Being from Indiana, one thing that is a true love is the Indy 500. Having gone for many years, I love the fanfare, how people from all over the country descend on this little city and mostly, how much it celebrates our soldiers and what Memorial Day is all about. If you haven't been, it truly is a spectacle. However, exactly how big is this race... (please forgive some of the Indiana specific references) Three hundred and fifty thousand people. That's 350,000 people. The number is hard to get your head around, but there could be that many people at the 100th running of the Indy 500. To better help you understand just how mammoth that crowd is, here are some things it's about the same size as: • As CEO Mark Miles pointed out, that's as big as the populations of South Bend and Fort Wayne — combined. • That's 37 percent of the entire population of Marion County, all squeezed into a 2.5 mile oval. • It's 59 percent of the entire population of the state of Wyoming. •More people than attended the last four Super Bowls — combined. It's almost five times bigger than Indy's Super Bowl. • Nearly twice as many people as attended the record-breaking 2015 Kentucky Derby. • Over 100,000 people more than attended all the games of the 2015 World Series. • More than double the attendance of the last-reported Daytona 500 attendance in 2012. • On Sunday, 1 out of every 1,000 people in the U.S. will be at the Indy 500. Pretty crazy, especially the last one
Was gonna go once....then I saw video from my uncle's trip.....stupidity due to drunks isn't something I mix well with. I'll watch from home
Yeah, it's not near as bad as it was. There are always a few drunken idiots but for the most part they are just good entertainment. I've been going since I was about 12. Just recently we stopped (my uncle stopped getting company tickets). I come across some still but it's rare. Mostly my friends just go party in the infield. That's where the stupidity really happens.
It is hard to appreciate the track from what you see on TV. I took a tour of the track and the pagoda and it is huge can't imagine what it would be like for the race with the facility full of people.
