Behind the scenes at the 100th Indy 500: Day Three

passed-out-indy-fan

From the minute we exited the bus and entered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway grounds to start Day Three, the crowd was raucous. Carb Day was in full swing and even though it was 8 AM, the beer swilling and hot babe-age lent itself to the feel of an early afternoon college football tailgate.

Carb Day

hot-babes

Even though the cars haven’t used carburetors since 1963, Carb Day is the final practice session before the race. 150,000-plus people attended this year’s version, an all-time high. Above, six of the hottest babes on site. 

carb day

Pit Stop Races

pit stop

Pit crews and drivers compete against each other to see who can complete a pit stop the fastest. When the DJ played Bon Jovi’s “Living On A Prayer,” the crowd went up for grabs. Helio Castroneves’ team won the pit stop race, recovering nicely from the remote controlled car thrashing he received a day earlier

Kiss the Bricks

racebutts

The Yard of Bricks are the last remaining original bricks (once over a total of three million) on the track and comprise the start/finish line. Kissing the bricks was started by NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett in 1996 as a tribute to the history of the track. 

Verizon Mobile Command Center

control panel

We took a break from the heat and beer bongs for a tour of the Verizon Mobile Command Center and checked out all the equipment and technology Verizon uses to broadcast #InsideIndy. At any given time, 42 cameras are used to capture a race and 400,000 gigabytes of data is used per second.

Eagles of Death Metal

a luck

After a full day at the track, we closed out Day Three by sucking down some rock n’ roll courtesy of the Eagles of Death Metal at local venue Vogue. Ever opportunistic, we slithered our way into the VIP section and secured a table. Three songs in, we realized the table we had occupied was reserved for none other than Indianapolis Colts QB Andrew Luck, who cut us in line just two days earlier. Andrew never showed and EODM rocked the house.

eagles-of-death-metal

Up next on Day Four? The mother of all races and “Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

  

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