The following post comes to us from Eric Powell, the IMS Museum’s Director of Communications.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has aligned itself with Bring a Trailer because they do more than sell cars. BaT combines a great marketplace with an incredible opportunity for us to talk about our mission, which is to celebrate more than a century of the innovation, thrill, and adventure of motor racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as well as to recognize Indiana’s significant role in automotive history.
To put it another way, we are now part of the BaT community because we, like you, are addicted to cars, speed, and competition.
Sharing the story of the Speedway and the Indianapolis 500 requires a full-time museum staff of more than 20 dedicated professionals, plus a robust seasonal team of tour guides and museum hosts. After all, the Indianapolis 500 is the largest single-day sporting event in the world, full of colorful “month of May” traditions developed over the event’s 109 years of existence.
The IMS Museum welcomes visitors from more than 90 countries each year, and the Indy 500 is considered to be part of the prestigious “Triple Crown” of global motorsports along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Formula One’s Monaco Grand Prix. (You may have seen advertising for Sunday’s 104th running of the race – TV coverage starts at 1 p.m. on NBC. The race has been run “only” 103 times to date because the Indy 500 was canceled during America’s involvement in the World Wars, 1917-18 and 1942-45.)
Built in 1909, IMS is the largest sports seating facility in the world, with 250,000 grandstand seats and dozens of corporate suites. At 320 acres, the 2.5-mile oval’s infield is so large that the 96,000 square foot IMS Museum building occupies but a small part of the Turn 2 infield. In fact, you could fit the IMS Museum, Vatican City, Yankee Stadium, the White House, Liberty Island, the Taj Mahal, Churchill Downs, the Rose Bowl, and the Roman Colosseum within the oval’s walls.
Separate Entities… But Very Much Together
There is a common misconception that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, which operates the track, also owns and operates the Museum. Not true at all.
While the Corporation owns the Museum building, the IMS Museum’s fantastic collection, consisting of rare vehicles, trophies, film archives, and other artifacts, is owned and cared for by the IMS Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) public non-profit. Longtime IMS owner Anton “Tony” Hulman Jr. established the IMS Foundation just a year after starting the Museum in 1956.
Our vehicle collection consists of Indianapolis 500 winners, Indiana-built prewar passenger cars, and examples of the rarest race cars in the world, including the 1965 Le Mans-winning Ferrari 250LM, a 1966 Ford GT40 MKII, a 1957 Chevy Corvette SS, and a Mercedes W196 Grand Prix car driven by Juan Manuel Fangio and Sterling Moss.
The IMS Museum relies entirely on revenue from track tours, museum admissions, memberships, sponsorships, grants, donations, and planned giving to meet our mission. These sources fund the Museum’s daily operations, programming, and the salaries of our amazing staff, as well as our ongoing preservation, restoration, and collection care efforts.
This means it is up to IMS Museum employees (like me) and those who are passionate about preserving important vehicles and automotive artifacts (like you) to share our story and support the work of the Museum.
To put it mildly, 2020 has been anything but ordinary. We usually feature two major exhibits each year, plus a full calendar of special events starring a who’s who of INDYCAR and NASCAR stars past and present. In recent years, our exhibits have honored Mario Andretti, the Unser family, A.J. Foyt, Team Penske, legendary engines of the Indy 500, and the Chevy Camaro, among other topics.
Currently, we’re offering two feature exhibits. One is a tribute to the life of legendary car owner and marketing wizard Andy Granatelli, and the other showcases some of the rarest cars from our collection vault.
Like all museums and arts organizations, the shutdowns caused by the global pandemic have had a substantial impact on the IMS Museum. We normally host more visitors during Indy 500 activities in “the month of May” than the rest of the year combined, but the Museum was closed for all of it in 2020.
This year notwithstanding, we have a “go big or go home” attitude, not just about our exhibits and preservation efforts, but about the very future of the IMS Museum. We are dreaming big as we transform the Museum from a sleepy repository of Indy 500 artifacts into a high-tech, world-class destination for interactive entertainment and all-ages education. We want it to be a place that will tell the stories of auto racing’s heroes, innovation, and drama like nowhere else in the world.
We are selling vehicles on BaT that do not fit our mission, and we are excited that they will continue their stories in new homes. Meanwhile, our full-time restoration staff is finishing up a full renewal of Dan Gurney’s 1963 Lotus 29/1, which was a key part of the “rear-engine revolution” that forever changed open-wheel racing.
Timing is fluid, but we will explore the possibility of a major capital campaign within a few years. Depending on its success, a full renovation and expansion of the Museum’s footprint could start soon after.
We hope you are asking two questions: “What is next?” and “How can I help?”
The answer to the latter is, simply, support the Museum. When possible, come visit us and take a tour of the track. Become a member or consider including the IMS Museum in your charitable giving. Donations from individuals (especially tried-and-true automotive and racing fans like you) will be critical for achieving our goals. Visit our website for information about our history, exhibits, events, and educational resources. We also love to share photos and videos with our followers and to provide news and event updates through our social media (@imsmuseum) and YouTube page.
Thank you for taking a few minutes to learn about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. We are very proud to be part of the Bring a Trailer community and can’t wait to talk more about cars, the Indy 500, and racing!
– Eric Powell
IMS Museum Director of Communications
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