Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials confirmed today that they plan to host a limited number of fans for the upcoming 104th Indianapolis 500, which will be held on August 23.
The plan is to limit attendance to 50 per cent capacity, but with the large venue capable of holding approximately 250,000 people in the grandstands alone, this still represents a significantly large crowd.
The seat assignments will be redistributed in order to provide spacing between groups of people while sitting in the stands. As fans enter the venue, they will be given face masks and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.
“We’re committed to running the Indy 500 on Sunday, August 23 and will welcome fans to the world’s greatest racing venue,” IMS President J. Douglas Boles said.
“We will be limiting attendance to approximately 50 per cent of venue capacity, and we are also finalizing a number of additional carefully considered health and safety measures. We’ll unveil the specific details of our comprehensive plan in the coming weeks.”
It is understood that the significantly-sized infield spectator area and entertainment space known as the Snake Pit will not be open for this year’s race.
IMS sent a message to current ticket holders informing them that they will need to contact the speedway within the next 10 days in order to clarify how many tickets they are still wanting to receive. Revised requests of more than 50 per cent of the original purchase will be evaluated after interest levels are gauged from all ticketholders.
Any part of an order that is not able to be fulfilled will count as credit towards a future IMS race of choice, including the 2021 Indy 500.
IndyCar’s next race will take place at IMS on July 4, utilizing the speedway’s road course layout. The series will share the race weekend with the NASCAR Cup Series for the first time, but spectators will not be allowed to this historic event due to ongoing local restrictions.
Other IndyCar races in July, namely the races at Road America and Iowa Speedway, will host fans, with other races on the 2020 calendar still undecided on attendance policies at this time.
