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We are approaching the one-year anniversary of the closing of the IMS Museum, for their eighteen-month renovation project. The museum closed after the first weekend in November last fall. I’m not that good at math, but I’m guessing that would mean we are about six months away from re-opening.

If you follow the IMS Museum or IMS President Doug Boles on social media, you’ve probably seen the progress they’ve made over the last year. After moving all of the cars and other artifacts out for proper storage at an offsite location, they immediately began the demolition phase of the project and completely gutted the inside.

Best of all, they removed the skylight in the center of the structure, that served as a way to bake everyone in the building on sunny days – not to mention what the sun’s UV rays did to the finishes on the cars. Have you seen the day-glo trim on the 2011 winner recently? It is completely faded and hardly resembles the car that carried Dan Wheldon to his second Indianapolis 500 win.

On Trackside the other night, Curt Cavin had an excellent interview with Mandi Bender, VP of Operations at the IMS Museum. She did a good job of not only bringing us up to date on the progress that has been made, she also did a good job of painting a picture for what fans can expect, the first time they visit the new museum.

She says they are nearing the end of the construction phase of the project, and getting close to doing the exhibit installations – the fun part. This was not from the interview, but I have a friend that indirectly works for Penske and we chatted with him at Milwaukee. He was telling us an interesting tidbit, how the exhibits are modular units actually built in Michigan, some have already been individually shipped to Indianapolis.

Bender described what the front of the building as you walk in will be like. Previously, you would walk in and there would be retail gift shops to the right and left, before you reached the desk to pay for museum admission. That has all been gutted too. All of the retail space will now be to the right, while the museum experience starts to the left. As we know, what used to be admin offices and the photo shop will now be the top floor for exhibits. There will also be an open overlook to the ground floor about where the skylight used to be.

They have gutted the famous basement and will utilize that area as well for the museum. That area had been used for storage for cars and other artifacts that were not on display. Now that storage will be moved offsite, as well as an area that can work on the cars. Bender said that there are currently about 178 race cars in their inventory, and about 80% of them are able to run.

The best thing that Mandi Bender said – the project is still on-schedule. They have a target opening date of April 1. 2025. If they go a week or two over, it’s not a huge deal. Selfishly, I hope they meet the April 1 deadline. The Open Test at IMS is usually around April 10 or so. I would like to visit then, before the May crowds show up.

I am really looking forward to seeing the new museum. After visiting the Barber Museum at Barber Motorsports Park for the first time over ten years ago, I realized what a racing museum could be and just how lacking the IMS Museum was. As Curt Cavin pointed out in the interview, the IMS Museum has remained relatively untouched since it opened in 1976. After nearly fifty years, it was time for a facelift.

I have a few friends that were not happy to learn that the museum was being brought into the 21st century. They thought the museum had a charm about it the way it was. A museum is a gateway into history. It doesn’t need to be part of the history itself. I didn’t consider the museum in its previous form to be charming, I just found it old and dated. At the risk of offending those friends, I am thrilled at the improvements I’ve heard and read about – and can’t wait to see it in person.

I would recommend going back and listening to the entire episode of Trackside that aired this past Tuesday night. If you don’t have an hour and twenty minutes to spend, the Curt Cavin/Mandi Bender interview starts at the 1:07:45 mark, and lasts about 17 minutes. You can listen to it here. I think you’ll enjoy it and you’ll learn a lot more on what to expect next spring, after it opens.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on October 25, 2024 at 4:04 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.