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Lucy Denyer blog Indy 500


As a small boy growing up in Salisbury, Wiltshire, he was miles from the action, but that didn’t stop him. He’d heard about the Indy 500 and he was determined to get there at all costs.

By 1964 he’d saved up enough money to make the trip. He was completely sold, and a year later he returned to settle in Indianapolis for good. Forty six years later, he’s still there.

Davidson now works as the official track historian at the Indy 500 Speedway. He knows the answer to pretty much any question you’d care to ask, and can pull up  random facts and figures from dates way back in the past from seemingly nowhere. He is fanatical about the big race itself. "It’s more than just an automobile race,” he says. “It’s an event, an experience. It’s been my all-consuming passion for as long as I can remember."

We met Davidson this morning, on the hallowed turf itself. There has been a track here, in exactly the same place as it is now, for over 100 years. Originally built for car manufacturers to test their vehicles and show them off to the public, it has now turned into one of the world’s most celebrated racetracks, a mecca for petrolheads and this weekend, the site of the Moto GP bike race, whose entrants are already screaming round the curves when we arrive. You can’t help but be entranced – even if you’re not into racing.

The on-site car museum is even better. Here is the winner of the first ever Indy 500, in 1911, there is the Ford winner of the 1995 Indy 500, driven by Jacques Villeneuve. Ford features quite heavily, in fact. Not sure the Fiesta is ever going to win the Indy 500 though...

It’s more than just an automobile race – it is an event, an experience and if you’re sensitive at all you’ll get the vibes off other people that this is so important to them and they’ve got their family traditions.

The indy 500 has been i’d say my whole life for all of my adult life and even prior to that it’s no necessarily the event now but the history of the event and the place has been my all consuming passion since I was 13 going on 14 and i’ve been very fortunate that I was able to do something with the interest and it keeps developing.