Oilpressure

In case you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, The IMS Museum is now officially closed for the next eighteen months. It’s hard to believe anyone closely following the sport wouldn’t know this. I wrote about it here a couple of weeks ago, but the museum did a good job inundating social media for about the final ten days they were open – letting everyone know this would be their last chance to visit.

Try as they might, someone doesn’t get the message. This past Sunday, the very last day the museum would be open, I saw someone in one of those IndyCar groups post the following question; “Is it true that the IMS museum is closing for over a year? I’ve never been before and I was planning on taking my two boys next Friday. I happened to be watching the news and they said something about it and it didn’t make sense to me.”

Everyone was more polite than I would’ve been, explaining what was going on with the upcoming renovation and why it would be closed for eighteen months. I assumed he lived in some faraway state like Maine, Florida or California; and that he was never exposed to any IndyCar or IMS news for the past five months since it was announced. I was wrong.

In the comments section, he thanked everyone for their help with “Thanks everyone. It’s funny because I did google it last week to check on hours, apparently missed everything about the closure. I follow Indycar closely, watch every race, lots of practices on peacock, all that, and this was the first I had heard of it, which was why I was so surprised. I had every opportunity over my 40 years of living here to go, I suppose, but I just never did. Day late and a dollar short!”

So he claims to follow IndyCar closely and apparently lives in or near Indianapolis. Go figure. Other than it involves the eighteen month closure of the museum, that really had little to do with my topic. I just found it humorous how news doesn’t get through to everyone, regardless how much you put the word out. I’m sure over the next few months, several people will be shocked to find the doors closed when they arrive at IMS. Anyway, on to my topic for the day.

As people will come to realize what most of us have known since July, there will be no visits to the IMS Museum next May. This will alter a lot of plans for a lot of people for the month, and especially on Race Weekend. I usually go to the museum twice each May. I go once either during the Grand Prix weekend or sometime that week of Indianapolis 500 practice, when it is not crowded at all. That is when I spend a lot of time reading placards and soaking up my surroundings. I also go on the Saturday before the race, when my brothers are in town. While they are taking it all in as I did a couple of weeks earlier, I am casually looking at the exhibits and doing some people watching. I usually run into a lot of people I know that day.

This past May, we ran into a longtime reader and commenter that I had not seen for a few years – The Speedgeek and his friend Rick. I also ran into a lot of folks I had seen over the month, who were doing the same thing I was doing – squeezing in one last visit to the museum for the month.

In 2024, there will be a giant vacuum for a lot of us that look forward to that visit to the museum the day before the 500.

For 15-20 years, the day before the 500 was called Legends Day. I think for 2024 it will still be called that, but it is no longer legendary. Back in the early 2000s up until COVID, Legends Day was a blast. For those of us that are older and appreciate the history of the Indianapolis 500, Saturday’s Legends Day offered a nice alternative to Friday’s Carb Day.

While Carb Day is about that weekend’s Indianapolis 500, the final practice, the pit stop competition, an outdoor concert and lots and lots of alcohol; Legends Day was more for the serious race fan. We would start the day out by being in the Tower Terrace stands, behind the pits and north of The Pagoda, by 9:00 am. That would put us there in time to see the old vintage cars take laps around the historic oval where many had raced decades earlier. Some were winning cars that had been wheeled out of the IMS Museum to turn their first laps, in some cases, in years. It was all enhanced by having Donald Davidson trackside on the PA giving a quick history lesson about each car.

Sometimes, they would even run a Novi – giving many in attendance their first experience at hearing the fabled engine. These cars were running at speed, but it was still good to hear an Offy-powered roadster going down the main straightaway.

Not all of the vintage cars were roadsters from the 50s and 60s. There were cars from the 1910s as well as rear-engine cars from the 60s, 70s and 80s; each with their own distinct sound.

Of course, this all came to a screeching halt after 2019, not only due to COVID – but probably more to do with the fact that a car in Gordon Johncock’s 1967 livery had an overzealous driver that was going at it a little too hard. He lost control and hit the Turn Two outside wall, and the car caught fire. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but word has it that may have put an end to vintage cars running on Race Weekend. Whatever the case, the vintage cars have not run since then.

After the vintage cars were done running, we would make our way behind The Pagoda and grab an early lunch (not that abomination of a tenderloin they serve at that stand) and then head to the museum. Both of my older brothers and my nephew are all mechanical engineers. Although my oldest brother and his son have seen these cars on an annual basis, they will scrunch down and examine the most random parts of a race car. The older the car, the more they go over it with a fine-tooth comb. I am not an engineer, so I don’t get the thrill of looking at how they cooled the brakes on the Blue Crown Special.

But they do get a thrill out of it, so I’m happy to let them take all the time they need. That’s why I do a lot of people-watching during my second visit to the museum. After that, we would wander over to the Memorabilia Show in the Pagoda Plaza, mostly to browse but occasionally to buy something. By this time it would be about 4:00 pm. We would head over to Dawson’s for an early dinner, before heading to the hotel.

That was our Legends Day routine for years. Then the vintage cars went away, along with the Memorabilia Show (it moved to Plainfield). The Legends Day concert moved offsite and now the museum is closed for 18 months. My question is…what exactly will we do on Saturday before the race?

If the vintage cars were to return, I would make it a point to go to that. But I have no idea what to do on that Saturday. I don’t want a late night. I remember the night before the 2003 Indianapolis 500, we went to IRP to watch sprint cars. There were rain delays and by the time it was over and we got back to our hotel, it was 3:00 am. The alarm was set for 5:00 am to go to the race. That was not fun.

If they could schedule racing on Saturday afternoon at IRP, that would be a very nice diversion. If it wrapped up by 5:00 pm, that would be even better. We could still get to Dawson’s at a decent hour, then get back to the hotel in time to get enough sleep before that 3:30 am wake-up call. Otherwise, I guess we could go catch a movie that Saturday afternoon.

Quite honestly, if there is nothing going on at IMS on Saturday, we may forego Carb Day and just drive up on Saturday – thereby saving the Thursday and Friday night hotel room. I’m sure the hospitality industry in central Indiana don’t care for that idea.

I am hoping Mr. Penske, Mr. Miles, Mr. Frye and Mr. Boles are putting their collective heads together to come up with a good reason to come to the track on what used to be known as Legends Day in 2024. Because right now, I don’t see one.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on November 8, 2023 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.