USA Holiday, November 16 (The Brickyard)

As it goes when you ride the bus, I had to head downtown first and then on another bus out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

They do some behind the scenes tour only about 20 days of the year, but the museum is open all the time, and you can take a bus tour around the circuit. Started with the bus tour which is fun, not often you get to go around a permanent race circuit, even if it was just as a passenger. After that had a walk around the museum which had a whole lot of old cars that had raced in the Indy 500 over the years (most of which I hadn't heard of) but also a couple of Formula One, Nascar and motorbikes as a few different kinds of events have been hosted there in the last decade. The highlight of the museum was seeing the JV and MS cars.

Overall the trip out to the speedway was great, but if you got to drive yourself on a part of the track it would have been that much better. Walking back to the bus station afterward was by far the coldest I have felt. I had to resort to a beanie and gloves, and even that only helped a bit.

Start Your Engines!

Lots of old cars.

AJ Foyt Jr, won the Indy 500 four times.

Back outside for a flying lap.

The winners podium and the pagoda.

The only remaining bricks on the circuit, beside the start-finish line.

Gasoline Alley. Cars go here to refuel.

The great Al Unser Jr.

Mario Andretti. Getting a bit more modern now.

Jacques Villenueve 1995!

Winners trophy, complete with small heads of each of the winners.
Not the best looking trophy if you ask me.

Michael Schumacher 1991!

The Nascar trophy.

I could almost run faster than this thing.

Survived the arctic conditions and made it back into downtown. The Indiana Pacers court, the Conseco Fieldhouse is also located in the city, so had a chance to check that out as well as the Circle Centre Mall, which was one of the better malls I've been to.

The weather was just too bad to spend a full day outside, so I didn't get a chance to have a wander around the White Water Park area. They have a zoo, paddle boats (fun to race), a NCAA Hall Of Champions (that was closed on Mondays ffs!) and a couple of other things. There was also a canal running through the west part of the city, which was basically like a less glamorous version of San Antonio's river walk.