INDIANAPOLIS — 16,800 Hoosiers are signed up to receive their vaccine between Friday and Monday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
4,200 of those appointments were scheduled for Friday, and people were impressed with the operation.
“It’s like the quickest pit stop that might save your life. It was 13 minutes from the time we drove through the tunnel to the time the shot was in my arm and we were driving out,” said Suzanne Robinson, who received her vaccine early Friday morning.
Robinson said after receiving the shot, she was directed to drive over to a holding area where she sat in her car for 15 minutes to be monitored.
Overall, the whole process from gate to gate took Robinson a little under 30 minutes.
“To think that you can be protected from this virus in a half hour’s time is really incredible,” Robinson said.
“Streamlined, organized I was very impressed,” Leann English, who also received her vaccine at the speedway on Friday, said. “They basically corral you through, there are people everywhere to help you get to the lanes you need.”
The large-scale clinic is the first of its kind in the state of Indiana. All appointments are booked up for IMS but the Indiana State Department of Health has scheduled more throughout the month of March.
Robinson said she didn’t want to wait to receive her shot at another location. The motor speedway is a special spot for her.
“I’ve worked 33 Indy 500s here in various ways in media relations and photography. So it’s a little bit of a second home so it seems appropriate that this is the place where I go to get vaccinated and get safe,” Robinson said.
The mother of two is hopeful that by getting thousands of Hoosiers vaccinated at clinics like this, we’ll be a little closer to returning to normalcy. For Robinson, that will mean the chance to see her son, “Who lives in Australia. I haven’t seen him in over a year because of this.”
The clinic at IMS goes through Monday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
