- More Than Just A Motor Race
- Getting The Basics Right
- Weekend Camping: Location, Location, Location
- At The Track: Lots To Watch
- The Party Never Sleeps, Even When You Want To
- Race Day: Early Bird Gets The View
- The Aftermath: What We Learned
Attending America's most prestigious motorsport event can be daunting, but we've gone through the trouble so you don't have to.
Read in this article:
- More Than Just A Motor Race
- Getting The Basics Right
- Weekend Camping: Location, Location, Location
- At The Track: Lots To Watch
- The Party Never Sleeps, Even When You Want To
- Race Day: Early Bird Gets The View
- The Aftermath: What We Learned
The 107th Indy 500 has come and gone, and you spent another year watching from afar. It's not called the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” for nothing, and since I'm now an expert after attending the 107th running of the famed race, I'm here to impart some knowledge that I wish I would have had before jumping into the race dry.
Is this going to be all the information you're going to need? Probably not, but after camping in a field for four nights and experiencing the best and worst the experience had to offer, I feel I'm qualified to speak on the subject, at least as far as helping other beginners out.
My love of cars goes back to high school, but my interest in motorsport is much more recent. I knew nothing about IndyCar when my three friends and I decided to buy camping passes for the Indianapolis 500.
I just knew that the race was considered one of the Holy Grails of motorsport, and living in Pittsburgh, PA, I only reside about 5.5 hours from Indianapolis by car. I'm only going to get older, and stories like this are ones I will remember for a lifetime, so why not go to the Indy 500 as a complete rookie?
More Than Just A Motor Race
When you're attempting to attend the world's largest single-day sporting event, preparation is key, and the first and most important thing I needed for the trip was friends that wanted to tag along. I'm interested in motorsports, but at the time, my friends certainly weren't in the same boat. This is why it's important to mention that while it's one of the coolest races you'll ever see, it's also a massive party that lasts the entire weekend.
To that point, if you know about Lot 1C, then you know it's the place to be if you want to have fun the entire weekend.
It took me a while, but I eventually found an article I had read years earlier published by Jalopnik about a rowdy camping lot near the speedway. “[Lot 1C] is headquarters for a days-long party that's not for the faint of heart”, says Elizabeth Blackstock. “If you happen to have tickets for this particular lot, godspeed. It's time to start preparing.” Lot 1C, or the “Coke Lot” as it's called, thanks to its location next to a Coca-Cola bottling facility, is the spot for cheap $100 tent camping and days of partying.
Guess where I'd booked to spend the weekend…
Getting The Basics Right
Selling my friends on a weekend of partying proved to be easy, so with tent passes purchased well in advance (I called to buy the ticket in November because I really had no idea what I was doing), we set about slowly stringing connections together and finding information online for the five months leading up to race weekend.
Of the four of us in our group, only one had ever been camping. This meant we needed to find all our supplies from others, and we barely knew what we needed. But Reddit and the IndyCar community came to the rescue.
I asked for some advice from the group, and a kind person reached out with some essential info, like getting to the track very early on Sunday, bringing tons of water (about five gallons per person for the entire trip), and not forgetting to bring a canopy tent to help get out of the sun during the day.
We also found out we needed to bring a firepit (something that turned out to be crucial) and easy-to-carry coolers that we could bring to the track. The weather was looking perfect as we got closer, with highs in the 70s and 80s, so we prepared for warm weather (which came back to bite us).
Weekend Camping: Location, Location, Location
Once we arrived at Lot 1C, we found a ton of open space. A good life lesson is never to put up shop next to porta potties, so we found ourselves a good plot of land a decent ways away from them but also near one of the many steel trashcans placed around the field (something we found out later to be beneficial for disposing of our trash).
We spread out nicely and bought some ice, though we found out the person that usually sells bundles of wood wasn't coming this year, which meant we'd need to leave to find it. Things were pretty quiet, all considered, but as evening fell, we realized that this big open field not only invited tons of wind but icy overnight temperatures (in the 50s). Maybe it was just unique for this year, but prepare to bundle up in the evenings and ensure you have a good sleeping bag to keep you warm. This is where the firepit became crucial, not only to keep us warm, but also as a late-night gathering spot to make friends.
Most people only arrive the following day, so I'd advise going the night before if you want to snag a good camping spot. What was previously a pretty empty field was rapidly filled with music blasting and grills roaring in all directions.
At The Track: Lots To Watch
Heading in on Friday to get our first taste of the race track and check out the Pit Stop Challenge, we got a gauge of just how big the venue is. Quickly climbing to the top of one of the bleachers, it was awe-inspiring how far away things were and how they were still inside the venue. It's like being at a sports stadium, only 20 times bigger.
Soon we headed to the seats in front of the pits and watched about 25 minutes of the pitstop challenge. The anticipation and excitement of each one were infectious, as the whole crowd really got into it. Scott Dixon was able to pull off a win for Chip Ganassi Racing in the end, and after checking out the different Corvette Pace Cars (with this year's pace car being a Corvette Z06 Convertible), we soon returned to camp for the day.
Being at a track on a hot day is genuinely tiring, as the heat off the asphalt and concrete manages to sap the energy out of you. Heading to the showers in Lot 1A, we were pleasantly surprised to find these facilities are free to use, which is a lifesaver across a whole weekend of attendance.
The Party Never Sleeps, Even When You Want To
That night proved to be a little more eventful than the previous one. All I can say is everyone we met was unbelievably friendly and welcoming, but a must-have for when you want to go to bed finally is to make sure you have earplugs for sleeping because no one is turning their tunes down for you.
Our Indy inexperience showed on Saturday, as we completely missed the parade in downtown Indianapolis. We took this as a chance to explore the city and grab supplies. Even by this point, driving in and out of the lot wasn't too big of a hassle, and we came to find a Meijer that was only a few minutes down the road to grab almost everything we needed. A good sidenote is that firewood can be found there or at tons of gas stations in the area, of which you burn a lot each night.
The night before the race turned out to be the most eventful one, as tons of different parties were going on throughout the evening into the early morning. We turned in early to focus on the race the next day, but if you're attending Indy for the party, Saturday night is definitely when to be there.
Race Day: Early Bird Gets The View
Getting in at the circuit at around 10 AM worked out pretty well as we were able to find an okay spot in front of Turn 1. It wasn't the best view, but if you want the prime spots, you have to get in extra early to grab a spot at one of the mounds at Turn 2 or 3 which fill up quickly.
But you soon realize there's so much to see that you don't want to stay in one spot, and after the race got on its way (and we were able to catch the commemorative Camaros), about 30 laps later, we were walking around the track.
I implore you to bring ear protection of some kind. It seems like a no-brainer if you know anything about motorsports, and the brazen among you might think you'll be fine, but after ten minutes of sitting trackside, you'll regret your decision.
I won't go into the details of the on-track action too much because If you haven't at least watched a highlight video, you need to (seriously, the race was crazy). But I will say that if you're new to the Indy 500, then walking around is what you want to do. The museum is awesome, there are a ton of cool vendors and activities happening right next to the pagoda, and it's just awesome seeing all of the vantage points available for the race.
Case in point, at around Lap 179, we decided to head to the mound at Turn 2, and just as I whipped out my camera, Felix Rosenqvist spun out in front of me before Kyle Kirkwood made contact and flipped. Frantically shooting pictures, it wasn't until minutes later I realized Kirkwood's tire had flown out of the stadium. From there, two more red flags led to the race lasting far longer than people were expecting, and when Josef Newgarden crossed the finish line and earned his pint of milk, everyone was eager to leave.
The exit from the speedway can best be described as a mass exodus. This running of the Indy 500 drew a crowd of 330,000 people, making it the second largest in more than two decades, only behind the 100th running. Be patient and kind as you're leaving because it's going to take a while to get out.
Getting back to camp, we were met with two surprises. The first is that most people immediately clean up camp and get out after the race, leaving it feeling almost as empty as when we arrived. The second was bees. A swarm of bees had stolen our table from us during the race. I don't have advice on this one, but when we left the next day, we were a table lighter than when we first set up camp.
The Aftermath: What We Learned
First of all, the reports of the Coke Lot's debauchery are greatly exaggerated, at least in this writer's experience. We'd heard it was a place that became more hectic as the weekend went on, but even after making tons of friends and exploring it, it never felt as crazy as the stories made it out to be.
Trashcans were emptied daily, porta-potties were cleaned with the same frequency, showers were readily available, and there were cops everywhere you looked. All these things made the experience much more comfortable than we were expecting – something we were grateful for, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me expecting more.
The second thing you need to know is keeping all of your electronics charged is as hard as one would imagine. We had four phones, a few speakers, and a couple of other devices we wanted to keep charged throughout the weekend. Despite bringing power bricks, things were constantly close to dying, and even starting the cars and driving around would only give us a little reprieve until everything was drained soon after.
My best advice is to either bring multiple battery packs – at least four or five decent-sized ones or bring a personal generator. We were lucky to use someone's generator the last night, which was very helpful.
Sometimes you can help others, too, and having jumper cables on hand is a smart move (we jumped two cars with ours). There were a few other things we'd remember for next time. A propane grill makes cooking much easier than charcoal or just over the fire, and bringing hand sanitizer, dish soap, and water to clean/wash with is extremely useful. But you're not out in the woods, and there are enough stores nearby if you forget something after you get there.
The best advice I can give is to approach everything with an open mind. You're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to be hot and sweaty most of the time. You're going to be sick of eating hotdogs/hamburgers and snacks the entire time. But you're going to come away from it with some of the most incredible motorsports memories imaginable. You'll remember the people and the conversations you had for the rest of your life, and if you do it right, you'll look forward to the next time you can make the trek to the greatest race on earth.
Keyword: A Beginners Guide To Attending The Indy 500 For The First Time