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50 free Indy 500 trivia questions with answers. The Indianapolis 500 has been run at the same 2.5-mile rectangle since 1911, and more than a century of racing has piled up traditions, records and oddities that reward anyone who pays attention. This quiz covers the whole story: the balloon race that opened the track, the mirror on the Marmon Wasp, why the winner drinks milk, who sings before the command, and how a car pulled out of a hotel lobby won the race. It starts with the questions every fan should get (how many cars start, what the track is nicknamed) and builds to the ones that separate casual viewers from Month-of-May obsessives: the 1912 push to the line, the 1981 win that changed hands twice, the shortest race on record and the record margin set in 2026. Perfect for race-weekend parties or a Memorial Day quiz night. Every answer was checked against primary sources, chiefly the Wikipedia articles on the race, the Speedway, individual runnings and the drivers involved, and each question carries its citation. No recycled listicle errors.
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Q 01Ray Harroun won the first 500 in 1911 driving which car, named for its sharp-pointed tail?
Marmon Wasp
Harroun, a Marmon engineer, came out of retirement to drive it and never raced again after collecting the $10,000 first prize.
Q 02What device did the 1911 winner famously bolt onto his car, believed to be a first on a racing machine?
A rear-view mirror
In an era of two-man cars he drove solo without a riding mechanic to watch behind him, and the mirror was his answer to complaints about safety.
Q 03Which Speedway founder went on to conceive the Lincoln Highway and develop Miami Beach?
Carl Fisher
Fisher made his fortune with Prest-O-Lite headlights before turning a swampy stretch of Florida coast into a resort.
Q 04What was the very first event held at the Speedway, in June 1909?
A gas-balloon race
The first car races followed in August 1909, and the crumbling stone-and-tar surface caused fatal crashes that led straight to the brick repaving.
Q 05Roughly how many bricks were laid to pave the track in the autumn of 1909?
3.2 million
Five Indiana manufacturers supplied the 10-pound bricks, and most of them are still there, buried under layers of asphalt.
Q 06How much of the original brick surface is still exposed at the start/finish line?
One yard
When the Pagoda was rebuilt in 2000, the strip was extended across pit lane and into the plaza behind it.
Q 07What is the track's long-standing nickname, earned from its 1909 paving?
The Brickyard
The last brick sections of the main straight were finally covered in asphalt after the 1961 race.
Q 08Which World War I flying ace bought the Speedway in 1927?
Eddie Rickenbacker
He had raced in the 500 himself between 1912 and 1916, and later ran Eastern Air Lines.
Q 09Who bought the dilapidated Speedway in November 1945 and revived the race after the war?
Tony Hulman
The Terre Haute baking-powder heir became the voice of the starting command, and his family owned the track until 2019.
Q 10Which team owner bought the Speedway and the IndyCar Series in November 2019?
Roger Penske
His team already held the record for wins in the race, and he now delivers the starting command himself.
Q 11Which winner's request for a glass of buttermilk in 1933 started the Victory Lane tradition?
Louis Meyer
After his third win in 1936 he drank from a glass bottle instead, and that image is the one most winners have copied since.
Q 12What does the winner traditionally drink in Victory Lane?
Milk
It has been presented every year since the 1930s apart from a gap from 1947 to 1955.
Q 13What did Emerson Fittipaldi controversially drink first in Victory Lane in 1993?
Orange juice
He owned orange groves in Brazil and wanted to plug the citrus industry; he forfeited $5,000 and apologised to the American Dairy Association.
Q 21Which four-time winner spent his entire IndyCar career with Team Penske?
Rick Mears
He came back from crushing leg injuries in a 1984 crash to win twice more, then retired at 41 in 1992.
Q 22Al Unser's fourth win in 1987 came in a year-old March that had been pulled from where?
A hotel lobby display
Penske Racing grabbed the show car from a Sheraton in Reading, Pennsylvania, after Danny Ongais was hurt in practice.
Q 23Who is the youngest winner in the race's history, taking the 1952 race at 22?
Troy Ruttman
He later drove a Formula One Grand Prix in France in 1958, one of the first Americans to race in the World Championship outside Indianapolis.
Q 14Which song has been performed before the start of the race every year since 1946?
Back Home Again in Indiana
It is a 1917 Tin Pan Alley tune, not the official state song, and its chord changes underpin the bebop standard 'Donna Lee'.
Q 15Which television star performed the pre-race song nearly every year from 1972 to 2014?
Jim Nabors
He missed 2007 and 2012 through illness and announced in March 2014 that that year's race would be his last.
Q 16The pre-race release of thousands of balloons was halted in 2020 for what stated reason?
Environmental concerns
The release dated back to 1947 and had been timed to the song since about 1950.
Q 17Who in 1977 became the first woman to qualify for the race?
Janet Guthrie
That year the command was reworded to 'In company with the first lady ever to qualify at Indianapolis, gentlemen, start your engines.'
Q 18Which woman holds the best finish by a female driver, third in 2009, and is the only one to have led laps?
Danica Patrick
She led 19 laps as a rookie in 2005 while nursing fuel and finished fourth; her final race was the 2018 500, which ended in the turn-two wall.
Q 19Who became the first driver to win the race four times, with his 1977 victory?
A. J. Foyt
The Texan is also the only driver to have won the 500, the Daytona 500, Le Mans, Sebring and the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Q 20The record for most career pole positions at the 500 stands at how many?
6
The holder is a four-time winner whose most famous victory came with an outside pass of Michael Andretti in turn one in 1991.
Q 24Which four-time winner is nicknamed 'Spider-Man' for climbing the catch fence after victories?
Hélio Castroneves
He won as a rookie in 2001, went back-to-back in 2002, and won season five of Dancing with the Stars in between his third and fourth wins.
Q 25What record average speed made the 2021 race the fastest 500 ever run?
190.7 mph
The same race set a record for cars running at the finish, 30, and gave Meyer Shank Racing its first IndyCar win.
Q 26Who lost the 1992 race to Al Unser Jr. by 0.043 seconds after starting from last on the grid?
Scott Goodyear
Michael Andretti had led 160 of the first 189 laps before his fuel pump failed, and pole-sitter Guerrero crashed on the pace laps.
Q 27Who won the 2026 race by a record 0.0233 seconds, the closest finish in its history?
Felix Rosenqvist
The race also produced 70 lead changes, beating the previous record of 68 from 2013.
Q 28Rain cut the 1976 race, the shortest on record, to how many of the scheduled 200 laps?
102
Johnny Rutherford famously walked to Victory Lane under an umbrella, the last win for the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine.
Q 29The traditional field of 33 cars lines up three abreast in how many rows?
11
The field was capped at 33 in 1912, when the purse was raised to $50,000, and has stayed there.
Q 30What figure stands on top of the Borg-Warner Trophy?
A naked man waving a flag
The sterling-silver trophy carries a sculpted face of every winner since 1911 and stays at the Speedway museum; winners get an 18-inch 'Baby Borg' instead.