Fans prepare for Indy 500 weekend rain or shine
SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) — Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to head to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend for all the race festivities, but weather could be a problem.
People took the party from Speedway to downtown Indianapolis Friday night to enjoy Steak’ N Shake Carb Night Burger Bash at Pan Am Plaza.
The event was rained out because of the weather. IMS said officials are ready to make any necessary changes at the track this weekend for weather.
The day started bright and early for racing fans at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Carb Day.
“The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is tradition,” said Marc Lepore, a race fan from Florida. “It’s just tradition.”
The weather cooperated as fans got a chance to enjoy a day of drinking and live music from Steve Miller Band and the Barenaked Ladies.
Marc and Debbie Lepore came all the way from Florida to experience the excitement, rain or shine.
“Hey it rains on a race day, the sun shines when they start the engines,” he said.
Mother Nature brought light rain Thursday, which made everything muddy in parking lots and near campsites, like Glamp Town.
“Yesterday was a little wet and muddy. We’ve been lucky today it’s been drier and sunnier, getting a little bit of color on this white skin, but it’s been nice,” said Drew Donovan, a race fan from Indianapolis.
Charles Bruce from Chicago is hoping for beautiful weather on race day. He said he came to his first race in 1990 and has been back ever since.
“There was one year the rain was so bad it got rained out on Sunday, rained out on Monday, and they actually ran the race on Tuesday,” said Bruce. “I had to leave. I had to go back to work. I gave my tickets away to somebody who had never been to the race before.”
IMS President Doug Boles said they are paying attention to weather with rain being a possibility on race day.
“We’ve gone through all the different scenarios of what could happen, so we are prepared to let our fans know as weather comes in,” said Boles. “We do that even on a day that’s really nice. We’re showing them the radar, talking to them, making sure they know what their personal plan is.”
He’s also encouraging fans to have their own personal plan in place for severe weather.
“We don’t know where you park, we don’t know where your sitting necessarily, and that really plays into where you should go and what you should do in an event of that kind of weather,” he said.
IMS said they have several ways of notifying fans of severe weather at the track through their PA system, video boards, social media accounts, and Brickyard mobile app.