fourth Turn: Milk, the Silver Faces, and “Back Home Again in Indiana”

For those who don’t know, to truly experience the Indy 500, one must watch much more than just the race itself. The Purdue Band, the USAF Thunderbirds Bridge, hundreds of active duty servicemen and women marching, playing “Taps”, singing “God Bless America” ​​and “Home Again in Indiana”. There’s also the long morning routine of the 5-foot-tall, $3.5 million sterling silver Borg-Warner Trophy rolling around the IMS grounds with a bagpipe band leading the way. The monolithic Art Deco podium is covered with 110 faces: the winners of 109 races (there are a couple of drivers and riding mechanics) and Tony Holman, the racetrack’s former owner.

For the people of Indiana, pre-500 celebrations are as precious as family holiday rituals. The most asked question about race day traditions at Indy: Why does the winner gulp down a large bottle of milk in the winner’s circle?

It goes back to Louis Mayer, the race’s first three-time winner, who loved to drink milk, especially on a very hot day. After his third win in 1936, he was photographed gulping down a bottle of milk, and in 1956, a savvy employee at the American Dairy Association in Indiana offered a $300 bonus if the winner of the race drank some milk. The winner, Pat Flaherty, did just that. And so has every winner since. Nowadays, they even ask contestants in advance what type of milk they would prefer if they were the champion, offering every option from whole milk to skim and every ratio in between.

26 drivers choose WHOLE, 5 drivers choose 2%, and 2 drivers choose SKIM this year #Indy500 Milk preferences survey.

Two Indiana dairy farmers and “milk providers” will be ready with all three options on ice! #Winners drink milk // https://t.co/mPMIlqBxqb // @IMS pic.twitter.com/sP5gnrEwfL

— Indiana Dairy Assoc. (@endiri) May 21, 2024

The only option is not on board? Yogurt. Go and conclude.