Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

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Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Posted by James Turnbull, Tuesday, 10th May 2005

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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is home to the Indianapolis 500, Brickyard 400, and U.S. Grand Prix. To the east of the course are fourteen holes of Brickyard Crossing golf course, while the other four are found inside the race track. Apparently it used to be nine holes inside the track, but several of them were removed when a road course was built inside the oval in preparation for the U.S. Grand Prix, which has been run at IMS since 2000.

indy 500

Thanks: Chuck, Jason and many others.

5 Responses to 'Indianapolis Motor Speedway'

  1. Steg says:

    If you notice, its smack in the middle of a residential area. When you go to a race, the people who live around the area will have their kids holding up signs advertising to park on their lawns for cheaper than at the track.

  2. James says:

    LOLs! That’s the etnuriperial spirit :D

  3. ironcladlou says:

    2 of my suggestions in 2 days…w00t!

    Hey, do you guys need some help sorting through the suggestions? If so, I’d like to volunteer…

  4. There used to be 9 holes within the track and 18 holes outside the track – the 18 hole course was built in 1929; the 9 hole course sometime later. The 9 hole course was used to park cars for many years, and the joke was that the golfers would find chicken bones many months after the tailgaters had left.

    As aside – if you’ve ever seen pictures of The Beatles playing golf, they were likely taken at the IMS Golf Course. (http://randomthoughts.swia.com/images/golf2.jpg)

    Around 1990 noted golf designer Pete Dye came in and renovated the combined 27 holes into an 18 hole course. It hosted a Senior PGA event for a few years but is not currently used for professional events. It’s still a top notch course. None of the holes were modified for the road course – apparently, the road course & golf course were designed at the same time, even though they were built ten years apart.

    If you want something that boggles the mind, they used to park the entire infield full of cars.

  5. Kelso Mallette says:

    Interesting that the preview image is centered on the now infamous turn 13 of the F1 course (turn 1 of the oval). After several Michelin tires failured from the banking of this corner, 7/10 teams (Renault, McLaren, Williams, BAR, Sauber, Red Bull, and Toyota) had to pull out of the race, leaving only the Bridgestone-shod teams (Ferarri, Jordan, and Minardi) to compete.

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