I do not usually take complete articles from news sources, but in this case I felt the need to so that you can get the full overture to this new offering at Indy 500 this year. My thanks to
USA Today.
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INDIANAPOLIS (Chris Jenkins -
USA Today) -- "There it is!"
KABOOM!
"Woooooooo!"
It's 5:30 a.m. on the Sunday before the Indianapolis 500, and a giant fireworks blast has just exploded overhead -- a longstanding track tradition announcing that Indianapolis Motor Speedway is open for business. And judging from the reaction of my neighbors in the small tent city that has sprouted in the infield, it's suddenly clear that "glamping" isn't for people who like to sleep in.
Indy may take a booze-induced snooze every once in a while. But Indy never sleeps.
Unlike many NASCAR tracks, which regularly open their infields to overnight campers, camping out inside IMS is a rarity; some drivers and racing team owners stay in fancy motorhomes on the infield, but fans who want to camp must do so in huge lots outside the track.
But this year, the speedway opened up to a limited number of fans who signed up for "glamping" -- glamorous camping, tents in a secure area with amenities. Yes, Indy's legendary "snake pit," home to an infield party scene that rivals the Kentucky Derby or Mardi Gras, has gone upscale.
For prices ranging from $650 to $1,100, with occupancy of up to four people, fans could stay at the track from Thursday afternoon to Monday morning. And if that sounds like a lot, you should check into the prices hotels charge on race weekends.
The crowd? Mostly bro-tastic guys tossing footballs and throwing down beers when I arrived on Saturday afternoon, but there were a few families and gray-haired folks sprinkled in. Should Indy glamping really catch on and expand in the future, it's easy to imagine the establishment of a separate family-friendly area.
High points:
-- No sitting in traffic on Sunday morning. This can't be overemphasized.
-- Hot showers! (Yes, really!) Semi-private, too. Huge plus, especially for my co-workers in the press box on Sunday.
-- Atmosphere. Folks were drinking, for sure, but it was mostly fun and friendly. Signs throughout the area advised everybody to "respect your fellow glampers." There actually was a curfew of sorts, as glampers were expected to keep the noise down after midnight. And they more or less did -- until 5:30, that is.
-- Amenities: The glamping area had a lounge-style common area with fancy fire pits and upscale couches. A large projection screen showed movies during the day (you couldn't really hear them over the techno music) and then showed the NBA playoffs game between the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat on Saturday night.
-- Setting. Really pretty, actually. Believe it or not, there's a few holes of the Brickyard Crossing golf course inside the Indy infield -- seriously, this track is huge -- and the glamping area was set up alongside one of the golf course's water hazards. A weekend at the lake!
-- Security. The area was bordered by a large, heavy-duty catch fence that kept it separate from the rest of the fans walking around the track on Saturday afternoon. That fence was built to catch flying debris and tires from racing crashes, so it certainly could handle a rogue Jason Aldean concert patron. You had to have a special wristband to enter the glamping area. This is not a trifling concern, given that a man was shot and killed in one of the lots adjacent to the speedway in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A few drawbacks:
-- Do you guys like loud techno music? Because I really, really don't, and it was thumping through speakers all afternoon Saturday. (Please keep in mind that your humble correspondent turns 40 in a week.) Even a passerby in a pickup truck headed to Saturday night's concert at the track yelled, "Turn that off!"
-- The bathroom facilities, as previously mentioned, were fancy. They ran out of water in the middle of the night, though.
-- Drinking water. Bring your own. There was a concession stand in the glamping area, so I went over to buy a bottle of water. "Are you sure?" the concession stand guy said, sheepishly. "It's five bucks."
-- Ice. Same deal. They had some at one point but it ran out.
-- It was chilly, but still humid, overnight, necessitating a trip to the car to get an extra blanket. This is really more of an indictment of the overall concept of camping, or even just being outside, than of the glamping experience.
So even with the early wakeup, was it worth it?
Absolutely.
Waking up that early inside the speedway means getting a rare first-hand look from inside the track at a gorgeous pink sunrise, with supply trucks already chugging throughout the speedway grounds and multiple helicopters buzzing overhead to indicate the huge day to come.
And you can bet the reporters in those helicopters were talking about all the traffic I wasn't sitting in.
