This Racing Shrine Has Every Indy 500 Winner’s Car Since 1911 Alongside Rare Racing Memorabilia

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum

Speed freaks know the Indy 500 as racing’s holy ground, but the museum next door packs even more racing magic. From the first car that won back in 1911 to modern racing tech that changed the game forever, this place is pure gasoline dreams.

Here are some of the best things to check out at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Massive LED Screen Wraps Around Race Day

Standing before the giant 80-foot screen, you feel race day energy surround you while the famous words “Drivers, start your engines!” boom through the space. Front-row Indy cars sit just inches away as a quick 7-minute film shows you everything from pre-race jitters to checkered flag glory.

Your heart jumps at the cannon blast signaling race start while car engines growl to life all around you. As the green flag waves, you almost step back feeling 33 cars zoom past at speeds over 220 mph, heading into the first turn just as they would on race day.

Seven Garages Show How Racing Changed

Walking from the excitement of race day, you step into the Heritage Group Gasoline Alley Gallery where seven different time periods in racing history come alive through careful recreations.

Each garage takes you to a new decade with real tools, gear, and details that show how teams worked in that era.

You hear the voices of old-time mechanics and drivers through hidden speakers as you move from wooden wheels to sleek carbon fiber.

Racing changed forever in the 1920s when teams in this very alley switched from gas to ethanol fuel, giving this famous stretch of garages its lasting name and beginning a century of innovation that continues in the next gallery.

Winning Cars Shine Under Special Lights

Moving upstairs in the John H Holliday Family Winners Gallery, your eyes adjust to see 29 cars that crossed the finish line first at the Indy 500, arranged on two levels under soft spotlight beams.

Gleaming in the center stands the famous Borg-Warner Trophy with tiny faces of every winning driver since 1911 carved into its silver surface.

Only Four Men Won Indy Five Hundred Four Times

Just past the winners circle, you find yourself among cars driven by racing’s most elite club: A.J. Foyt, Al Unser, Rick Mears, and Helio Castroneves, the only drivers to win the Indy 500 four separate times.

Their actual winning cars sit together, surrounded by race-worn helmets, fire suits, and personal items that tell each man’s story.

Foyt dominated from 1961 through 1977, while Unser claimed victories across three different decades from 1970 to 1987. Mears collected his wins between 1979 and 1991, with Castroneves joining this exclusive group most recently with wins spanning from 2001 to 2021.

Seeing these legendary machines side by side is rare and only available through November 2025, making this room worth extra time before testing your own racing skills just around the corner.

Sit In A Simulator And Change Tires

You can try your hand at racing in the Qualifying Zone where realistic simulators let you feel what driving at Indy is really like.

Looking inside a cutaway race car shows you exactly how these complex machines work, with every part labeled and explained in simple terms.

The Penske Gallery

Turning from the simulators, you enter a room celebrating Team Penske’s record-setting 20 Indianapolis 500 victories, more wins than any team in history.

Five historic Penske cars form a timeline from Lee Wallard’s 1951 winner (when the team was called Belanger Motors) to Josef Newgarden’s latest triumph in 2024.

Twenty small Baby Borg-Warner trophies line the walls like a crown, showing Roger Penske’s racing kingdom. His Presidential Medal of Freedom sits nearby, surrounded by fire suits worn by all 14 different drivers who won for him over seven decades.

Car buffs gather around the infamous 1000-horsepower Mercedes-Benz 500I engine nicknamed “The Beast” that powered the 1994 winner, ready to learn how NASCAR later joined Indy’s racing story.

Stock Cars Circle The Famous Brickyard

Just steps away from Penske’s open-wheel dominance, eight NASCAR Brickyard 400 winning cars show how stock car racing added new chapters to Indy’s history.

Jeff Gordon’s winning car from the first NASCAR race held here in 1994 sits near Dale Earnhardt’s 1995 winner, both legends finally conquering the track they dreamed of racing as kids.

NASCAR brought a whole new style of racing to Indianapolis after more than 80 years of open-wheel tradition.

Jimmie Johnson’s blue 2006 Chevrolet stands with other stock car champions who mastered the challenging 2.5-mile oval that was never designed for heavy stock cars but still created thrilling races as you’ll discover upstairs.

Racing History Curves Like The Track

Moving upstairs to the new Mezzanine, you find yourself in a curved gallery shaped like the oval track itself, wrapping around with racing history from every era.

Touch screens let you explore Hall of Fame driver stories and follow a complete timeline from the track’s 1909 birth to today’s multi-purpose racing venue.

Every kind of racing held at IMS gets its due, from IndyCar to NASCAR, Formula One to motorcycle racing.

Displays highlight beloved traditions like winners drinking milk in Victory Lane and the Purdue band playing “Back Home Again in Indiana” before each 500, setting the stage for understanding how racing drove innovation throughout the last century.

Smart Ideas Born From Racing Speed

After learning about traditions, you discover how racing forced new ideas to solve problems of speed, safety, and reliability in the Innovation Workshop.

Hands-on displays let you touch materials that evolved from simple steel to carbon fiber, aluminum, and titanium as cars got faster and lighter.

Pushing buttons activates demonstrations of downforce, drag, and other concepts that keep cars glued to the track at speeds that would make them fly without clever engineering.

Safety improvements born from racing accidents show how tragedy led to the SAFER barrier walls, head restraints, and improved car designs that saved countless lives both on track and later on public roads.

Cut-Away Race Car Shows Every Part

From the Innovation Workshop, you step up to a complete IndyCar split open like a science class model, showing every part that makes these machines capable of 230+ mph speeds.

Teams and manufacturers donated real parts used in actual races to create this teaching display that weighs over 1,000 pounds.

Museum experts spent three months putting together this exploded view that reveals secrets normally hidden under bodywork.

Looking closely, you can spot the twin-turbo engine, carbon safety cell, push-rod suspension, and onboard computer systems arranged to show how each connects to the others in a package smaller than your living room sofa yet powerful enough to outrun a small airplane.

From Simple Motors To Turbo Power

Finishing your tour among the historic engines that powered racing evolution shows how much changed under the hood over a century of competition.

Simple four-cylinder motors from the early days sit near the mighty twin-turbocharged V6 engines used today, each step bringing more power from smaller, lighter packages.

For over forty years, the famous Offenhauser engine ruled Indy, winning 27 times between 1935 and 1976 with a design so good nobody could beat it.

Looking at the unusual turbine engine that nearly won in 1967 next to today’s high-tech Honda and Chevrolet units shows how racing pushed boundaries of what seemed possible, just as you pushed your understanding of racing history today.

Plan Your Visit To The Speedway Museum – Accuracy Verification

Find the museum at 4790 W 16th St, Indianapolis, IN 46222, inside the famous oval’s Turn 2.

• Open daily 9am-5pm (March-October) and 10am-4pm (November-February)
• Adult tickets: $32, Seniors (65+): $28, Youth (6-15): $15, Children 5 and under: Free
• Park free at Gate 2 off 16th Street
• Guided tours run hourly from 10am to 3pm (extra $10)
• Fully accessible for all visitors
• Ask about special deals during race weeks

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