The news on the sale of 11 cars from the the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has rather eclipsed what’s going on at the museum itself – which is equally fascinating. IMS Museum president Joe Hale explained to us why the cars are being sold here – but also talked us through the museum’s planned complete transformation.
The museum was closed to the public in May 2024 to allow a complete rework, and it is due to open in April 2025. It will be virtually unrecognisable to how it was previously, and it will concentrate on Indy cars rather than including machinery from other disciplines – which is one of the reasons why the Mercedes-Benz W196 R, the Ferrari 250 LM and others are to be offered by RM Sotheby’s.
“The museum will be 50 in two years’ time,” Joe explained to us. “And, to be honest with you, it hadn’t changed too much from when it was originally built. We have the largest collection, obviously, of Indy-winning cars. And when you walked in, you basically saw the whole museum. There wasn’t really a lot of mystery or a path to follow, or any kind of a learning experience.
“For the car guys, it was fine, because they got to be around cars that they just loved. But we thought it needed to be brought into the 21st century, and be what a museum should be today, which not only is educational, but also entertaining, immersive and participatory.
“I think what bothered me the most, though, was when a young person, a child, would come into our museum, what they heard more than anything else was ‘don’t touch that, don’t touch that, don’t touch that’, rather than ‘let me get you engaged, let me get you excited about the sport of motor racing’.”
He continued: “The other thing was that we weren’t really focused a lot on was education. There are now five race teams, with more possibly coming, in Indianapolis. Literally hundreds of jobs are being created. We’ve gone out, we’ve hired a new education director. We’ve been out talking to connect Ganassi and Rahal and some of the other teams, asking them ‘what skill sets are you looking for?’.
“We can’t teach a kid how to become an engineer, obviously, but what we can do is advise them on what classes they should take in middle school and high school to prepare for some of these really lucrative jobs that are being created right here in their hometown. So we’re going to have a huge focus on education.”
Joe joined the IMS Museum in January 2021 as president, having previously headed a non-profit organisation as well as energy and healthcare businesses. He and the IMS team have worked hard to ensure that the remodelled museum will work for all visitors, explaining the history and stories of the Indianapolis track and the Indy 500 race.
“I’ve been here four years, and in the first couple of years we tried once a quarter to jump in the car and go to a different museum. It might be The Henry Ford, might be the Cord Auburn Duesenberg Automobile Museum, might be the National Museum of the US Air Force. We went to the Kentucky Derby Museum just to see it, and we went to the Petersen Automotive Museum. It was to get a sense of what technology was being used, and if these museums were starting over, what would they do differently? What mistakes did they feel they had made? So we really got a lot of good input from colleagues in the field. And I’m not saying what we’re building is perfect, but I think we’ve learned a lot from those trips we took.
“There will be much more of a focus on storytelling,” Joe continued. “You’ll come in and you’ll go down Gasoline Alley, where you’ll see seven garages that represent seven different eras of the race here, from 1909 to the present day. You’ll see the evolution of technology, the evolution of design. These garages will be exact replicas: the tools, everything in them, will be exact replicas from that era of the 500, so you’ll get a sense of history walking down Gasoline Alley.
“Then you’ll turn the corner, and all of a sudden there’s a 20-foot-wide by 80-foot-long LED screen in front and above you. And it will give you the experience of what it’s like to be on the track on race morning, from 6:00am when the cannon goes off, until ‘drivers start your engines’ at 11:45am, so you’re really going to get an immersive experience. When the engines start, you will feel those engines start. You’ll hear them, but you also feel them start.
“So it’s going to give you that experience to then emerge from. And in front of you will be a brand-new grand staircase taking you up to a new mezzanine that will have information about the other races that have happened at the track, and the safety innovations that have happened. There will be an exhibition on the most recent Indy 500-winning driver and car as well.”
He continued: “That’s all new space, because Roger Penske, who’s our landlord [although the museum is completely detached from the Indy 500 as a separate 501(C)(3) organisation] said: ‘You can’t go out, you can’t go up, but I’d like you to double the size of this museum.’ [Joe laughs]. So we took that charge seriously, and we actually had enough room to create the mezzanine.
“Also, in the past, the basement was really off limits to most visitors. You had to know somebody to get into the basement. Yet some of the coolest cars we had were down there. I never understood that. So we’ve now made the basement part of the museum, so we really have doubled the size.
“Anyway, you’ll come from that starting-line experience, and then you’ll have our Winners’ Gallery under this new mezzanine, and about 24 of our Indy 500-winning cars will be displayed there. We’re also having a qualifying zone, which gives adults and kids an idea of what it’s like to prep for the 500. You can try to qualify on our simulators. You can pick up a fuel hose. You can pick up a tyre. See how heavy those are. So it’s a lot of experiences. You can test your reflexes there, and then that feeds right into a new STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts, maths] classroom we have, and that’s going to be a place of learning. It’s also going to be a place where we’re going to bring in a lot more field trips than we have in the past.
“Then, at the end of the first floor, there’s going to be the Penske gallery. Roger is going to have six cars from his collection in there. It’s going to give a lot of information about the history of that team.
“Then you go down in the basement, where there will be more winning cars. What’s cool down there is that we’re going to have two rotating galleries, which can be combined into one large one. The first exhibit that we’re going to be doing is the four-time winners of the Indy 500.
“You’ll also see a projection map that will show you how the track has changed from 1909, when it was a farm, until today, decade by decade.
“There are food and beverage facilities down there, too, and then you’ll go out and take your tour around the track – and, if the track is available that day, which it usually is, take a lap around it. You’ll get off at the finish line, kiss the bricks and all of that. In the past, when people wanted to take that tour, they would come into the museum, they’d buy a ticket, and they’d leave and then take their tour around the track. Many never went through the museum, so we wanted to make sure they had a sense of the history and had context for that trip they’re going to take around the track, so it’s more meaningful to them.
“After that, you exit down the hallway, and cars are going by at 230mph [on the screen] – it’s the race experience, the sights and sounds of what it’s like to be on the track when the race is going on – and then you exit the retail.
“We’ve got a second phase that we’re going to be announcing later that we hope is going to involve a restoration shop, which could be an added-on tour at some point in the future. But for now, we’re really focused on reopening. We are going to be opening on schedule in April 2025 – and we’re a little under budget, too.”
For more information on the museum, click here.
