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. 115 years later, this 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.
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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.