SPEEDWAY, Ind. – We are officially counting down the days until race day!
There are only 74 days until 33 drivers hit the track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but before the dropping of the green flag, another tradition comes first.
The first batch of tickets, weighing more than three tons, are being mailed out of the IMS ticket office.
Since June, Mandy Walsh has been working on perfecting the look of the Indianapolis 500 ticket.
“I just look through all the pictures and just see the excitement, the emotion and just kind of see what speaks to me, really,” she said.
Walsh focused on Josef Newgarden’s back-to-back wins, incorporating his similar celebrations from both years.
“Putting his number two in with the back-to-back, which was somebody else’s idea from my department, and I was like, I love that. Let’s do that,” said Walsh.
She said she’s been waiting for this day since the design was finalized back in September.
“Everybody goes down and helps and carries them out and all that, and it’s become, like, this really huge tradition,” said Walsh.
It’s a long-time tradition for drivers to participate each year, like Felix Rosenqvist of Meyer Shank Racing. He’s helped for the last three years, personally signing envelopes heading to fans in his home country of Sweden.
“I hope it means something when they get their envelope, obviously, they’re going to be waiting for that for a long time,” said Rosenqvist.
“If you make the decision to travel from Sweden here, you’re obviously a big motorsport fan.”
He said signing the pylon in the ticket office and carrying the totes of mail to the postal trucks has him counting down the days to May.
“I love to just pump myself up for the 500 and this is kind of the first time you really, you know, get a sense of getting back to the speedway,” said Rosenqvist.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Devlin DeFrancesco and Louis Foster also participated in this year’s event.
As for ticket sales, IMS and Indycar President Doug Boles said they’re about 10,000 units up compared to this time last year.
“If all things work and look good, I hope to sell out the grandstands this year and have an opportunity to do something we haven’t done since 2016,” said Boles.
He added that while some tickets are getting sent out now, fans should be patient on delivery.
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