Indianapolis, a mecca for scores of race car drivers and for millions of race fans, provides one of NASCAR’s most unique race weekends. Thousands of stock car racing enthusiast make the annual August pilgrimage to watch their favorite drivers compete on two vastly different ovals, Indianapolis Motor Speedway also known as “The Brickyard” a 2.5 mile oval, considered by most to be the most prestigious circuit in the world and Indianapolis Raceway Park, a quirky diminutive .686 mile short track that many drivers consider to be one of the most challenging short tracks in the United States.

Fastenal and Bobby Hamilton Racing have joined forces and will be pulling double duty,competing at both venues. Bobby Hamilton Jr. will drive the No. 04 Fastenal Dodge in the NASCAR Nextel Cup event at the Brickyard (The Allstate 400 at the Brickyard) and he will drive the No. 18 Fastenal Dodge Ram in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Indianapolis Raceway Park(The Power Stroke Diesel 200). In pre-race testing at the Brickyard Hamilton Jr. was the 11th fastest driver posting a time of 50.406 which equates to a 178.550 mile per hour lap around the 2.5 mile oval.  

"Indianapolis is one of the two biggest events the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series goes to each year,” Bobby Hamilton Sr. said.  “We want to be a part of that show.  Fastenal has been so gracious to stay with us during this trying season and they want to take a stab at their first Cup event.  We are partners with them and appreciate the support they have given us through the cancer battle, driver change, performance woes and aerodynamic issues.  We are working on things to get them in Victory lane.  They deserve it and we want to be the team to give it to them.  The Nextel Cup event in Indy gives us a lot of aerodynamic feedback that we can use on our trucks.  We tested there with Bobby Jr. and after one complete lap we were settling in with the tire there and the car was still too free.  He lost control of it and we loaded up to come home.  Still he managed to take that car and have a great speed with only one lap.  We're attempting to make the race and hopefully like last year we can be competitive and we can get Fastenal their first Cup start.  It would mean a lot to me and this BHR team."

The History of The Brickyard

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana, is the second-oldest surviving automobile racing track in the world (after the Milwaukee Mile), having existed since 1909, and the original "Speedway," the first racing facility historically to incorporate the word. The track is a relatively flat two and a half mile oval, almost rectangular in shape. Sprawling over a current area of 559 acres and with a combined permanent seating and infield spectator capacity of over 400,000, it is the largest sporting facility in the world, and generally recognized as among the most famous and prestigious in motorsport history. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, currently the only such landmark to be affiliated with automotive history since its inception. To date, a total of 223 automobile races between August 19, 1909 and August 6, 2005 have been held, with 122 separate drivers winning.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indiana's capital city in the spring of 1909. Financed by four local businessmen, Carl Fisher, James Allison, Frank Wheeler and Arthur Newby, it was planned as a year-round testing facility for the fast-growing automobile industry in Indiana. Occasional race meets would be presented at the track, featuring those very same manufacturers racing their products against each other. Spectators, it was reasoned, would be sufficiently impressed as to want to head downtown quickly to the showrooms for a closer look at one of these new-fangled contraptions.

Four turns, each banked at nine degrees and 12 minutes and measuring exactly 440 yards from entrance to exit, were linked together by a pair of long straights and, at the north and south ends of the property, by a pair of short straights to form a rectangular-shaped 2 ½ mile track as dictated by the confines of the available land.

With the original surface of crushed rock and tar proving to be disastrous at the opening motorcycle and automobile racing events in August of 1909, 3,200,000 paving bricks were imported by rail from the western part of the state in the fall, laid on their sides in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar, this inspiring the nickname "The Brickyard".

Poor attendance at a trio of three-day meets on the revamped surface in 1910 caused the owners to rethink their plans and focus instead on a single event for 1911. They envisioned it as an event of gigantic proportions offering a huge purse. On May 30 - Memorial Day - a grueling 500-Mile race paying $14,250 to win took place, enjoying instant success and attracting universal recognition…and making history as the inaugural Indianapolis 500.

With the exception of an additional program of racing on a single day in September 1916, no race other than the Indianapolis 500 was to be held at the Speedway until a tremendously successful NASCAR stock car event, the Brickyard 400, debuted in 1994. The 500 was suspended during America's involvement in the two world wars, 1917-1918 and 1942-1945, but held in all other years.

Asphalt was first applied to the rougher portions of the track in 1936, and by 1941 all but the greater part of the mainstraight had become blacktop. The remainder of the bricks were finally covered over in the fall of 1961. Most of the original paving bricks are still in place underneath the modern asphalt surface, with only the famous "yard of bricks" still exposed at the start/finish line as a nostalgic reminder of the past.

The track has changed ownership only twice. With Carl Fisher heavily involved in the development of Miami Beach and Jim Allison's nearby engineering company growing rapidly, the foursome sold IMS in 1927 to a group headed up by WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. Rickenbacker had actually driven in several 500s before he ever knew how to fly. One of Rickenbacker's first actions was to install an 18-hole golf course on the grounds in 1929, now known as Brickyard Crossing and home of a Senior PGA Tour golf tournament, the Brickyard Crossing Championship, in September.

Allowed to fall into a terrible state of disrepair as a result of four years of neglect during WWII, the Speedway was purchased in 1945 by Terre Haute, Indiana, businessman Anton "Tony" Hulman, Jr. He immediately embarked on a phenomenal rejuvenation program that began the transformation of the facility into what it is today. Hulman passed away in October 1977, but to this day members of his family perpetuate the traditions of the Speedway - now encompassing 559 acres - while continuing to transform it beyond the wildest imaginations of its founders.

The Hulman-George family continues to own and operate the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Mari Hulman George serving as Chairman of the Board and Anton "Tony" George serving as President and Chief Executive Officer.

From 1919 to 1993, the 500 was the only racing done on the Brickyard. However, when Tony George (Hulman's grandson) inherited the track, he brought more racing to the Speedway, with the NASCAR Allstate 400 at The Brickyard (until 2005 and still commonly referred to as the Brickyard 400) and an International Race Of Champions (IROC) event. The golf course was changed from 27 holes (nine inside, eighteen outside) to a new 18-hole layout designed by legendary golf architect Pete Dye, with a Champions Tour (formerly the Senior PGA Tour) event hosted there. The 500 itself got a new look in 1996 when it became an event of George's Indy Racing League, formed as a rival to the Champ Car World Series.The Brickyard also now plays host to the Formula One Series with the U.S. Grand Prix.