Source: Penske Entertainment: James Black / other
SPEEDWAY, Ind.–If you are attending the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500, there are some things you should know.
The major point of emphasis from the President of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Doug Boles is to get there early.
“The last thing I want to have happen is somebody miss all of the pre-race activities because they thought they could get here later or maybe they thought that they were going to take that secret path they thought would get them here and that may not happen. The travel plan can change based on incidents or other challenges on the roads, so I encourage people to be here early,” said Boles in a news conference on Thursday.
Gates open at the Speedway at 6 am on Sunday. If you don’t have a parking pass already to be park anywhere at the Speedway, then you’re out of luck.
“They are no longer available for purchase. We have sold out of our parking. We still do have some shuttle access available if you want to park at the airport or downtown and shuttle in then shuttle back out. Otherwise, you need to figure out where you’re going to park,” said Boles.
Boles says the Town of Speedway is very hospitable and people there will often let you park in their driveways, but again, if you don’t want to do that, getting there early and finding a place to park is your best bet.
There are also metal detectors at all of the pedestrian gates.
“It does allow you to walk through those gates with your cooler, walk through them with your phone and your keys in your pockets and you don’t have to take them out. If you go through the gates and there are things that you should not have, especially weapons, it will flag that and we’ll find it. So just leave weapons and those kinds of things at home,” said Boles.
If you want to buy anything at the Speedway, be ready to use a card because everything is cashless. The only forms of payment accepted will be credit card, debit card and tap-to-pay phone payments.
Cash-to-card machines, which convert paper money onto a temporary debit card, will be located throughout the facility. These funds can be spent inside the venue, outside the venue, online or anywhere in the world where Mastercard/Visa debit cards are accepted.
More than 300,000 people are expected to attend Sunday’s race.
