Oilpressure

Several years ago, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway started a program for fans that always appealed to me – the Commemorative Brick program. I’m not sure when exactly this started, but I’m going to guess the mid-to-late 2000s.

If you’ve ever spent any time at IMS, other than just going to the race and leaving immediately – you’ve probably seen these bricks in various prominent spots on the grounds. They are along the walkway entering the main gate outside of Turn One, and also Gate Nine. They can also be found near the fountain in front of the IMS Museum. Where I have noticed them the most is in the Pagoda Plaza, usually surrounding the giant planters that hold the trees or berms behind the Pagoda.

The idea is to leave your permanent mark at IMS, even long after you are gone.

Ever since this program came about, I have wanted to buy a brick. Susan and I actually bought one for our friends who loaned us their corporate suite at IMS for our wedding in May of 2012. Their company was a major series sponsor at the time, and we have always tried to respect their privacy, just in case their company might not be as enthusiastic about providing a space for fan nuptials as they were.

To show our appreciation, we bought them a brick that was put down behind the Pagoda by the next spring. To this day, I will protect their privacy by covering up their last names. They are no longer involved in racing, but I still don’t want to divulge too much. But the brick is still there to always let them know how much we appreciate what they did to make our IMS wedding happen. We make sure and go see it each and every May.

The fact that even though we were listed as George & Susan on the brick – I still felt that it was too anonymous. That could’ve been any couple – even George Costanza and Susan Ross from Seinfeld. I wanted out own brick, but they aren’t cheap. In fact, the cost is what has been holding us back.

Two years ago, we decided we would give each other a commemorative IMS brick for Christmas. But when we had a roof collapse on our sun porch, and Nationwide refused to pay us a dime for it – the extra funds we were going to use on the brick, went to replacing our roof instead.

Last week, we finally pulled the trigger. I saw the following ad on Facebook last Tuesday.

I am a terrible gift-giver, and thought this would cover a big portion of that burden this year. Notice I said gift-giver and not gifter. I am not sure when or why it suddenly became trendy to turn the word “gift” into a verb, but it’s not. In legal documents, it is sometimes necessary to say “gifted”, but that is the only excuse for using “gift” in that manner. For about the last five years or so, marketers have decided it sounds very sophisticated to turn “gift” into a verb.

For all your gifting needs is how one national retailer describes themselves at Christmas time. Look at what my wife gifted me! No, she didn’t gift you that ugly tie, she gave it to you. It’s all way too much. It’s gifting me a headache! Anyway, I digress…

We wanted the Wing & Wheel logo at the top, which limited what it would say. Susan decided on the wording. With the logo, we were allowed four lines, at only sixteen characters per line. We obviously both wanted our names on there. I wanted the name of this site on there, while she wanted our wedding date. Her logic was that if people know us, they will know what the date means. Perhaps.

Although I will be starting my seventeenth year with this site, most know that I began to cut back from my usual three times a week schedule last February. That began out of me being angry with IndyCar, after them denying to restore my year-long credentials that were yanked over something they deemed as too critical back in August of 2023. I still am angry about it, but I have learned how much more relaxing it is to not have to meet that self-imposed three times a week deadline – especially in the offseason. I have enjoyed just writing something when I want to, and not when I have to. No one was forcing me to do it, but I felt the need to fulfill my commitment to keep up that schedule.

Even with cutting back, this site has been a big part of my life and it has allowed us to do things I never thought possible twenty years ago. I’m not saying I derive my full identity from this site, but I did want to add it to our brick – just like Susan wanted our IMS wedding date to be on it.

Here is what our brick will look like, when they lay it down next spring.

To be honest, it almost felt like we were buying a tombstone. I like the idea that our names and the site name will be part of the IMS, grounds long after we meet our demise and assume room temperature.

Some people want their ashes scattered at IMS. The day after the 2015 500, we were given a ride in an IMS Suburban by the head groundskeeper (Indy Andy, if you remember him from Twitter) we had gotten to be friends with. He was driving, but we probably drove about ten laps around the famed oval. He pointed out a pile of ashes someone had poured out onto the Yard of Bricks, and said it is a very common site throughout the year.

While that may appeal to some, I have no desire to be cremated. I am old-fashioned and want to be buried in the ground in one piece. So the brick is about as close to Speedway immortality as I’ll ever get.

We splurged and opted for our brick to be placed in the Pagoda Plaza, where we will be able to see it every time we visit the track, without having to go far out of our way. We also decided to get the replica brick and the display case to have at home. It was a pretty big bump in cost, but can you really put a price on such a permanent item?

I am happy that we both decided to give this to each other, and not gift it to each other, before we get to be so old that we will never see it. If you are interested in getting one for yourselves or someone else, you can check out the program here. It wasn’t cheap, but I’m glad we did it.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on November 19, 2025 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.