This museum started out a much more modest affair. Its first iteration—a nondescript building at 16th Street and Georgetown Road—opened in 1956. It possessed only a handful of cars, but soon donations of vehicles and other memorabilia broadened the collection. In 1976, the museum moved to its current location, a 96,000-square-foot, two-story building on the track infield.
The big challenge was doubling exhibition space in the same footprint. This was accomplished by creating a 6,500-square-foot mezzanine on the first floor and turning most of the basement storage area into exhibition space.
The setup is similar to ikea. The interior has been transformed. Originally an open, car-packed space that could be surveyed at a glance, it now has 14 distinct areas for visitors to wind through, starting in the same place. “You’ll ask yourself if you’re in the wrong building because nothing you see is going to relate to what you used to see,” says IMS Museum president Joe Hale.
But all the good stuff is still there. The crown jewels of the museum’s collection are still on display, just in vastly upgraded surroundings. The famed Borg-Warner Trophy sits in the new Winners Gallery surrounded by a gaggle of Indy 500–winning cars from across the decades, including the canary yellow Marmon Wasp that won the first race in 1911.
You get a close-up look at the cars. They sit right in the middle of the Winners Gallery with nothing around them but foot rails. One could easily poke, say, the Wasp’s tires, run their fingers down its engine cowling, or touch its rearview mirror (the world’s first, invented by its driver, Ray Harroun). Unsurprisingly, the gallery is patrolled by guides.
Management employed a new way to boost the museum’s endowment. The museum owns many rare and valuable racing cars, but some have very little to do with IMS racing history. So last winter, elite auction house RM Sotheby’s was engaged to sell 11 of them at locations around the world, including Miami, Paris, and Stuttgart, Germany. The Stuttgart auction took place at the Mercedes-Benz Museum and featured a 1954 W 196 R Stromlinienwagen, which won two races on the 1955 Grand Prix circuit and looks for all the world like Speed Racer’s Mach Five. It alone went for nearly $54 million, the second priciest car ever sold.
The sales barely made a dent in the museum’s vast collection. The museum’s holdings include roughly 55,000 items, including 200-plus race cars and pace cars; around 200 works of art; 2 million feet of film; and other oddities acquired over the track’s first century.
The track doesn’t finance it. The museum is operated by the nonprofit Indianapolis Motor Speedway Foundation, which pays the bills primarily via its endowment, membership sales, philanthropic donations, and sponsors. (A$125 individual membership comes with year-round free admission.)
The collection was stored secretly during the renovation. “We didn’t broadcast the location of the cars because of their value,” says Hale. “But they were stored very securely in Indianapolis.” The other artifacts were kept in warehouses close to the museum so the curatorial staff had easy access.
VIP storage area tours are no longer. “We called it the basement collection, and we allowed six people at a time to go down there with a docent,” Hale says. “We took away their phones, so no photos were taken. We charged $150 a head. The first year that made us $400,000 in revenue.” Now, a general admission ticket grants access to the former inner sanctum.
The Penske Gallery smells like new tires. It’s worth a look, filled with victorious cars and replicas of the engines that powered them, as well as Roger Penske’s personal collection of 79 commemorative rings. “We’re hoping to make it to 80 this year,” says longtime Team Penske employee Jon Bouslog.
Even the gift shop got a makeover. You can scoop up everything from the classic “Kiss My Bricks” T-shirt to a 7 ½-foot-tall model of the IMS Pagoda that took Cincinnati-based Brixilated 120 hours to design. (The shop sells a much smaller Pagoda Lego set for the kids.) The light fixture over the checkout is composed of 240 milk bottles. “They never turn off,” says one staffer. “We don’t even have a switch for them.”
The Qualifying Zone gives a hands-on racing experience. You can lift a racing tire, test your driving reflexes, and try out various pit stop activities. But the six racing simulators at the back of the room are the highlights. They offer a high-fidelity spin around the IMS, complete with a car cockpit that emulates (to a certain degree) the movements of a real car, plus a steering wheel that trembles and spins crazily if you lose control of your ride. “My son hit the wall for 5 minutes straight, and that’s perfectly fine,” says Jake Apollos, director of education at the IMS.
Long-wanted amenities have finally been added. “You can buy tickets to anything that’s happening at the track, including the 500,” says Hale. “You’ve not been able to do that in the past.” Vending machines dispense snacks and drinks in the Track Lounge, the tour-bus waiting area. This is a relatively big deal because, until now, it was impossible to buy even a bottle of water.
There’s more to come. Many of the museum’s cars are still drivable. In the not-too-distant future, Hale wants to build a new preservation shop, likely near the track but not on the grounds. He envisions it being big enough for 150 cars and a six-bay restoration area. “Race fans might be able to just hop on our shuttle and go across the street and pay another six or eight bucks to see more cool cars.”
