By: Bill Thorpe

This year’s Indianapolis 500 will be paced by a Chevrolet Corvette for the 13th time. Twenty years ago this purple and white convertible was the third Corvette with that honor. It quickly became the envy of the Corvette enthusiasts throughout the country. To ensure its rarity, General Motors only produced 527 of these cars. The original sticker price was a whopping $44,000, and dealers easily commanded $50,000-plus in the weeks following the race.

 Jason Sharkey found this car in the Chicago area and discovered that the seller had never bothered to title the car because he said he felt it was too valuable to be driven on the streets. 

A mere 8,000 miles are on the odometer. Jason is preparing to have the car certified gold at the Bloomington Gold event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in June. He and his wife will then display the pace car at future car shows and parades to honor its history as a festival car from the 79th running of the Indy 500. 

The 1995 Corvette came with a 5.7 V-8 engine that produced 300 horsepower and could go from 0 to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds with a maximum speed of 161 mph. Surprisingly, the LT-1 engine could deliver 17 city/24 highway miles per gallon under normal highway driving. Jason notes that the suspension is rather stiff but gives a comfortable ride over long distances.

The pace car designers at the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., chose the eye-catching purple over white exterior with purple and black interior seats and dashboard to set it aside from all previous models. To complete the job they subcontracted a local body shop to apply the final graphics.

 The C4 Corvette would continue into production until 1997, when it was replaced with the C5. That corvette would also be recognized for its technological advancements and pace the 1998 Indianapolis 500.
Until next time, happy cruising!

By Brett Hickman
Southsider Voice correspondent 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has accommodated fans and parking within the confines of the track since its inception in 1909.
The first race – a hot air balloon race in June 1909, before the oval was complete, drew 40,000 spectators. Today the historic landmark stages seven major events in five racing series, with the crown-jewel Indy 500 drawing 250,000-plus fans.  

Throughout the late 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, exceptionally large crowds gathered in all four infield turns to watch the brightly colored cars scream by. As these crowds continued to increase, it attracted more than just hard-core race fans. 
It was common for families to pack up the car and picnic in the vast infield, which contained little more than a nine-hole golf course. Parents would grill burgers and hot dogs while their children played. Trips would be made to the fence where everyone stared in amazement at the cars’ speed. I know of these experiences firsthand because I enjoyed big outings with my family every May at the track. 

There was also another type of fans – party fans – that started populating the infields during this same time period. These spectators significantly increased the attendance for practice and qualifications, especially pole day, and the Indy 500, which was the most attended single-day sporting event in the world; pole day was in second. 

Every one of the infield turns provided parking and easy viewing of the track. However, with these fans came an increasing amount of debauchery and eventually violence. The first-turn infield became notoriously known as the Snake Pit in the 1980s. It became a harbor for drunkenness, fighting, nudity, car fires and multiple arrests. It intimidated many and certainly wasn’t a place to take your children to enjoy a day at the track. 
From the late ’80s into the ’90s, things grew increasingly out of control. A first attempt to restrain the party element was the construction of grandstands in the infield turns. However, that did little to curtail the partying. The problem culminated in 1990 when a riot occurred between fans and partiers in the fourth-turn infield and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. This signaled the demise of the Snake Pit and the all-out parties in all the turns.

Since the late 1990s the IMS has done a remarkable job of modernizing and reinventing the Speedway. A road course now cuts through what was once the Snake Pit and its turn-four rival. Fans are not allowed in these areas any longer, with the exception being the Miller Lite Party Deck in the fourth turn. The only areas accessible to fans are from the second-turn infield down the backstretch and into the third turn. The IMS has built viewing mounds on which fans can sit and watch the cars. A portion of these mounds are designated family-viewing areas, where alcohol is prohibited.

The huge party crowds, shenanigans and debauchery of the old days are now just part of the track’s history. However, in their place are family-oriented activities and cleaner viewing areas – all of which provide the same experiences in a more respectable environment.