On August 19, 1909, the first race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, now the home of the world’s most famous motor racing competition, the Indianapolis 500.

Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a
testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry.

In that first five-mile race, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian
engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles
per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar proved a
disaster, breaking up in a number of places and causing the deaths
of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.

The surface was soon replaced with 3.2 million paving bricks, laid
in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar. Dubbed “The Brickyard,”
the speedway reopened in December 1909.

Ray Harroun wheels his No. 32 Marmon Wasp racecar to
victory in the inaugural Indy 500.