8 Indy 500 Traditions Every Hoosier Grew Up With

Win the Indy 500, and someone hands you a bottle of milk.

If you’re a Hoosier, that’s just how race day ends. Everyone else wonders why.

Here are the Indy 500 traditions every Hoosier grew up with, and how each one got started.

1. Carb Day Pit Stop Challenge

Carb Day is the last day of practice before the Indianapolis 500, and in 2026 it fell on May 22, two days ahead of the race.

If you are at the track that day, you can watch teams make last-minute adjustments to their cars.

Then the crews take over.

Carb Day’s Pit Stop Challenge has been part of the Indianapolis 500 event since it first occurred in 1977.

Jim McElreath beat Wally Dallenbach in that first final.

In 2026, 16 of the 33 drivers and their crews were set to go head-to-head, simulating a fuel hookup and changing all four tires.

If you are in the stands for the final round, you watch a best-of-three.

2. Snake Pit

In the Seventies and Eighties, Rolling Stone says, the Indianapolis 500 Snake Pit was one of the wildest infield parties in the world.

In 2012, the Snake Pit turned to electronic artists, aiming for a younger audience.

By the 100th running in 2016, the lineup included Skrillex and Martin Garrix.

If you walked in when the gates opened at 6 a.m., the party started soon after.

If you were in the infield that Sunday, you were part of a crowd organizers expected to reach 30,000.

3. Back Home Again in Indiana

“Back Home Again in Indiana” became a regular part of the pre-race ceremony in 1946, when singer James Melton performed it before the race.

The Speedway says the song’s history there goes back to 1919, when a trackside brass band played it.

Jim Nabors became the voice many fans link to the song.

He sang it 36 times.

If you grew up watching the race, you may have heard him sing it.

The 1925 winner, Peter DePaolo, sang it once.

Jim Cornelison has sung it every year since 2017.

If you sing along in the stands, you are singing a song that goes back to a brass band.

4. Balloon Release

The Indianapolis 500 balloon release was part of race day from 1947 until 2019.

Many people grew up with that sight before the race.

If you remember it, you remember a custom that ran for decades.

It last happened in 2019.

In April 2022, the Speedway announced that the usual pre-race release wouldn’t happen.

It had paused the release for now.

If you were at the track that May, you were due a second flyover in the pre-race show instead.

The balloon tent’s staff and space would go to team and series partner fan activations.

5. Pace Car Start

The Indianapolis 500's pace car start goes back to the first race in 1911.

Track founder Carl Fisher led the 40-car field away in a Stoddard-Dayton for one unscored lap.

That is believed to have been the first mass rolling start for any automobile race in the world.

If you have watched a field follow a pace car to the green flag, you have seen the kind of start that began with that lap.

If you tuned in for 2026, IndyCar had named a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X as the pace car, the 23rd time overall a Corvette had the job.

6. Milk in Victory Circle

Milk in Victory Circle goes back to 1936, when Louis Meyer drank buttermilk after winning his third Indianapolis 500.

A dairy industry executive saw the footage and asked that milk be made available to the winner, the Speedway says.

If you watch a winner sip the milk, you are watching a choice made before the race.

Drivers pick whole, skim or 2% milk in advance.

If you watched in 2026, you saw Felix Rosenqvist take a sip of milk, then pour the rest over his head.

His margin, 0.0233 seconds, is the closest in Indianapolis 500 history.

7. Kissing the Bricks

Indianapolis 500 winners have taken up kissing the bricks, a habit that debuted at the third running of NASCAR's Brickyard 400 in 1996.

Crew chief Todd Parrott reminded driver Dale Jarrett of a pre-race joke about kneeling to kiss the bricks, and the two did exactly that after Jarrett won.

Ricky Rudd followed their lead the next year after his Brickyard 400 win.

If you have seen an Indianapolis 500 winner kiss the bricks, the Speedway says the late Dan Wheldon is believed to have been the first to do it.

Next to the milk and the song, it is a newcomer.

If you wondered where the habit began, it traces to a NASCAR driver and his crew chief.

8. Faces on the Borg-Warner Trophy

Every Indianapolis 500 winner gets a face on the Borg-Warner Trophy.

Sculptor William Behrends has made them since Arie Luyendyk won in 1990, meeting each winner the morning after the race to study their face.

The trophy itself was first presented in 1936 with 24 sculpted faces of earlier winners.

Winners also get a 14-inch version called the Baby Borg, the Speedway says, a custom that began in 1989.

If you see the winner pose with the full trophy, you are looking at a name, year and average speed engraved for every winner.

Tom Carnegie's Track Record Call

Tom Carnegie was the Speedway's public address announcer from 1946 to 2006.

His best-known call announced a new track record, with every word drawn out.