How history was laid this winter inside the Yard of Bricks at IMS

Nathan Brown, Indianapolis Star
·5 min read
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The last time the grounds crew at Indianapolis Motor Speedway dug up the Yard of Bricks – all 576 of them – Danica Patrick hadn’t yet made her Indianapolis 500 debut, Michael Andretti still had two more 500s to run and Colton Herta was just 4 years old.

The Racing Capital of the World doesn’t often touch that 3-foot strip of famous bricks, but for four weeks this winter, IMS president Doug Boles and track owner Roger Penske had the entire swath dug up, shrouded from view with scaffolding and temperature-controlled in a makeshift tent for the completion of one of the most special projects ever on the 2.5-mile oval’s surface.

This winter, IMS dug up its Yard of Bricks to insert three new historic bricks into the surface of the track for four-time winners Helio Castroneves, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr. AJ Foyt helped insert his in 2018.
This winter, IMS dug up its Yard of Bricks to insert three new historic bricks into the surface of the track for four-time winners Helio Castroneves, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr. AJ Foyt helped insert his in 2018.

“This will be here forever. It’ll be here long after (Helio Castroneves) and I will be gone, and you, Helio will be right here in the middle of the front straightaway,” Penske told Castroneves during a special ceremony Friday evening before the track’s party with fans to commemorate the calendar hitting 100 days until this year’s Indy 500.

Castroneves was crouched down, near-speechless and holding back tears. Now embedded in the surface of the Yard of Bricks was the commemorative one he helped cast in the summer of 2021 that includes his name and the years in which he won the Greatest Spectacle in Racing to join the ultra-exclusive four-timers club that includes A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and the late Al Unser Sr.

It was just the fourth instance in the track’s history that one of the famed winners of the 500 and the track’s current owner helped unveil a special addition in the track surface.

Historic additions to the Yard of Bricks

On occasion, the IMS grounds crew eyes a couple of bricks in need of removal from the 3-foot strip, either by being flipped to present a flat, untarnished side facing up, or being replaced. But this four-week project, Boles told IndyStar, is the first such removal of each brick that sits inside the oval since the track’s last resurfacing in 2004 following the Brickyard 400. Then, approximately 2.5 inches of asphalt was removed from the surface and replaced, and the bricks were dug up to protect them.

It was done this winter for good reason.

The fantastic four:Helio Castroneves joins A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., Rick Mears as Indy 500 4-time victor

Castroneves on his drive for 5th 500:'Indianapolis, it brings out the best in me'

Until five weeks ago, only Foyt had his commemorative brick laid among the 576 on-track. Super Tex helped unveil that one in 2018 and, as Boles revealed Friday, it happens to be hollow, filled with a special treasure like a time capsule left for an unsuspecting soul to uncover generations later. Until the latest update, Foyt’s brick had accompanied a special brick he and the late Mary Hulman George laid in 2011 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first Indianapolis 500 run in 1911.

Now, the 2011 brick sits in the center of a rectangle of the four four-timers’, with each of those drivers’ bricks four rows up or down from the edge and four bricks over from the anniversary one.

A secret four-week IMS transformation

The process of inserting the commemorative bricks of Unser Sr., Mears and Castroneves took four weeks, with work beginning just after Jan. 1 and the historic five bricks being reinserted last among the 576 on Feb. 10. To complete the work, crews set up a large set of scaffolding that spanned the entire track over the Yard of Bricks, with wooden boards affixed to the top to shield it from the elements. Tarps were then attached to the scaffolding and sealed tightly to allow a temperature-controlled site.

Doug Boles tapes a future episode of 'Beyond The Bricks' as grounds crew folks finish the historic renovations of the Yard of Bricks that took place over the winter.
Doug Boles tapes a future episode of 'Beyond The Bricks' as grounds crew folks finish the historic renovations of the Yard of Bricks that took place over the winter.

Crews redid the base layer that the bricks sit atop and cleaned each brick by hand, determining which few were too damaged to be reinserted. When that was set, the bricks and mortar were laid down, with the consistent warm temperature allowing the mortar to dry properly while keeping the ground and track around it from the freezing and thawing that could have changed the integrity of the track.

What else has been inside the Yard of Bricks

History states that in 1909, Carl Fisher, one of the track’s four original owners, and then Indiana Gov. Thomas Riley Marshall inserted a gold brick at the start-finish line of IMS as the last of the 3.2 million bricks that had been laid to surface the 2.5-mile oval. According to Boles, that brick, which would’ve been worth around $500 at the time, has been lost to history.

In 1961, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the race’s inaugural winner from 1911, Ray Harroun, and then-track owner Tony Hulman laid a special brick honoring the occasion within the Yard of Bricks. That brick has since been removed and now is in the IMS Museum.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy 500: How IMS inserted new four-time winner bricks in the track