Tag: Indy 500

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NAKED’S NOT NOVEL ANYMORE

Here in Indiana, Hoosiers are gearing up for another weekend of partying  during the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 500 mile  race.  Fifty years ago, it was the one place where getting drunk and naked in public wouldn’t get you arrested.  The excitement began on Carb Day, the Friday before the big event.  Even if you didn’t care for the races, many of your friends and co-workers came back with pictures of drunken parties where  men and women stripped  and streaked  with wild abandon.  However,  things have really toned down since Covid-19 changed everything. Last year, they scheduled a race without any fans at all.  This year,  they’ve canceled Carb Day, and only half as many tickets to the big race  will be sold.  But it doesn’t really matter, because naked’s not novel anymore.

 

Naked's Not Novel anymore. Partying at the Indy 500 used to be a titillating even.
Naked’s not novel anymore. Thanks to Netflix, the sight of naked strangers partying at the Indy 500 is not as exciting as it once was.

Netflix and other streaming services have watered down the novelty of seeing naked strangers.  Almost every other movie or TV series has at least one scene where someone isn’t wearing any clothes. Not only that,  sex education is provided in the form of video demonstrations of the act.  Consequently,  there’s so much sex and nudity on television that it’s not even titillating.  Remember when  ankles were considered so erotic that porches were built so that a man would not see a lady’s ankles while  ascending the stairs?  Nowadays, who would  get aroused at the sight of a woman’s ankles?

 Anyone who grew up in Indiana has probably attended at least one Indianapolis 500 race.  For most of us, it was about as exciting as watching paint dry.  The only thing to relieve the boredom of seeing cars drive around the track was a hefty supply of alcohol in the cooler under your seat.  Nevertheless,  diehard race fans  thrive on the  possibility of carnage when a driver hits the wall at a speed of 257 miles per hour.

As a result,  there’s still  a lot of hype surrounding the race.  The city throbs with excitement, and you see women in ball gowns entering hotels  at all hours of the day and night.  There will always be sponsors who host festive galas.  It’s probably the highlight of the social season in Indianapolis.  Still, you wonder what will happen to attendance now that naked’s not novel anymore.

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DRUNK AND NAKED AT INDY 500

Having grown up in the hometown of Indy 500 owner Tony Hulman, I can remember when race day was considered a classy event. The rotogravure section of the Terre Haute newspaper featured pictures of country club socialites in lovely sundresses and seersucker suits with smug smiles on their faces.  They were elite—friends or acquaintances of the famous Tony himself.  It was quite the status symbol to attend the race with a reserved seat in the stands , even though most women found it about as exciting as watching paint dry.  Let’s face it, staring at a racetrack while waiting for a race car to zoom by every so often– for three plus hours–isn’t that entertaining.  A lot of alcohol was needed to get drunk and naked at the Indy 500. 

Those days  of exclusivity are long gone.   Indy 500 is a weekend long party starting with Friday’s Carb Day Concert, where just about anything down and dirty is not only accepted but expected. People can bring their own coolers stuffed with all the alcoholic beverages they could ever consume.  Nakedness among drunken males and females in the crowds barely raises an eyebrow.  Peeing in public is normal behavior, as is passing out drunk under the stands.  So, if you’ve always longed to defy convention, roll in the mud to cool off from 90 degree heat, drink yourself into a stupor, this is your best chance. Just don’t dress up. 

 

This is not to say that rich people no longer attend the Indy 500. There are lots of celebrities and elegant parties thrown by the sponsors.  In fact, if you’re in town race day weekend , you’ll see glamorous women in lavish ball gowns entering hotels at any time of the day or night.   But it’s mostly a white trash bash.