Indy Grand Prix May 2018
Itinerary
5/11: (Fri) Chicago - Indianapolis
Left the house around 1pm. About a four hour drive which was uneventful. It was nice we did not run into any significant traffice issues.
Stayed downtown in the “wholesale district” which was right in the middle of everything. Lot’s of restaurants, lots of activity. A bit run down with quite a few homeless on the street but did not feel unsafe in any way.
We walked around looking for a good local restaurant without much luck. Stopped into a couple and decided not to eat there. Finally ended up at Rock Bottom Brewery which was fine. There were tons of restaurants tho, maybe just needed a little research before hand.
Stayed at the Hampton Inn. Was OK at best. A little old, a little run down, very small room and not a very comfortable bed. But, was not that bad.
5/12: (Sat) Indianapolis
We headed to Indianapolis Motor Speedway only about 5 miles away and it was fun actually driving under the race track to park in the third turn infield.
Traffic was nothing.
This is the course layout for the Grand Prix. Fourteen turns and they run the track clockwise (Indy 500 runs counter clockwise).
Hung out by the car and ate our sandwiches. There was a minor race going on at the time. Around two we took the Long walk across the infield, over the grand prix track that goes through the infield, under the main track through a tunnel and up to Penthouse section E in the first turn. The seats were great and I think probably the best vantage point for the Indy 500 seeing the main straight away, turn 1 and turn 2. Really a cool setting.
Weather was perfect about 80 but with some nice overcast and a nice breeze to keep it from being too hot.
Hung out enjoying being there. The race actually runs the opposite direction from the indy so, turn 3 for Indy 500 was actually turn 1 for the Grand Prix. So, our seats were still very good but probably the best for the Grand Prix would be turn 3 since the cars are coming off the only main straight away on the track. The Indy cars are very cool and very loud. They race 24 cars starting 2 in each of 12 rows.
Will Power was on the pole position and I picked to root for him to win the race. The race was 85 laps. Will did take the lead and kept it for the first part of the race. But, through pitting there were a couple of other leaders too. Kathyrn starting rooting for the rookie Robert Wickens after he had taken the lead.
The last 30 laps of the race were pretty exciting with Power, Wickens and Dixon competing for first place. Eventually, Power took the lead again and kept it to win the race. So fun for me... Although he was the favorite winning the pole position and he had won both in 2017 and 2015.
Not a ton of passing (I think they said 214 passes in the race) and we did not see a lot of them since most were in turn 1 and 7 away from us. But still a fun race day for sure.
My guess at attendance was 30 – 40,000 and that is about what prior years had. The Indy 500 on the other hand draws 400,000. Both Kathryn and I did not like the prospect of dealing with 400,000 fans. With 40,000 getting in and out of the event was a breeze, with 400,000 we think much much worse. Also, some of the seating areas had pretty narrow walkways. Can’t imagine how they can handle 10x more people. Not to think of what if there as an emergency, people would for sure be trampled and crushed.
Was a very fun day at Indy.
Note: The pictures are from the internet. Some show Indy 500 crowds.
Traffic getting out of the race was not that bad. We actually ran into much worse traffic near our hotel as it looked like a huge graduation ceremony was going on at the convention center and a baseball game (minor league) was on too. That evening we again walked around downtown looking for a nice place to eat. Did not have much luck as places looked either run down, loud or just not very enticing. Ended up eating at the Claddagh Irish Pub. The weather was great so we ate outside and it was nice. Both had fish and chips which was good.
5/13: (Sun) Indianapolis - Chicago
Not too much planned for today. Breakfast at the hotel.
Another fantastic day 80 with a nice breeze.
We visited the Indiana War Memorial. The memorial is free and was right downtown. The building was amazing with some great architecture and it was laid out along grounds that mimicked the Mall in DC. Pretty cool.
The museum was excellent. Very well put together and maintained. They had some really cool displays of wars dating back to the Spanish American War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, IRAQ and Afganistan. Very excellent war museum, well worth a visit and....it was free!. It was not crowded at all which was nice.
We then headed over to see Canal Street and White River State Park. I did not have anything really planned and thought we could just explore. However, it seemed there was a big event going on and ended up just driving around and not finding anyplace interesting to just park and explore.
So, we headed back home. It was nice that it was a Sunday afternoon so again, we had no problems with traffic.
All in all, a very nice three day weekend to Indy.
Summary
The City: OK. Indy Race Track: Very Cool. But I would not want to be there with 400,000 fans. War Memorial: Very Cool