SPEEDWAY — The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum reopened Wednesday following an 18-month closure and a $60 million renovation.
The flashy new immersive exhibits are miles removed from the museum’s humble roots, which date back to 1956.
The original museum, located at the corner of 16th Street and Georgetown Road, was demolished in 1993 to make way for a new administrative building ahead of the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994.
WRTV, then WFBM, took viewers inside the museum with host Bernie Herman in May 1965. Herman was joined by Speedway president Tony Hulman and Karl Kizer, the museum's first curator.
“It was the idea of Karl Kizer, Wilbur Shaw, and myself to assemble a number of old race cars before they got completely out of existence,” Hulman said. “In 1956, we finally got around to getting a building. We found a nice home for them out here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”
Herman and Kizer took viewers around the museum, which featured ten 500-mile race-winning cars, including the Marmon Wasp, the first car to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1911 with driver Ray Harroun.
“Karl, number 32, always gives me a tug of the heartstrings,” Herman said.
“It was quite a car in its day,” Kizer said. “It would certainly be terrible to take it out on the track and race it against present-day cars.”
The museum also housed Mauri Rose’s Blue Crown Spark Plug Special,which won back-to-back 500-Mile races in 1947 and 1948. Another back-to-back winner, Bill Vukovich’s Fuel Injection Offy, was also on display.
The museum had a total of 70 cars in its collection, a number that’s only grown through the years.
