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.
The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars
from different manufacturers against each other.
After seeing what these cars could do, spectators would
presumably head down to the showroom of their choice
to get a closer look.
The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns,
each exactly 440 yards from start to finish, by two long and
two short straight sections.
In that first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 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.
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