MotoGP’s Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix is this weekend, in case you were unaware. As such, Asphalt & Rubber is live from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week, the racing capital of the world.
While the GP riders may not be huge fans of the IMS infield circuit (we’ll see if that opinion changes, now that Indy has repaved and reworked several turns), everyone is in agreement that IMS itself is an impressive facility.
A massive racing complex, it is hard to explain how big the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is to someone who hasn’t been here…so we thought we would try a new approach over the next few days. First up, Big 10 football. The Hoosier State is known best perhaps for basketball, as a member of the Big 10 Conference, the University of Indiana et al have some mammoth buildings are their disposal.
It’s too easy to realize that Indianapolis Motor Speedway is bigger than say Memorial Stadium, but how many Big 10 football fields do you think can fit in the IMS oval? Make your mind up now…no cheating.
A grand total of 560 acres comprise the Indianapolis Motor Speedway lot, which includes the 2.5-mile long IMS oval itself. Spanning 1,600 meters long, and 800 meters wide, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a titan — those figures work out to be one mile long, and half a mile wide for us non-metric folk.
By Comparison, Memorial Stadium at Indiana University is a paltry 320 x 200 meter oval. To put things in better perspective, IMS can fit not only the football stadium at the University of Indiana, but also the football stadiums of all the 14 schools in the Big 10 Conference…with room to spare.
Source: Google Earth
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