On December 14, 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway Indiana had the last of its 3.2 million 10-pound bricks laid in.
Instead of the concrete surface that other racecourse builders were using, Fisher covered his track with a sticky amalgam of gravel, limestone, tar, and 220,000 gallons of asphaltum oil. For months, 500 workers and 300 mules laid layer after layer of the gooey mixture on the Indy loop and pulled steamrollers across it, pressing the roadway into a solid mass.
In August 1909, the Indy speedway was ready to open. The first race at the new Motor Speedway, a motorcycle race on August 13, was a disaster: the new track was so abrasive that it popped everyone’s tires, and workers had to take a few days to sand it down before the event could continue. Even after that, the rack was still a mess: As racecar teams arrived at the speedway to prepare for the 300-mile Wheeler-Schibler race, one historian reported, “drivers were quickly covered with dirt, oil, and tar…the track surface disintegrated in the turns, [and] flying gravel shattered goggles and bloodied cheeks. Driving at Indy was like flying through a meteor shower.”
The track, home to the world famous Indianapolis 500 race, is now covered with asphalt, except at the finish line, where a 3 foot wide strip—the “Yard of Bricks”—still marks history. It’s the place where everyone takes their photos with the trophy, where grown men and women kiss the ground in victory. Where someone wrote “Fuck Mike Pence” before this weekend’s festivities. From Deadspin:
A tipster whose name we’ll keep private sends this along; the GPS data on the image checks out, in case you thought this might be a hoaxer who drew it on the side of his house, or something.
This year’s winner was Takuma Sato of Japan. Fuck Mike Pence.