Indianapolis 500 History: From 1911 to the 110th Running

On May 30, 1911, Ray Harroun crossed the finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a yellow-and-black single-seater called the Wasp, averaging 74.602 mph over 500 miles. He pocketed $14,250, climbed out of the cockpit, and walked away from racing for good. He was the first.

On Sunday, May 24, 2026, the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 will roll off with 33 drivers strapped into 700-horsepower hybrid machines capable of nearly 240 mph. Same 2.5-mile oval. Same yard of bricks at the start/finish line. Almost nothing else is the same.

The Indy 500 was not a race that happened to land in Indiana. Carl Fisher built the Speedway in 1909 as a proving ground for the budding American auto industry, on Hoosier ground, before there was a national auto industry to speak of. Now 115 years later, here is the story of how it became the most American motorsport tradition in the world.

1911 and the Marmon Wasp

The first Indianapolis 500 was billed as the International 500-Mile Sweepstakes. Forty cars lined up. The starting grid was designed for two-man teams, a driver and a riding mechanic, but Ray Harroun showed up alone in a single-seat car of his own design. To answer competitors who claimed he had no way to see traffic behind him, Harroun bolted a small mirror over the steering wheel. It was the first rearview mirror in motorsport history, and likely the first ever fitted to any racing machine.

The Wasp itself was an engineering departure. Harroun, a Marmon Motor Car Company engineer, sculpted the body into a long, narrow bullet shape with a flared cockpit and a pointed tail that acted as a stabilizer. The 477-cubic-inch six-cylinder engine kept him in the lead for 88 of 200 laps. He won in 6 hours, 42 minutes, 8 seconds.

The Wasp now lives at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, which recently reopened after extensive renovations. The car is smaller than you think and stranger looking than any photo can capture.

The bricks that gave the track its name

When Fisher first opened the Speedway in spring 1909, the surface was crushed stone and tar. It was a disaster. Drivers and mechanics were killed in the first weekend of major racing. The American Automobile Association threatened a boycott. Fisher shut everything down and started over.

That fall, in 63 days, workers laid 3.2 million paving bricks across the 2.5-mile oval. Each weighed roughly 10 pounds. Each was hand-set over a two-inch cushion of sand and finished with mortar. Locals had already nicknamed it "The Brickyard" before the work was done.

The bricks did their job for half a century. Asphalt began creeping in during the late 1930s and gradually covered the track turn by turn. The final bricks on the front straightaway were paved over in October 1961, except for a 36-inch strip at the start/finish line. That strip is the Yard of Bricks. It is still there today.

The tradition of "kissing the bricks" started in 1996, when NASCAR champion Dale Jarrett knelt down at the line after winning the Brickyard 400 and kissed the strip. Drivers from every series at IMS have done it ever since. Most of the original 3.2 million bricks are still down there too, under several layers of newer asphalt, exactly where they were laid in 1909.

The years the race went silent

The Indy 500 has only been canceled twice in its history, both times because of war. Speedway management voluntarily shut down racing in 1917 and 1918 during World War I. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government banned automobile racing entirely as part of the wartime gas conservation effort, and the 500 went dark from 1942 through 1945.

By 1945, the Speedway was essentially abandoned. Grass overgrew the bricks. The wooden grandstands rotted. Owner Eddie Rickenbacker was looking to sell the property to developers.

Three-time race winner Wilbur Shaw helped broker a rescue deal. Indiana businessman Tony Hulman purchased the track in November 1945, spent the winter restoring it, and reopened it for the 30th running on May 30, 1946. Hulman is the only non-driver whose face appears on the Borg-Warner Trophy, sculpted in 24-karat gold and added in 1988. Without him, the race almost certainly does not exist today.

The rear-engine revolution of 1965

For the first half-century, the Indy 500 was won by big front-engine roadsters. Long, heavy, brutal cars driven by drivers who muscled them around the oval lap after lap. Then a Scotsman in a small Lotus changed everything.

Jim Clark won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 in a Lotus 38 powered by a Ford V-8 mounted behind the driver. It was the first rear-engine car to win at Indy. American driver Dan Gurney had pulled British designer Colin Chapman to Indianapolis a few years earlier and connected him with Ford. The result was a Formula One-style chassis paired with American power. Clark led 190 laps and won at 150.686 mph, the first 500 ever run at an average over 150.

A.J. Foyt's win in 1964, in a front-engine Watson-Offy roadster, was the last time a front-engine car has ever won the Indianapolis 500. Of the 33 starters in 1965, 27 were already running rear engines. The roadster era ended in a single weekend.

For the racing terms that came out of this transition, we wrote a guide to Indy 500 racing lingo that breaks down the language you'll hear on the broadcast.

Pushing the speed envelope

In 1911, Harroun averaged 74.602 mph. By 1965, Jim Clark broke 150 mph. By 1996, Dutch driver Arie Luyendyk turned a four-lap qualifying average of 236.986 mph at IMS. Those qualifying records still stand 30 years later.

Race-day averages have climbed more slowly because cautions, traffic, and pit stops drag the number down. The current race record belongs to Helio Castroneves, who won his fourth 500 in 2021 with an average of 190.690 mph. No driver has ever averaged 200 mph for the full 500 miles. It might happen. It has not yet.

What 2026 looks like

The 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place Sunday, May 24, 2026, with the green flag dropping at 12:45 p.m. ET. Coverage starts at 12:30 p.m. on Fox, the network's second year as broadcaster after taking over from NBC in 2025. The race anchors the entire Month of May in Indianapolis, a stretch of qualifying, parades, concerts, and Carb Day that builds for three weeks before the green flag.

This year's pace car is the 2026 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, a 1,250-horsepower hybrid hypercar capable of 0 to 60 mph in under two seconds and a top speed of 233 mph. The honorary pace car driver is Indiana University head football coach Curt Cignetti, named to the role after leading IU to its first undefeated regular season and the 2025 college football national championship.

The Borg-Warner Trophy will be on display throughout the month. It now stands 5 feet 4-3/4 inches tall, weighs about 110 pounds, and carries the sterling silver image of every winner from Harroun in 1911 through Alex Palou in 2025. Sculptor William Behrends has carved every winner's face since 1990.

The defending champion Palou enters off a 2025 season that included eight wins and a third consecutive series championship. He won three of the first five races of 2026 before the field even arrived at Indianapolis. He will be the favorite. The history of this race says the favorite does not always finish in front.

The thread that runs through 115 years

The Wasp could not run today's race. A 2026 IndyCar would not have made it through the 1911 surface. But the rhythm of the Month of May has held since the year your great-grandparents were teenagers, and most of the bricks are still right where Carl Fisher's crews laid them.

The 110th Running is in three weeks. If you've never been, start with our Indy 500 bucket list. If you go every year, you already know.

Drop a comment with your favorite era of the 500, and subscribe to our newsletter to follow the rest of our 2026 Indy 500 coverage all the way to the green flag.