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Fore!
IMS replaced their very decrepit but track icon scoring pole with a new million dollar upgrade. Not only is it easy to read, the top lights up during cautions. And because it is visible from just about everywhere on the track, it's easier to to see if there is a FCY by looking at this than trying to locate the flaggers.
The series made a huge improvement and not only fixed the leader light system, but replaced the three dots with an LED number pad. What a welcome return this is!The track serves multiple purposes, most notably the high speed oval, but it also has the road course, an auto museum, and 4 holes of the Brickyard Crossings golf course. The sports cars used the road course part of the track, typically called a “roval”, for part road course, part oval. A typical roval uses a good part of the oval track, and then has a few turns thru the infield. A prime example is Daytona. Daytona uses a majority of the oval, with an infield starting at NASCAR turn 1, exiting in NASCAR turn 1, and then except for a quick kink called the bus stop around turn 3, it is all oval. IMS is just the opposite. The road course part of the track uses INDY turn 2 and the front straight in reverse of the oval layout. Everything else is a well paved infield road course that doesn’t feel like an afterthought. This part of the track has 20 ft. viewing berms at several of the turns, and various parts of the grandstands were open if you wanted a bird’s eye view of the track.
There is no elevation change, but the track layout provides good racing, and plenty of good viewing spots. If you like to watch the action from one spot, it's the berm north of turns 7-10. If you like to wander, you can find vantage spots all around the track.
