Speedway High School to have graduation at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) – Speedway High School is set to hold this year’s commencement at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The graduation will be on Saturday, May 30. Speedway High School Principal Lucas Zartman said details have been discussed this week.
There will be 125 seniors who will get their diploma at one of the most iconic places in Indiana while following social distancing guidelines.
“It was a time for us to return a favor. The Speedway High School is literally a few blocks from the Indianapolis speedway. We use their facility for parking for the Indianapolis 500 every year,” said IMS President Doug Boles.
Boles predicts the commencement will be two hours long.
It won’t be a traditional ceremony. Zartman said students will meet in the high school parking lot before getting into their personal cars with close family and friends. There will be a procession through the town of Speedway to the track.
“The graduates and their families will stay in their car there at the track. There will be a staging area and then one by one, they will be released onto the track and drive through the finish line, where they will get out of their vehicle with their family to receive their diploma at the Yard of Bricks and have their picture taken,” said Zartman.
There will be no spectators sitting in the stands. Instead, speeches from commencement speakers will be pre-taped and played at the track and live-streamed for everyone to see. Boles told News 8 that other high schools have asked if they can celebrate their graduation at IMS too, but the president said officials said most of the graduating classes are too large to accommodate.
“We wanted to be really respectful of the governor and the mayor’s orders,” said Boles. “We also have a lot of construction going on at the speedway that started in anticipation of this May, so a little bit of a challenge for us to host larger groups.”
Both Boles and Zartman said that they’re happy to still host an in-person graduation during this unprecedented time.
“It’s something I think our graduates and their families will talk about for years to come,” Zartman added.
There has been no set time on when the graduation will begin.